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Are LinkedIn Influencers Taking Over? An IA Chat
21 Plays2 months ago
In this IA Chat episode of Water Cooler Wisdom, Jake surprises Rachael with a lively conversation about the rise of LinkedIn influencers. Once a hub for job hunting and networking, LinkedIn has evolved into a content-driven platform. But is this shift for better or worse?
Jake dives into the good, the bad, and the downright quirky aspects of LinkedIn’s transformation—from valuable insights shared by industry experts to questionable clickbait posts. Together, Jake and Rachael explore how personal branding, authenticity, and algorithmic pressures are reshaping the way we interact on the platform.
Tune in to hear their candid thoughts and some lighthearted takes on everything from “hustle culture” to the bizarre posts that make you go, “What even is this?” It’s an honest, fun, and relatable chat about navigating the new LinkedIn landscape.
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Transcript
Introduction to New Podcast Formats
00:00:11
Speaker
Welcome to another episode of water cooler wisdom. I am Jake Blocker and I'm Rachel grail. So great to see you, Rachel. Let's be back. yeah Happy to be here. It's always fun. I always get energized when I do these with you, Jake. I know, I know. ah So we're continuing to roll out some new formats and now we're ready for the format number
LinkedIn's Influencer Culture: Mirror of Instagram?
00:00:36
Speaker
two. Number two of four, I'll at least give that away. ah There are four new formats, maybe a fifth fifth whenever we have guests. But the second one,
00:00:46
Speaker
Pretty exciting one, or at least for me, exciting. I like to nerd out on just random useless knowledge or sometimes useful knowledge. but ah and just like Our listeners will be the judge of that. Yeah, we'll see. um But just kind of an interesting, you know, article or reading or something that's going on in the news, something like that. And so we want to kind of expand on that. And so for this format, one of us will come prepared with, you know, a topic, an article as something they discovered, whatever it might be.
00:01:22
Speaker
ah Maybe do a little digging into it and share with the other guests and all of you, of course. And so we'll have a discussion about it. But I have no idea what Jake is bringing, which is so fun. I love surprises. Exactly, exactly. So I'm doing this the first time. I'm volunteering as tribute for this first one. And ah and then Rachel will, of course, do the next one and so on and so forth. So are you ready to dive into this?
00:01:52
Speaker
I think so. Yeah, let's go.
Evolution of LinkedIn: From Jobs to Content
00:01:55
Speaker
Alright, so this topic that is something that's kind of been on my mind for a little bit. I've talked about it with people here and there. It's around the ah the influencer impact on LinkedIn, how ah LinkedIn has become a spot for like the Instagram influencer, but now has taken over LinkedIn. and There's so many pieces to that. I don't think I'll dive into everything today, but I at least want to touch on just some of the stuff I notice and of course, get your thoughts on this, Rachel.
00:02:31
Speaker
Yes, but it's, you know, there, there's good and bad from what I've been digging into this. There's some great stuff that has come out of this, but also some, maybe even you could go so far as to say harmful, but also like, uh, what even the hell type of things that are going on on LinkedIn. So yeah,
Influencer Content and Algorithmic Echo Chambers
00:02:51
Speaker
I'm going to, I'm going to dive into that topic and I'll introduce some things and give some of my viewpoints, uh, the good, the bad ugly. And yeah, feel free to chime in at any time.
00:03:01
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you know me, what I love about this this format is that it kind of gives people into a window into the conversations that we have on the regular. It's like yeah we bring topics to each other and the thing that strikes me right away is that when I'm on LinkedIn, I try to have the framing always of like, you know, I always appreciate seeing people out striving, doing their thing, ah whatever version that looks like. And some of them align more with what feels like, oh, yeah, this feels values aligned and some align less. And so I just want to
00:03:40
Speaker
I'm not sure what you're going to say or how you're going to bring it. But the first thing that comes to mind for me is that you listener out there might be going, oh, LinkedIn, and we all have our opinions and experiences. And so I think it'll be interesting to have this conversation and think about what value can we derive from noticing what what's happening out there in the world.
00:04:01
Speaker
Yeah, but exactly.
Shift in Company Focus: Creators over Pages
00:04:02
Speaker
So I'll dive in. So I'm going to start with a little back in my day. and So back in my day, early LinkedIn days, it was, as you may remember, it was much more about, you know, job search, job hunt, seeing what's happening it to people, former current coworkers, whatever, what have you.
