LinkedIn in recent years has acquired companies to try to turn itself into an Ed-Tech company as well as provide some semblance of News, including local News. It’s also tried to get into course building, live-video and a host of other experiments like Polls, which I enjoy.
LinkedIn already has a team of over 100 global journalists creating and curating business news for users on the professional social network, which now has over 810 million members. I personally mostly see the same 500 to 5,000 people on LinkedIn, so I don’t really understand their metrics.
Adding podcasts to LinkedIn could be a way for the company to get users to spend more time on the platform, and getting exclusive shows is a strategy that seems to be working well for other companies including Spotify.
While Salesforce is creating an entire live-streaming Netflix for Business, LinkedIn well, it tries these small invite-only pilots. I was in the LinkedIn Newsletter pilot, and I got criticized by their product people for having more than one. Substack’s 10 Newsletter max is not actually enough for me, but who’s counting.
LinkedIn thinks its editorial based Podcasts will be enough to lure ordinary professionals into wanting to make our own podcasts on their platform. Unfortunately LinkedIn is usually several years too late into a feature or product and rarely invests much in it.
LinkedIn Missed the Clubhouse Opportunity
LinkedIn was supposed to have gotten into audio communities, but I never saw that product go live. I have myself written over 1,300 articles (different from the FB like posts they now push), for free without getting anything from LinkedIn but a few business leads as a freelance content provider.
The professional social network previously launched its global Creator Program (only available in the U.S.) last year, which provides content creators access to exclusive tools such as live videos and newsletters. If you’re wondering what killer feature LinkedIn could offer to podcast creators, Axios is reporting that hosts will be able to build a relationship with their audience with “newsletters, live events and other tools directly on their profiles.”
Back when I won a bunch of Top LinkedIn (Edit: okay I had forgotten their name, Top LinkedIn Voice awards) I thought my ability to contribute to LinkedIn before the Creator Economy became a big deal would really work out.
I have unfortunately seen LinkedIn experiment quite a bit with features that fail and which never come back. I have seen its aging white male user base retire, and a bunch of spunky Millennial Indians take their place. I saw Microsoft shut down the entire LinkedIn China division, which by the way means it no longer has over 800 million global users.
So by the time the clubhouse hype came and faded, LinkedIn never did release its audio feature that I thought would be more like audio communities. So no, instead it’s Podcasting LinkedIn seems to be after?
From News to Podcasting
So LinkedIn will start with a very small selection of original podcasts created by LinkedIn’s news team. This is the same team of around 100 journalists (they are really editors) who are a revolving door and who may not be especially skilled at podcasting.
“The new podcast network will include a slate of 12 shows called “LinkedIn Presents,” which feature exclusive programming from career influencers and industry executives like Morra Aarons-Mele, Rufus Griscom, Mita Mallick and Dee C. Marshall,” the report says.
I do not consumer podcasts from Spotify or other providers, though I myself sometimes listen to YouTubes in the background. Increasing I turn to YouTube for live-streaming as well. The Creator Economy implies a way of monetizing people to create content that others actually want to consume, like is occurring with TikTok or Snap.
LinkedIn has had the same people in charge of its editorial content approach for a long-time. Not only didn’t they anticipate Ed-tech, video, live-video or the Creator Economy, their Newsletter platform doesn’t even compete with Substack and others since it doesn’t offer a way for business professionals to monetize their rather specialized knowledge.
What could possibly be the incentive of starting a podcast with them? As Substack is including native Podcasting and native Video to its platform, I have to wonder.
Many influencers on LinkedIn consist of celebrities and business tycoons that LinkedIn has given recommended follows to. So their entire ecosystem of creators is not a meritocracy. Furthermore their Facebook like posts are easily exploited through sentiment and dopamine-feedback triggers that illicit comments which hack the algorithms and are worth more than simple “likes”. LinkedIn’s own conception of the Creator Economy is itself pretentious and outdated.
LinkedIn is supposed to be that platform that talks about serious things and industry stuff that can be helpful to our professional lives and work. However its Facebook style posts have degenerated into who can write the more absurd post that goes viral in 2022. On most days I’m a bit embarrassed to sign-in on there and write real articles that I research.
