LinkedIn Targeting Content Creators?
They hope to lure SMBs into the premium company page service via AI-led content, tracking
Stagnating revenues make the biggest of big tech companies seek innovative means to bolster their coffers. Since artificial intelligence is the flavour of the season, it isn’t surprising that LinkedIn is attempting to get small and medium businesses (SMBs) to subscribe to their premium company page subscriptions using AI as the hook.
Published reports suggest that the Microsoft-owned social network for business professionals is testing this new service, which if and when it sees the light of the day, aims to create an easy solution for SMBs to create and manage their company page. AI would write content and possibly power new tools that track user metrics.
On the right track, but will SMBs bite?
SMBs usually find it tough to create and manage their social handles and digital marketing for a variety of reasons, starting with costs and ending with resource availability. Digital agencies don’t come cheap and SMBs (at least in India) find themselves unable to cough up the money to hire them. And when they decide to manage the effort internally, the quality of resources they get are leftovers from what the big guns sweep away.
Which means that LinkedIn is definitely on the right track insofar as the target for revenue growth goes. However, it remains to be seen whether they’re on the “write” track when it comes to content, especially since search engines (read Google) have already shown the red flag to AI-generated content and how it plans to deal with it in the future.
What exactly is the new offer from LinkedIn
On the ground, LinkedIn began posting information about the new premium company page though it was left to TechCrunch to seek confirmation. Here is what a statement from the company said: “We’re always exploring new ways to enhance our customers’ experience and assist them in achieving their business goals. Currently, we’re testing a new offering with small-to-medium business customers, called Premium Company Page, which is designed to help them attract customers, build credibility, and stand out to their audience. We look forward to sharing more soon.”
The published report says the premium company page will have dashboards delivering data on recent visitors who can then be invited to follow the page. Admins would also be able to create call to action buttons with contact details displayed prominently and also push up previous testimonials as a means of marketing the brand.
There’s little that’s known about how AI-led writing would function, but it appears clear that LinkedIn would dip into the OpenAI cesspool in order to pull something out. It remains to be seen whether such content is really click-worthy or akin to the billions of junk pages that are currently flooding the internet, thanks to the AI revolution.
Mind you, this is just another test only
Of course, companies keep testing new ideas, mostly under the radar. The last one we heard about related to creating a gaming space within LinkedIn to enhance user engagement. Within a week, we saw another report about how the social networking platform was testing out the short video format as a counter to Instagram Reels.
The company has already created virtual organizations on the platforms based on usage and pricing such as premium career, premium business, sales navigator and recruiter tiers besides LinkedIn Learning that targets on-the-job professional development. Quite clearly, the company sees better revenue growth via premium subscriptions. What’s more, the user base grew by 25% annually to generate $1.7 billion in 2023. Of course, it represented a small percentage of its total $15 billion revenues where $7 Bn came from recruitment service.
There are some larger issues to be dealt with
Of course, there are other questions that emerge from this experiment. For starters, a report published by TechCrunch says LinkedIn could charge $99 per month for the new service. While this would still be cheaper than what marketing agencies charge, the outcomes of AI-led content could potentially create egg-on-face scenarios for SMB brands.
Over the years, the company has faced trolls over how the entire platform is driven by self-promotion while it quietly gathers massive amounts of data about individuals who do such show-boating. So, the challenge for LinkedIn would be how to curtail disinformation or even misinformation (in case of job hunts) and make LinkedIn a safer space for both employers and employees.
