WSJ Your Money Briefing - What You Can Learn From LinkedIn Influencers to Boost Your Brand Online

Episode Date: March 24, 2025

LinkedIn isn’t just a résumé site anymore — it’s a branding opportunity for content creators and regular folks alike. WSJ reporter Ann-Marie Alcántara joins host Julia Carpenter to discuss the changing landscape of online networking.  Sign up for the WSJ's free Markets A.M. newsletter.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here's your money briefing for Monday, March 24th. I'm Julia Carpenter for The Wall Street Journal. When you think influencer, you might instantly picture colorful TikTok dance videos or aesthetically pleasing Instagram posts. But recently, a new kind of internet celebrity has emerged. And this time, they're finding fame in what once seemed an unlikely place, LinkedIn. They basically have seen an opportunity to fill and bring what they do on TikTok, where sometimes they do talk about their jobs or talk about a little campaign they did on a different platform and bring that insight.

We'll talk with WSJ reporter Anne-Marie Alcantara about how these new content creators are changing the way we think about networking online. That's after the break. You're probably pretty familiar with the typical LinkedIn post, I got a new job, or congrats on the promotion. But LinkedIn is changing, and these new influencers are taking advantage of that. Wall Street Journal reporter Anne-Marie Alcantara joins me to talk more. Anne-Marie, it used to be that LinkedIn was just a resume site. Seems like that's not the case anymore. No, it's definitely changing.

You can obviously still put your resume and all your accomplishments on the website, but young people are also starting to join LinkedIn more. Millennials in Gen Z are growing on the platform, outnumbering potentially soon this year, according to some estimates, the Gen X and maybe boomer population on LinkedIn. And also content creators are coming on, whether they're an accidental content creator

or on purpose content creator. But they are coming and sharing tidbits about their work life and making the platform just a little bit different than just, hey, I got a new job. So now when you're scrolling, you'll still see those posts, right? You'll still see people talking about being open to work or their new job. But also, you might see people describing the ins and outs of their job or what they used to do at a former job, or even just talking about mental health in the workplace,

or burnout, topics that come up every day for people in the workplace. But you're seeing them now on LinkedIn. That also explains why my LinkedIn feed is changing so much. And your story made me think about that, too. It seems like even beyond these influencers and people who are getting money to post or,

you know, achieving some sort of LinkedIn superstar status, there's also a lot of benefit to someone just sharing photos from a conference they went to or engaging more in the comments below a former co-worker's post. Yes, it's basically just a way to just show you're engaged in your job, your industry, your field, that you are trying to become a better person in the workplace and help your colleagues out. And of course, if you're looking for a new job, that's perfect. People can see that. They can reference it. They can see talking to other people

in the comments or resharing things and just see that you really care about your job and about your work life. And you're also seeing people who are already known content creators on these other platforms taking that to LinkedIn, expanding their reach into this new platform. Yes, they basically have seen an opportunity to fill and bring what they do on TikTok,

where, you know, sometimes they do talk about their jobs or talk about a little campaign they did on a different platform and bring that insight to LinkedIn where people who maybe are running influencer marketing campaigns are learning from an influencer like how she did this or what they were looking for when they were talking to a brand. You're starting to see more of the regular quote unquote content creators on other platforms come to LinkedIn. Can you talk about some of the examples of this you saw when you were researching this

story? People posting and achieving this sort of super status. So there's one woman I spoke to, April Little, who just started posting three years ago and she was just posting about her job and she had studied LinkedIn for a year basically trying to see what posts did well, how people even wrote them before she started talking about her own career. And now she has a lot of followers, still posts about her field but also now has a coaching business and so she kind of uses it to generate leads and get new clients.

Can you trace a pattern here? What type of posts performed the best on this particular social media site? What I've been seeing both personally and then when in reporting out the story, it's a mixture of still keeping it really professional. People are there to sort of to learn on LinkedIn, but also not writing like a robot

or AI or like you're the best person in the world on LinkedIn. There's something to learn, there's something to respond to even, to engage with in the comments. That sort of seems to be like the perfect sweet spot for people. I was especially interested to read how some people are posting to LinkedIn not because they want the fame or they want the clicks, but because they're trying to build more of a personal brand. So what's the benefit to that visibility on LinkedIn for someone who's not an influencer? The job market is what it is right now. It's a little bit difficult for many people. People have been out of jobs for a long time. Layoffs keep happening.

There's just a lot of uncertainty. And so in building a personal brand, you still have your regular resume on LinkedIn. But now you also have all these posts that show, you know what you're talking about. Maybe you're engaging with people in the comments, having a back and forth. It just sort of gives you an extra cushion to show

I'm good at my job and I'm also good at talking about it and teaching people and hopefully executing a good plan for you in the new job that you may wanna have. New way to endorse a skill. Yes. That's WSJ reporter Anne-Marie Alcantara. And that's it for your Money Briefing. This episode was produced by Ariana Asparu

with supervising producer Melanie Roy. I'm Julia Carpenter for The Wall Street Journal. Thanks for listening. you