00:04:21
Speaker
What are they doing? Some job updates? Yeah, that that seemed to be kind of the what LinkedIn was. and From the LinkedIn side, I'm sure they probably weren't making a ton of revenue off of that, and hence where we are now. and so Flash forward to now, where it is much more content driven, again, for good and bad reasons.
00:04:42
Speaker
So whenever you if you open up your LinkedIn feed right now, you're probably going to see just a whole bunch of quote-unquote influencers that are filling up your feed. The LinkedIn algorithm is pushing things to you based off of maybe some people you follow or you actually want to know about and then a whole lot more that are just suggested and of course ads in between them. And it's
Personal Branding on LinkedIn: Authenticity vs. Performance
00:05:04
Speaker
a whole lot less of companies. So for example, company updates are not really there anymore. So I, being a marketing person, we have to shift our strategy so marketers out there will understand that
00:05:17
Speaker
with With LinkedIn switching to this you know individual content creator driven format, it's no longer on a company page to put out great content, otherwise still try to. It's on individuals within a company. So now you have to get your CEO or your C-suite to be influencers, which good luck with that. And everybody's thinking about what's my personal brand? Exactly. and From a business perspective, and how do I align that with and kind of there's this whole human component of it. I feel like this might align somewhat with the the way in which we're looking at, I think it's kind of beautiful in some ways where people are bringing their whole selves to work. We're kind of more interested in the whole person in a business context than maybe we were before. There was maybe more of that like separation or distinction. And yet,
00:06:12
Speaker
And yeah, not always. Yeah. yeah i met you Yeah. So we've all we've seen out there. kind of I'll go towards the bad side of this of, you know, if you any Redditors out there, if you've seen the subreddit LinkedIn lunatics, if you haven't, it's great. People post the craziness that the influencers out there posting on LinkedIn.
00:06:35
Speaker
There's a one of like, I proposed to my fiance, and here's what it taught me about B2B marketing. Yes, exactly. So it's this weird, yeah, this weird clickbait stuff that's that people are putting out there. And it's those weird ones, but also there's kind of the flip side of it of like 10 things successful people do, which surface level, cool, but the what the content actually is like, drink water, exercise. Like, yeah, duh. This is not changing my life. And so these are the things that are filling up feeds. And then what tends to happen because of how LinkedIn does their algorithm is if you look at the comments on there, it's just people being like, this is amazing. This is the best thing ever. Love it.
Pressure to Conform: Content Trends and Dynamics
00:07:18
Speaker
Great. Thanks for sharing. And it's these inorganic things that people are commenting just because
00:07:25
Speaker
based off the algorithm, if they're commenting, their stuff is amplified. So you get this echo chamber effect that's happening where you have this kind of useless or weird content that you don't necessarily want. That's getting pushed to you just because people are feeding into the LinkedIn algorithm.
00:07:44
Speaker
Right, and I think those people, everybody's out here trying to do their best. And I know from talking to people um who are in my space of leadership development and coaching that the the algorithm giveth and the algorithm taketh away. And there's this pressure to do that three tips to optimize your thing, like to do the SEO kind of,
00:08:12
Speaker
push and they think, do I have to do this in order to be successful? And many people feel that this is the way this is the proven way that we're doing it now. And so
The Value of LinkedIn for Professional Growth
00:08:23
Speaker
they got to kind of hold their nose and and generate that type of content. So I think it's a it's such an interesting question. I mean, what do you imagine If you could wave a magic wand, Jake, and make LinkedIn the utopia of business information or networking, what would that look like? I've been thinking about that with, when I was writing this out. And honestly, I don't know. Like I don't know what the answer to this is because, you know, for me, there are some people on LinkedIn I follow and I get a ton of value out of. And there's like a couple of people specifically who are putting out content that's in my marketing world.
00:09:04
Speaker
And it's stuff that, you know, I'm not an expert in this. I also, you know, we're a teeny tiny team of two people who have to do a million different things. So if I can follow some of these experts out there who know more about these like niche things within marketing that I don't know about but need to.
