Attorney Paul Barico offered support shortly after he posted a lawsuit on LinkedIn for cancer charities in March 2020.
During their discussion, the COO said it was a shame that the Verrico team at law firm Evershed Sutherlands was not active in Hong Kong. “The link was created and we’re working on the biggest safety consultant project our team has ever done,” recalls Verrico. “Yin and yang, almost.”
The results were made possible by Verrico’s large, engaged network on LinkedIn. He has over 9,000 followers.
Verrico is one of the platform’s super users. Experts who have accumulated networks can reach tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people who use them to build brands.
For these users, LinkedIn is no longer just a recruitment site, but a space for publishing, self-promotion, sharing expertise and looking for business opportunities, including content related to their work. Many people spend the equivalent of part-time work to maintain their pages. Some are recruiting advisors to shape their LinkedIn strategy.
This change reflects the linked purpose of reaching deeper into people’s professional lives and leveraging the common characteristics of many jobs today, the h-fuss and self-promotion. According to the platform, 85% of FTSE 100 CEOs have been on LinkedIn since 12% in 2023.
“LinkedIn is no longer a job search platform, it’s a business networking platform,” says Jasmin Alić. He has over 300,000 followers, coaching people in “how to build a brand” through one-on-one sessions, and of course linking his LinkedIn page. “Five or ten years ago, we received your resume. Today we saw your content. Can you book a call? We were able to come to you looking for an opportunity.”
Alich is one of the thriving industries of influencers, consultants and advisors. It’s not for the faint of heart. With a distinctively lively post, Alich warns users that “crazy time and effort” takes time to build a presence. His advice includes making 50 comments per day on other users’ posts. He targets peers and bigger influencers, posts several times a week, and publishes “only if you have something to say.”
LinkedIn Editor-in-Chief and Vice-President Dan Roth is a bit skeptical of such a how-to guide. He advises users to “build trust and reputation by being authentic and honest,” and reflects the language of many experts on how to build a follow.
However, for 14 years he was at work. He helped introduce many features to build a brand. These include “author mode” that helps you with content, tweaking algorithms that prioritize user feed relevance and expertise, and more tools for video publishing.
“We’ve seen people increasingly use LinkedIn over the past few years as a way of using LinkedIn. “You have to think about… What are you hired, what are people going to decide that they want to work with you? This idea of building your voice is extremely important for navigating today’s labor world.
Still, it’s rare to find highly engaged users. “We’re a great guy,” says Mark Williams, who runs a podcast that advises LinkedIn users. Alich adds, “One million followers (on Instagram) are like 100,000 on LinkedIn.”
LinkedIn, which acquired Microsoft for $26.2 billion in 2016, says comments have doubled the production of videos, with comments rising 37% year-on-year. More than five years ago, the company offered users whether to follow others or follow them. Unlike “connection”, this is limited to 30,000. This is an attempt by LinkedIn to encourage LinkedIn to maintain a close network with people who are “personally and professionally known.”
“When you have a lot of followers, there’s visibility into that content. That’s one way,” says consultant Margolas. “If you have a connection, it’s two communications.” Her agency Kudos’ story mainly works with accounts that make Verrico look smaller. She is in the 11,000-50,000 class as “micro” or “niche” influencer status, 50,000-100,000 “mid tier”.
Mark Summers, head of a private wealth management and executive search company, says he has 30,000 followers and has sometimes reached the limits of connection. “The reason having a big number is important is that one of the things our clients expect from us is that we have a large, vibrant, active network,” he says.
He employs consultants to plan a LinkedIn strategy and encourages staff to contribute with posts and “provocative content.”
It’s a chair with advice from LinkedIn coach Richard van Der Blom with 230,000 followers. Legal Marketing Consultant Simon Marshall has discovered that some key lawyers have a much larger reach than the companies they work for.
Some users suggest that follower quests have reduced the quality of their posts.
Business School professor and author Alison Taylor says her experience has deteriorated after her LinkedIn went past 15,000. Before she had a focused supporter of her colleagues, she began to interact more with those who saw her as a public figure. This led to a “context breakdown,” which meant that she was criticized by people who knew little about her field, and she roamed posts from them.
“There were a lot of people asking why they didn’t comment on this. They jumped into the comments to enhance their own, attacking more trolls and ad attacks,” Taylor says. “My feed is now confused.”
She believes that her followers have between 5,000 and 15,000 “sweet spots.” A larger audience could lead to less thoughtful and expert posts. “I think there’s an urge to be stupid and converge into the medium (yes) everyone becomes a bland post.”
Christine Armstrong, a workplace researcher with 19,000 followers on LinkedIn, says the lack of anonymity means “not cesspit.” However, she admits that she is turned off by some of her aggressive approaches to hitting high follower targets. “There’s a lot of magic out there. People say how to play it,” she says. “They all contradict each other.”
LinkedIn said it provides a wide range of tools to silence noise and personalize the experience, and users can “prunes” feeds by managing notifications.
And many users appreciate the wider network. Helen Tupper, a former marketing worker and now author, says that her LinkedIn profile was mostly someone she knew in the past, whereas in the past she was dominated by people who read her articles.
“There are more ways to use it (today). The idea of being the creator of LinkedIn wasn’t 15 years ago,” she says.
Tupper suggests that “weak ties”, or distant acquaintances, “Your opportunity is better because they work in a world you don’t.” LinkedIn can help you. ”
