LinkedIn was initially known as a platform for people to expand their career network. They get to connect with fellow professionals in their industry and land a new opportunity.
Founded in 2002, its vision and mission were straightforward: to create economic opportunities for every member of the global workforce and connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.
However, over the past few years, LinkedIn has evolved into a more standard social media platform, albeit with its professional facade remaining intact. Posts have become more personal, as evident in the screenshots on this list. So much so that many have dubbed the platform the “Facebook for suits.”
According to writer, professional marketer, and Offended Marketing founder Dan Kelsall, that shift happened simply because people are “less and less trusting of brands” and are “tired of boring marketing.”
"The skill is to speak like your audience and be relatable to your audience,” Kelsall told the BBC in 2023, noting that he had amassed 66,000 followers in the seven years he’d been on the platform at the time. As of this posting, Kelsall has over 72,000 followers.
Marketing entrepreneur Azadeh Williams shared a similar sentiment regarding the shift in posting tone on LinkedIn to a more personal approach. As she explained in the same BBC interview, her long tenure as a journalist helped shape her perspective.
“I can spot marketing rigmarole and a contrived script. You have to be your crude, authentic self to attract your audience,” she explained.
Some people have even turned to LinkedIn to find love. According to firsthand accounts, some individuals may disguise their pickup lines as supposed job offers. However, the tell would be that the offers would be in industries that are entirely unrelated to theirs.
But if you ask the powers that be, LinkedIn’s business model has been the same ever since. The platform’s editor-in-chief, Daniel Roth, admitted to using algorithms to “determine the right content” for users, not to “steer people in one direction.”
Roth adds that the pandemic encouraged the shift in approach to using the site, stating that people found they received “remarkable feedback” when they were more vulnerable, like talking about their mental health. LinkedIn currently has over one billion worldwide users.
