How is LinkedIn helping its creator community and a 92-million user base in India?

The world’s largest professional networking brand is evolving its strategy to make a greater impact in the Indian workforce

Aanchal Jain is having a busy day. Jain, who started an employment recruitment agency in early 2021, is busy head-hunting on LinkedIn–the social media networking site for working professionals. Jain (name changed upon request) is a 32-year-old lawyer, who decided to leave the corporate world to start a recruiting agency. “Call it the pandemic effect,” she laughs. “COVID changed the way I viewed my professional life. I wanted to become my own boss!” she declares. For Jain, the starting point for any recruiting position is “vetting the candidate’s LinkedIn profile.” Once that is done, she gets down to sharing the profile with her client, before launching into the interview process.

Shilpi Menon, an HR professional based in Bengaluru, concurs with Jain’s methodology. In her 30s, Menon is increasingly interested in talking to candidates only after she’s scoured their social media presence, particularly on LinkedIn. “Honestly, it used to be Facebook and Twitter earlier where we would vet candidates. It was an added advantage if they had a LinkedIn profile too. But in the last two years, we’ve noticed a qualitative change in the way LinkedIn is being used by job-seekers of all ages. Users of LinkedIn seem to be taking the platform more seriously too.”

Change is constant, on LinkedIn

Rendered redundant by the COVID-19 pandemic, Nikhil Sadhu, at 35, was getting increasingly worried about the prospect of finding a job. Working as a marketing professional in a medium-scale tech-related start-up in Pune, Sadhu decided to hunt for a job with all earnestness after sitting at home for four months, without a single Zoom call in response to his myriad applications. “I spoke to several headhunters, all of whom advised me to start networking immediately. I had never considered social media as a way to gain employment seriously before this.” After close to a year of being out of a job, Sadhu is now employed again. “It all started strangely with a message in my LinkedIn inbox with a recruiter asking me if I was interested in applying for a position,” he shares. Sadhu, who, along with his colleague batchmates at Symbiosis, had used the networking site several times earlier, says, “Whenever we felt a move to shift workplaces, there was simply no response. I do feel that the pandemic made us better users of networking sites.”

LinkedIn, which was launched globally in 2002, and in India in 2009, is having a moment. It’s not the same moment as it had when it was acquired in 2016 by Microsoft as a wholly owned subsidiary though. Today, globally, six people are hired every minute on LinkedIn. And out of 830 million members in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide, 92 million members are from India–a key and the fastest growing market in terms of member engagement. A press note from LinkedIn India states, “As India Inc gradually opened up after the pandemic, our Labour Market Update (July 2022) noticed a 63 per cent increase in year-on-year (YOY) hiring rate, as compared to pre-COVID.” The company has also recorded a 25 per cent YOY increase in public conversations happening on the platform, as of July 2022.

A former executive who has worked with Facebook and Instagram says, “Despite their new changes rollout that was unveiled in 2020, LinkedIn seemed to be in a dormant state. But the social media network world is now sitting up to see its importance in a hybrid world. Facebook has slipped downwards in this regard. So while several of us have mocked the relevance of the site, it’s proving us wrong at this time.”

Sign of the times

In June this year, the site released findings from a study indicating that 87 per cent of working professionals in India believe sharing emotions at work boosts productivity and morale. “Based on a survey of 2,188 professionals, the research reveals that more than three out of four (76 per cent) professionals in India feel more comfortable expressing their emotions at work post-pandemic. This shift is also being reflected on LinkedIn, which has seen a 28 per cent rise in public conversations on the platform.” It also led to the site including a “funny reaction” to their post setting, keeping the Gen Z and millennial audiences in mind.

A pandemic world, where people are finding connections online in a myriad ways, a loss of jobs has meant that an organisation like LinkedIn has truly found its space. The networking site is “a safe platform where they can engage in respectful and professional conversations,” says a company spokesperson. On the other hand, Facebook is still viewed as a “site for friends and family”. “Like-minded people talking to each other have formed communities on LinkedIn to talk about work and share ideas, connecting virtually,” says the executive.

For folks jettisoned out of their jobs, the site has been a boon. “I joined several groups for independent writers after losing my job with a national newspaper in 2020. It's the only way I managed to keep my sanity and actually landed a few writing gigs too,” says New Delhi-based journalist Venkat Krishna (name changed on request).