00:09:20
Speaker
I can gain a lot of value. I screenshot things, I pull things, I've attended webinars based off of some of these people. So people who are sharing what they've learned on the railroad. Yes, like true value of like this is something that was interesting to me, and or that I i think that you know clients have said this has been valuable, so I want to share this with you. And that stuff I like, I appreciate. And you know it's people not afraid to give away their IP. Here it is. I just want to be of value to you. And if you happen to also you know want to work with me and be a client,
00:10:01
Speaker
Awesome. Otherwise, here's some stuff. I hope I just want to better your marketing. um Anyway, that's for me. I like that side of it. I think that side is great. It's the what we what what we talked about earlier, the you know lessons from proposing to my girlfriend. It's these types of things or the You know, the bro influencer or the, there's also the side of it that, uh, the, what is it? The hustle, um, the grinds like really promoting the grinds of, you know, you need to be working.
00:10:36
Speaker
60, 70, 80 hours a week, and that's the only way to be successful. There's that really dangerous, harmful side of that, the work to lit or live to work type of mentality that could get pushed out. And people grab onto that like, oh, I guess I need to need to stop complaining about working extremely hard for my 40 hours and going home and taking a nap. i I feel terrible about that. I need to be doing some side hustle, and that's not that's not realistic for everyone.
00:11:04
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. You know, it strikes me that LinkedIn, as as is the case with with any of these social networking apps, are a microcosm of of the internet, right? So whatever it is that you interact with and you are interested in, there's going to be some version um that maybe aligns more with you or or less. It kind of goes goes to what I was talking to. I love your piece about looking for what for what really gives you value. But what gives you value is going to be different than what gives someone else value. Like someone else is at a different stage of experience or has a different point of departure. And so who are we to know what's going to be valuable to someone else?
LinkedIn's Dual Role: Networking and Business Challenges
00:11:53
Speaker
But I think what I'm hearing and what I experience is just the flood of
00:12:00
Speaker
uniformity or the dilution of value because there's the algorithm rewards consistent posting yeah because that's what drives the business model. I don't knock LinkedIn that much for that. and There should be something there, but that like there's only so much you can do to control. You can't look over every single post that someone is putting out and make sure, is this a quality? Do I need to check in with this expert over here and make sure this is actually a quality? Okay, now this passes all the checks and can go live on LinkedIn. Yeah, and who's the arbiter of quality? Exactly, exactly. That's a bigger issue and worldwide. but
00:12:43
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's a weird LinkedIn all around like there's even there's more to it of some issues I'm seeing with the LinkedIn side and the you know, they're a business they need to make money. I get it. I'm on board with you know, we live in a society you have to make a profit. um You know, there are other markers out there who experienced the advertising side of it, they understand, you know, the the workings of that where If you are a B2B business, LinkedIn is the best platform to target your audience. um You can get really niche with who you're going after in the B2B audience, but it's very expensive. And they also try to push to their LinkedIn network, which is like external third party advertising. And they try to push that and like, that's how you're going to get all the views and all the clicks and everything. it's you're They're not putting it in places that your audience is going to be or maybe they are.
00:13:38
Speaker
It's just like, I don't want to deal with that. And then there's the job postings, which was, I feel like the kind of original intent of LinkedIn was around the job networking, all of that. And if you go to a job board, if you go to a LinkedIn job board right now, you will see like probably the first 20 pages of job postings are promoted. It's not like you, it's a pay to play or pay to essentially.
00:14:02
Speaker
And all of them have like a thousand applicants each. And so it's like, ah yeah it's just I feel like it's kind of a sour deal for both sides. Again, I don't know the solution to this. There's a lot of things that go into this. It's like back in the day, people would pay to put their job posting in the classifieds. I'm dating myself. I do remember that. And I mean, obviously things were different because the audience was
Aligning LinkedIn Use with Personal Values
00:14:26
Speaker
smaller, more localized. It's maybe yeah apples to apricots on this one, but But i I can see, yeah, I see the point of it and it's such an interesting question of what do we do when these things run away from us? And I think we're seeing that in so many different ways. I mean, this is kind of a strange analogy, but like,
00:14:47
Speaker
Peak subscription like anything that you want to get now you have to subscribe to it We need to drink this green powder stuff, but I can't just buy it. I have to have a subscription and im like what can't i do that So it's just it's like the um the machine comes for us all so I wonder I think for me I do think about how do I interact with this platform in a way that feels values aligned um in a way that feels like I'm
00:15:19
Speaker
representing myself and the people that I collaborate with well. And you know you're you're outlining all these different use cases, which I think are really interesting to consider. And I'll be honest, I don't interact with it to that degree. And I think a lot of people are like me. um you know There are some key business roles that their lives are on LinkedIn.
