Why LinkedIn Has A Golden Opportunity To Hook Gen Z
At present, the social media platforms most commonly associated with Gen Z are TikTok and Instagram. This is an accurate perception, as research from the firm Gitnux attests that, in late 2023, TikTok and Instagram were Gen Z’s two most frequently used social media platforms. To many, it may seem as if these two will continue to hold a firm grasp on Gen Z. But in actuality, as will become clear in the following paragraphs, rivals have a prime opportunity to divert this young generation’s attention. And LinkedIn is perhaps the best poised of all to capitalize on this opening.
Some may consider LinkedIn to be the antithesis of what members of Gen Z are looking for in terms of their social media habits. But, as the following points will prove, LinkedIn’s potential is not just viable, it’s ample.
The Instability Of Popular Gen Z Platforms
Consider the fractious state of play for many popular social media websites in the present day. At the time of writing, in recent days, weeks and months many social media platforms have faced controversies and embarrassments. In March 2024 alone, the US House of Representatives passed a bill that, at best, would severely disrupt TikTok or, at worst, ban it altogether. Huge outages hit Instagram and Facebook that rendered the platforms unusable, eroding reliability and trust. Since this event, a leading psychologist resigned as an advisor to Meta, Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, due to Instagram deliberately ignoring the prevalence of harmful content that was frequently reaching young women. Other social media sites are suffering in similar ways. For instance, X, formerly known as Twitter, saw a 30% decrease in usage from 2023 to 2024.
LinkedIn, on the other hand, suffers from none of this controversy. It’s also showing strong growth. In fact, in Q4 2023, its revenues surpassed $15 billion for the first time. Its user base at this time also grew to 1 billion individuals, up from 900 million in 2023. In fact, the only slightly negative news that we could find concerned its employee numbers. In late 2023, LinkedIn stated that it was cutting around 668 employees. But as the user base and revenues are growing, this doesn’t indicate a platform that’s suffering. Instead, it indicates a platform that’s streamlining itself, like the majority of tech companies, which consistently laid off employees in 2023 and is continuing to do so in 2024.
Essentially, LinkedIn is stable. This can be a double-edged sword when it comes to attracting Gen Z. After all, everyone knows that young people are attracted to things that are controversial to their elders. Right now, TikTok’s status as a controversial form social media appeals to Gen Z. But Gen Z is growing up fast. The eldest members of Gen Z are, as of 2024, 27 years old. With each passing year, Gen Z becomes more mature. Individuals within this demographic are either in the early stages of their careers, or very soon will be. The appeal of a platform that can help secure these careers should be obvious. Yet the potential for LinkedIn to appeal to Gen Z goes much deeper than the fact that they’re growing up. The following points indicate just how and why LinkedIn has the ability to engage people born after 1997 like no other platform:
LinkedIn Is A Part Of Gen Z
LinkedIn went live in mid-2003, so if it were a human, it would be a member of Gen Z. This fact gives the platform the ability to market itself as an entity that has grown alongside Gen Z. It has the chance to capitalize on this identity in some innovative ways. For example, it could take a page out of Facebook and Google Photos’s content strategy and share memories to Gen Z, by highlighting content that was popular at various key times in a member of Gen Z’s life. As LinkedIn has such a large user base, this has the potential to be highly personalized. For example, many of Gen Z’s parents will have been long-time users of LinkedIn, meaning that it could show a member of Gen Z what their parents were posting on the site at various times in the past. Just imagine if you could see what your parents were up to on this day 20, 30 or 40 years ago. It would undoubtedly be interesting. Gen Z has the potential to see this, if LinkedIn wishes to let them do so!
LinkedIn Can Gamify Itself (And It Is)
One way that the tech industry has broadened its appeal to people of all ages, especially younger people, is by implementing gamification. The best example of this is Tinder, which revolutionized the world of online dating by making its user interface seem like a game. Many other sites have since tried to emulate this approach, LinkedIn included. One older example is The LinkedIn Skills Squad, which has previously held competitions that offered users the chance to attend personal coaching in Iceland.
In 2024, LinkedIn is investing in gamification like never before. It’s even integrating games into the platform to “deepen relationships, and hopefully spark the opportunity for conversations.” It remains to be seen just what these games will look like, but they’re likely to be developed with their appeal to Gen Z as a core consideration.
LinkedIn Has A Gold Mine Of Bizarre Content To Capitalize On
One thing that always stands out online is strangeness. For example, on X/Twitter, people who share strange things go viral. A prime example is the man who found shrimp tails in a bag of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Anyone who was using Twitter that day saw it, and many shared the posts and discussed it for far longer than they should have.
But does LinkedIn have similarly odd content posted to it? The answer is a resounding yes. Take the popular Subreddit LinkedInLunatics, which has over 400,000 members. This page frequently shares the strangest posts that appear on LinkedIn. And yes, these posts are indeed engagingly unusual. A perfect example is the man who boasted about cooking chicken in his hotel room in an effort to save his employer money, even though he could have eaten a restaurant meal at his business’s expense. This is content that gets major attention. All that LinkedIn needs to do is balance the ratio of professional and strange content in a way that doesn’t impact its overall brand integrity. Yes, this is easier said than done, but if the balance is right, then it can boost engagement among younger people significantly.
The Tip Of The Iceberg
Those are just three ways that LinkedIn can viably extend its appeal to Gen Z. In reality, there are many, many things that the site can do to hook this generation. It remains to be seen which efforts will pay off.
One thing is undeniable: LinkedIn will become an ever more engaging platform for Gen Z, and brands will have the chance to reach this audience like never before.