LinkedIn could have been really inspirational and a provider of top-notch mindshare in the Creator Economy. So why have Lynda and its approach to News failed so badly? I think LinkedIn was already so profitable, even before they figured out B2B Ads, that they didn’t have to really innovate. The pyramid scheme of getting more people to their network and gaining subscriptions for their Sales Navigator already made them feel like winners.
LinkedIn Content Needs New Leadership
From a product standpoint, it’s been really poor execution all around. They seem to care about user impressions, views and old-school sales metrics rather than great user-experiences or creating a product that will be viable for the next generation of young professionals.
So unfortunately their Podcasting pilot is doomed for failure. Just as we have seen with their approach to live-video, videos, their feed, very generic approaches to Ads, their feed and a very low quality Newsletters where there is no incentive to create quality, op-eds or long-form content. Yes their feed is that bad!
It’s unfortunate that such a big successful company like LinkedIn couldn’t compete with Twitter spaces, Clubhouse, Facebook live audio rooms and Spotify Greenroom when it had the chance, as it’s all a question of timing.
These days competition for Podcasting is very tough. My Newsletter on LinkedIn is actually declining so fast in followers my only conclusion is that LinkedIn is cleaning up fake accounts, some of whom were followers of my work. That’s not a good signal for a healthy ecosystem.
While I have enjoyed my time on LinkedIn down the years, I have become increasingly frustrated with its inability to adapt meaningfully to the times or to the Creator Economy itself. Having editorial based podcasts related to the News doesn’t seem like a very genuine attempt at boosting app retention or developing an authentic Creator Economy.
The company launched a global creator program last year.
Details: The new podcast network will include a slate of 12 shows called "LinkedIn Presents," which feature exclusive programming from career influencers and industry executives like Morra Aarons-Mele, Rufus Griscom, Mita Mallick and Dee C. Marshall.
LinkedIn says podcast hosts will be able to further connect with audiences on LinkedIn through newsletters, live events and other tools directly on their profiles.
Is that all you got LinkedIn?
Microsoft is Failing in the Creator Economy
Back in 2021 LinkedIn made a $25 million Creator Economy debut. LinkedIn said that its Creator Accelerator Program will give accepted participants a $15,000 grant to “help them share content, spark conversations and build communities,” Andrei Santalo, LinkedIn’s global head of community, wrote in a post announcing the program. I wonder what Andre Santolo would think if he read this article on Substack?
The Creator Economy works if you have a good product and ecosystem like Roblox or Snap, it does not work if you are just trying to boost your subscriptions, app-metrics or Sales Navigator sales. It takes an actual community that you respect and value. I personally have made more money on Quora’s partner program or Medium’s partner program than I have writing blogs on LinkedIn during the course of the last seven years. Heck, I have made more money from tips and donations on substack in my first two months as well.
Microsoft needs to sit down with LinkedIn and try to understand what the Creator Economy in the Metaverse will be. Microsoft itself tried to clone Amazon’s Twitch and failed. So it went out and bought Activision Blizzard for nearly $69 billion. Meanwhile it had to shut down Mixer, the Twitch clone even after spending millions on a few gamer streamers alone.
Getting LinkedIn editors to do podcasts is not the solution to the Creator Economy for professionals.
Thankfully Co-founder Reid Hoffman will co-host a show about personal entrepreneurship. That sounds lovely. $25 million and Reid.
LinkedIn joins a number of other social platforms with programs focused on developing their respective creator communities. In July, Facebook and Instagram said they would pay out $1 billion in creator incentives through 2022 to reward users for posting to their platforms. YouTube has a $100 million fund for creators using Shorts through 2022, while TikTok has a $1 billion fund for U.S. creators that will be paid out over three years.
Snap recently improved how it compensates Creators on its Spotlight feature. Snapchat will introduce revenue-sharing on Ads in the Stories’ of its creators. Snap announced that it plans to introduce mid-roll advertisements during Snapchat stories for Snap Stars (which is what the platform calls its biggest creators, who must apply for the Snap Star distinction).