00:15:44
Speaker
And many of us out there are just kind of we're touching in, we're looking for some value, maybe we want to share a little something every now and again. And the algorithm might not favor us, but I do still think that it's an important opportunity to connect and to have almost
Authentic Engagement and Strategic Content Choices
00:16:01
Speaker
like a memory of the people that we've met in our business encounters. Yeah.
00:16:06
Speaker
Yeah, I like that point. I feel like you know if you look to if you scroll your LinkedIn feed, more than likely all the posts you're seeing are from quote unquote influencers and all the comments on them are from quote unquote influencers. like us the you i got I don't think I interact with next to anything, which probably my bad as a marker, but I i think that's but that's the, i don't tell anyone. I think that is the casual, that's the average user of LinkedIn is just the scroll in the feed, looking at it. no So yeah, I guess my my little final thoughts there is, are that, you know, if you are looking to be LinkedIn influencer, which, hey, do you, I'm i'm not knocking it. Can we call him a LinkedIn influencer?
00:16:54
Speaker
that's that's that Yes, that's accurate. I'm just more upset that I didn't think of it first. um Yes, I think going back to what you said earlier, it is, you know your brand, no know your personal brand, at which side note, I do love that that is something that's picking up seams. I think every every professional should have should know their personal brand but the maybe that's another segment for another time anyway aside the know your brand know your audience know the people you want to reach is this like you know future employers is this
00:17:27
Speaker
audience, people, future clients, future people you want to work with, whatever that might be. Think of them. Think of what they want to see. Think of what they already know and what is going to be of value to them and put out content they actually want to see, not what you think they want to see and or just something you might find interesting or you think is just going to get a ton of clicks. Don't click betas. Give us something good.
00:17:52
Speaker
not looking for the junk food of media content. No, no, I want nourishment. I like that nutrient dense content. Yeah, but that might not be everybody's brand. It's not it obviously isn't. Yeah, that obviously isn't. And again, it's sort of like live in that live. I my whole perspective is generally like make whatever choices you want to make. I used to teach a course on personal brand, and I always would say there's no prescription for this. like There's no one saying you have to do this or you have to do that. Some people make a whole personal brand about like using expletives and being really edgy or whatever it is. That's not right for everybody, but it's just about, I think for me, making well-considered choices.
00:18:41
Speaker
rather than going along with what you think you ought to do because I know a lot of people that it pains them to get on LinkedIn and they force themselves to do it because they're dutiful because everybody's just trying to make their way in the world.
00:18:56
Speaker
And I don't hold the answers to everybody's success, but I do think that there are there are some folks out there. I think there's a big population out there that really value authenticity and and value conscientious presentation. So yeah, I agree.
Conclusion and Future Episodes
00:19:16
Speaker
Well, ah this was our first one, first little share. ah Yeah, we'll live to post another day. I've been putting up posting actually, I'm supposed to. me too. I know I'm supposed to do it. It's all good. It's all good.
00:19:33
Speaker
Yeah. Well, if you're out there, how was this for you? Do you feel, do you feel educated a little bit or at least ah heard on? Well, I'm glad that we talked about it. I'm glad that we talked about it because I think it's, um, it's almost like a little bit taboo in a way. When you said, I was like, Oh, careful. We don't want it. Like if you're a LinkedIn influencer, you know, please call us, have a conversation. We want to hear from your perspective. podcast But I'm glad that we talked about it. It does make me think, think it through. And again,
00:20:03
Speaker
You know, Jake and my opinion are not, we're not the arbiters of truth or quality necessarily, but ah it is fun to mull this over with you. Yeah, I dig it. Well, Rachel, this has been great. And yeah, yeah we can't wait to see what I bring you said as a surprise next time. Looking forward to it. Me too. All right. See you soon, Jake.
00:20:29
Speaker
Thanks for listening to Water Cooler Wisdom. This podcast is brought to you by Interaction Associates, a leading professional development and leadership training organization whose mission is to help people work better together. If you'd like to learn more, visit interactionassociates dot.com. If you have questions, comments, or are interested in collaborating with this podcast, you can email us at watercoolerwisdom at interactionassociates dot.com.