- LinkedIn entered the influencer marketing market last week by allowing advertisers to promote posts by independent creators.
- Instagram and TikTok have successfully turned popular creators into brand ambassadors.
- With revenue growth at less than 10% from 2022 onwards, LinkedIn needs a boost.
Influencer marketing is big business on TikTok and Instagram, where popular creators can earn a lot of money by helping promote their brands. Now, LinkedIn wants to get in on the game.
As of last week, LinkedIn allowed advertisers to pay to amplify posts from users, including those with significant followings. The company's product, called Thought Leader Advertising, was released in limited quantities last year.
With LinkedIn's revenue growth stuck in single digits from 2022 onwards, the Microsoft-owned business is looking for inspiration. The company is looking to its membership count, which topped 1 billion in November, to fuel expansion.
Influencer marketing has traditionally been primarily a consumer app phenomenon, where shenanigans and gimmicks can turn internet-savvy creators into celebrities with millions of followers. eMarketer estimates that nearly two-thirds of U.S. social media marketing dollars this year will go to Instagram's parent company Meta and TikTok's Chinese owner ByteDance, and by 2026, Instagram and TikTok's combined share will reach 2. It is expected to increase by a percentage point.
LinkedIn, which was founded a year before Facebook, will capture just 4% of the market (equivalent to $4.5 billion in marketing revenue), and its share will remain flat over the next two years, according to eMarketer.
“It takes a long time for ads and ad formats to really take hold,” Max Willens, senior analyst at eMarketer, said of LinkedIn's recent efforts.
LinkedIn introduced thought leader ads last year, but usage was limited. Brands could only amplify posts from their own employees. For example, Mastercard promoted posts by some Singaporean leaders, some of which he received over 500 notifications on the first day. LinkedIn is using his Thought Leaders ad itself on some posts for his operations director, Dan Shapero, but not yet for his CEO, Ryan Roslansky.
By publishing thought leader ads, LinkedIn allows anyone to promote a post as long as the author has given permission. Social media marketer Brendan Gahan is very bullish on this format and is putting a lot of effort into helping businesses use his leader ads of sorts.
“In an era where brand safety is a big issue, LinkedIn has an advantage, especially in contrast to Twitter,” said Gahan, who last year launched an agency called Creator Authority, now known as X. He said this while referring to the social media platforms that are being used.
X lost several brand safety leaders last year. Elon MuskThe platform, owned by , had seen a spike in hate speech on its apps.
LinkedIn has long been an effective site for advertisers because its members list their employment details, making it easier for brands to target ads to relevant users. Advertising skews toward business-centric products like software and computer infrastructure, but automakers, universities, and banks also use the network to reach potential customers.
“If you want to sell a high-end B2B product and you know your buying group is people like CFOs, finance departments, HR departments, you can literally put your ads in front of specific people on LinkedIn. Yes, you can. First-party data is very powerful,” Rozlansky said at a conference in late 2022.
Thought Leader's ads came about after an employee saw a marketing client promoting screenshots of other users' content. Abhishek Shrivastava, LinkedIn's vice president of product management, said that since the service launched last fall, the ads have generated higher engagement than regular ads with images.
“Humanizing brands is extremely important for B2B, but it's underutilized in that space,” Shrivastava said, adding that customers are very excited about this.
It may not be cheap. It generally costs more to get 1,000 ad impressions on his LinkedIn than on Instagram or TikTok. This is partly because the company charges advertisers higher fees to reach its more affluent user base. Shrivastava said brands will focus on the sales and business leads they receive from advertising, rather than comparing costs with other sites.
ClickUp, a project management software startup, has been paying to promote LinkedIn posts by its executives for several months. Chris Cunningham, the company's head of social marketing, said traditional advertising on LinkedIn can be repetitive and mundane, and he wonders what kind of impact promoted posts would have if influencers were involved. He said he wanted to know whether he would be able to perform well.
Cunningham said other social networks have had success with ClickUp promoting creator posts over standard advertising. Plus, he said, “It's very easy.”
Betsy Hindman, a Tennessee marketer who helps companies make the most of their LinkedIn presence, says brand ambassadors with an audience can have more impact than regular advertising. He said there is.
“This is part of a complete end-to-end strategy that involves warming people up in the process, no matter what type of content they respond to,” she said.
Building a roster of creators is likely to take time. Some influencers are represented by agencies, and LinkedIn's Campaign Manager advertising system doesn't have an automated process to connect agencies with buyers.
“That is the direction we are exploring,” Shrivastava said.
More data will be available to advertisers soon. Starting in the next few weeks, LinkedIn members will be able to search the ad collection for any company and see ads from thought leaders, a spokesperson said. This could help advertisers determine what is most effective.
One potential boon for LinkedIn hinges on the fate of TikTok. The app could be banned in the U.S. after the House of Representatives passed a bill last month that would require ByteDance to sell within six months.After that, the momentum slowed, but Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnellR-Ky., urged lawmakers to take action on the issue earlier this week.
eMarketer's Willens said government agencies are monitoring the issue closely, but “no one feels there is an immediate threat.”
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