Realising the need of the hour, the site has worked on getting entrepreneurs and content creators onboard. Some of them are: Kaushik Mukherjee, co-founder and COO, Sugar Cosmetics, who has shared his successes and failures from his 10-year entrepreneurial journey; Rohit Krishna, partner at WEH Ventures, who has an investor’s perspective for budding entrepreneurs; Kunwar Raj, founder and content creator at Unfinance, who talks about investing and his experiences of what it is like to be a full-time creator and entrepreneur; and Sohini Bhattacharya, CEO at Breakthrough India.

Most recently actor-entrepreneur Suneil Shetty made his debut on the site saying, “...40+ years as an entrepreneur have resulted in an exponential learning curve. However, turning up each day as if it were my first on the job has perhaps helped me stay in sync with this ever-evolving landscape. While conventional success is often the yardstick by which we judge businesses and ideas, the truth is, failure has taught me so much more. And I’ve always worn those experiences too, like a badge of honour! I decided to get on LinkedIn to use this as an intelligent space to foster smart ideas and become a catalyst of positive change…”

Creator Accelerator Programme

Seeing the rise and rise of the passion economy, LinkedIn has invested in creators to bring new and diverse perspectives onto the site that are specific to the India story. Last year, the company announced an investment of $25 million globally in creators with the launch of the first Creator Accelerator Programme (CAP), designed to support a diverse set of voices on LinkedIn through coaching, recognition and resources. CAP piloted the programme in India in February 2022, with India as the second market to launch this after the United States.

CAP is a 10-week incubator-style initiative that trained and mentored 200 creators on LinkedIn to grow their communities on the platform. The programme, which has only just concluded, included 10 educational sessions led by in-house experts and creators like Radhika Gupta, MD and CEO of Edelweiss AMC, Ankur Warikoo, founder Nearbuy.com, and Nuseir Yassin, CEO Nas Academy on topics like growing your community, supercharging video creation and content creation in Hindi. All 200 participants had access to office hours and roundtables with creator managers for in-depth coaching and guidance on how to use the site and grow their audiences. “It’s a smart move that will pay off richly,” says Menon, who interacts with Gen Z users of the site.

Some of their standout creators include: Ajit Sivaram, co-founder at U&I, who makes videos on leadership; Saptarshi Prakash, director of design at Swiggy, on how design relates to businesses; and Palak Rathi, a chartered accountant, who creates videos explaining concepts associated with finance and business that are easy to understand.

New LinkedIn tools

Creators can now add a clickable link directly onto their images and videos to drive members directly to their website, an upcoming event, recent newsletter or other resources. An additional tool is the custom templates for new posts that will allow creators an easy way for text posts to grab their audience’s attention. “Each of our 92 million-plus members in India can be creators on LinkedIn as long as they have a story to tell and a passion to build communities through the content they create. Through CAP, we are supporting a diverse set of voices on our platform via coaching, recognition and resources. Going forward, we will continue to invest in creators and make it easier for them to create more engaging visual content and spark meaningful conversations on LinkedIn,” said Pooja Chhabria, APAC head of creator management at LinkedIn.

Language and inclusion

Recognising the importance of the India market has also led to the site launching Hindi in December 2021, aimed at boosting access to opportunities for 600 million Hindi speakers globally, of which ~500 million are in India. “Our goal with Hindi was to reduce language barriers, enable members to share in their local language and build a more inclusive community on the platform to create equitable economic opportunities for ‘every’ member of the workforce,” says a company note.

Working with women professionals–Richa Singh, Senior-APAC at GLG; Anjalli Chaauhan, founder at MAXIMA Steel Services; and Deepika Upadhyay Pathak, founder at JBPL Group– #RokeNaRuke was a campaign to motivate women to break free of stereotypes and stigma and chart their career paths on their own terms.

Jain, who welcomes the site’s fresh moves, says this will only add to the site’s appeal. “It’s smart to add on in a way that is relevant to users. They just need to be mindful of keeping the conversation in the professional sphere and not going toxic the way Twitter has, or irrelevant like Facebook has become.”

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