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LinkedIn is using artificial intelligence to supply profession advice and has introduced games on the platform to higher engage users and drive growth within the extremely competitive social media industry.
The skilled social network recently introduced each day puzzles and AI features to develop articles that may provide advice to employees.
The move is a component of a broader overhaul of Microsoft's own platform, which is best known for its narrow focus as knowledgeable development tool. Members are inclined to log in less incessantly than users of entertainment-focused networks like Facebook and TikTok.
Slowing revenue growth has raised alarm bells about LinkedIn's traditional model, with analysts stressing that the platform must be broader to maintain users on the positioning and expand its revenue streams beyond subscriptions.
“It's about establishing that each day habit,” editor-in-chief Daniel Roth told the Financial Times. “Once you're on LinkedIn, it's time to share your knowledge, gain knowledge, get information and get content.”
LinkedIn said it recorded “record engagement” of 1.5 million content interactions per minute in June, but declined to supply figures on site traffic or energetic users.
Data from analytics firm Similarweb shows that visits to the platform, which reached 1.8 billion last month, have been increasing lately, although growth has stagnated because the start of 2024. Year-on-year growth in site visits slowed to five percent in June, lower than half the common rate in 2021 and 2022.
“To achieve further growth, they could must make the platform more 'engaging,'” said Kelsey Chickering, media analyst at Forrester. “Just being a spot for jobs and applications might not be enough to proceed to capture consumers' attention and time.”
The latest push toward engagement comes as LinkedIn tries to spice up its promoting business despite cutting marketers' budgets. LinkedIn has already tried to chop costs, with two rounds of layoffs last yr affecting greater than 5 percent of its roughly 20,000 employees.
Launched in May, each day games aim to interact users by recording “streaks” of solved puzzles and showing who amongst their contacts has played. They can share their scores and think about leaderboards comparing different industries, firms and universities.
Roth said the games should function conversation starters and, due to LinkedIn's role as knowledgeable site, are designed to be accomplished quickly. “You shouldn't spend loads of time on this stuff,” he said.
The platform launched an AI feature last yr that generates consultation questions and prompts relevant specialists so as to add comments and contributions which are compiled into “collective articles.”
As a part of its efforts to interact users more, LinkedIn has also begun mimicking the algorithmically driven feeds of platforms like X, TikTok and Instagram. Users see posts and videos from creators the algorithm predicts they are going to engage with, in addition to content from people they follow.
Some analysts warned that LinkedIn risked alienating existing users if efforts to extend engagement weren’t consistent with the platform's status for professionalism and trustworthiness.
“Practical advice and tools are one of the best solution to increase usage: attending to the center of the matter, which is why people use LinkedIn, somewhat than competing in other areas where you don't must compete,” says Rebecca McGrath, technology analyst at Mintel.
