LinkedIn has made a lot of changes recently to expand from being a mere job site to a networking hub, including changes we’ve mentioned such as expansions into mobile, visual profiles, and their surprisingly useful “contacts” app. But one of the more interesting changes has been a growing focus on its Influencers publication, a blog consisting of content created by 250 select contributors.
Us digital marketers are well aware of the power behind content marketing, but it’s rare to see big name companies using it so well. I’d be surprised if Mark Zuckerberg’s posts have any influence on Facebook, or if Matt Cutt’s blog does anything significant for Google, but Influencers is helping LinkedIn’s business network in a bigger way than they might have expected.
The Power of Personalities
The key to LinkedIn’s content marketing success is the power of its personalities. The 250 select contributors include people as influential as Bill Gates, Jeffrey Immelt, and yes, President Obama. More strikingly, and possibly offering some business cred, none of these Influencers is being paid for their content. All of them are doing it just for the publicity.
LinkedIn has seen its users viewing 63% more pages on the site in the first quarter of 2013 than in the same quarter of 2012. The news products in general saw a growth of 800 percent after the introduction of Influencers, and the top posts quite regularly pulled in over 100,000 visits.
And most important to executive editor Daniel Roth, they have a long list of CEOs who want to be on the Influencers list.
The financial figures are nothing to shake a stick at either. In the first quarter of 2012, LinkedIn pulled an income of just $5 million. In 2013? $22.6 million. More than quadruple your income by opening up a content outlet you hardly need to pay for? Sign me up.
While content marketing was already on its way toward mainstream status, the fact that LinkedIn is now embracing it so successfully makes me wonder just how big this industry could get.