The dreams of social media services

LinkedIn is trying to turn itself into a publishing platform, is it on the wrong side of history?

what do we share on social media sites

“LinkedIn is the world’s biggest publishing platform,” states Olivier Legrand.

Legrand, LinkedIn’s Head of Marketing Solutions for Asia Pacific & Japan, was speaking at the company’s Connectin Sydney conference where the service was demonstrating its credentials as a marketing and advertising service to Australia’s largest corporations.

The view that LinkedIn is a publishing platform is problematic for content creators — it creates a conflict for those using the service to distribute or publicise their work and again it shows social media services are not your friends.

It’s understandable LinkedIn wants to get corporate advertisers on board seeing the business’ stock currently trades at eighty-four times revenue, however a focus on becoming an advertising driven media company at a time when advertising driven media companies are heading the way of the wooly mammoth seems to be a risky strategy.

Another risk for LinkedIn as a publishing platform is that user generated services can, and will be, gamed resulting in a dramatic decline in quality and value in the site.

Every social media service now sees itself as a media company and it may turn out they are correct, however that future of publishing will be very different from last century’s newspaper and broadcast models they are trying to emulate.

Even if the dreams of social media services do come true, the advertising driven media industry, an the publishing world, will be very different to the world they hope to be part of.

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Author: Paul Wallbank

Paul Wallbank is a speaker and writer charting how technology is changing society and business. Paul has four regular technology advice radio programs on ABC, a weekly column on the smartcompany.com.au website and has published seven books.

2 thoughts on “The dreams of social media services”

  1. LinkedIN, Twitter, Google+, etc have been used for a while now for individual branding. LinkedIN has Influencer Program. BuzzSumo, Wefollow are other tools used to check authorities around. Comparison and content sites aren’t just used by organisations as they have been used for some years now for individual branding whether in the education sector, law sector, health sector, real estate sector, etc – few examples are Zillow, Trulia, realestate.com.au (that’s recently come to it not just for agent comparison but for agent content-individual branding and others too are headed for it), Healthgrades, WebMD, etc (comparison sites and content sites are headed into each other’s space too). Creative cover letters and resumes have also been there as days of PDFs, Docs, etc have slowly been taken over by other methods. Can also add reputation sites as well.

    Australia sadly has been sleeping in various aspects of what’s been happening around the world when it comes to IT including social media. Marketing Technology-try following US, Canada, Europe or even some parts of Asia like Singapore, HK and India that are doing way better than Australia.

  2. Real estate influencers under LinkedIN-Zillow’s CEO, John Burns, etc. Who are the other influencers or authorities there from other industries? Also, checked BuzzSumo yet? It’s one of the good analytical tools for content within social media and apps side including individual branding/content. Another-Wefollow. Yet another-Hootsuite-social media and apps again.

    If getting into digital marketing/PR which includes online, loads of reading, researching and tools would be needed.

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