- LinkedIn recently launched its second paid creator accelerator program for tech influencers.
- The program gives creators a $12,000 grant, coaches, and early access to tools.
- The second accelerator program plans to offer more networking opportunities and content analytics.
LinkedIn has chosen 120 influencers to be part of its second US creator accelerator program, which offers financial grants, as well as access to workshops, coaches, and resources.
Creators in the six-week program receive a financial grant of up to $12,000, early access to LinkedIn creator tools, and coaching from LinkedIn's creator manager team, which includes Sherrell Dorsey, CEO and founder of digital news site The Plug, and YouTube duo Colin Rosenblum and Samir Chaudry.
The creators, for their part, will make content for the platform, including videos and newsletters.
For its second iteration of the program, the professional social network decided to focus on tech and innovation creators, rather than take the more general approach it took the first time.
"We really wanted to home in on creators within that space," said LinkedIn senior creator manager Jessica Oliveira, who added that technology is the number one industry for content creators on the platform.
Job openings for technology and information-related creator roles were up 3.5 times year-over-year, the company said, and there has been an increase in conversations around topics like crypto, Web3, NFTs, and the metaverse.
The company fielded hundreds of applications for the program, which kicked off last week. Each creator's application was reviewed by a diverse panel of judges, according to LinkedIn, who scored them based on criteria including creativity, passion, commitment, and impact on the LinkedIn community.
The creators for the program include:
- Jim Louderback, former CEO of the annual creator conference VidCon and author of the weekly newsletter "Inside the Creator Economy"
- Pete Cashmore, founder of the news website Mashable
- Reed Duchscher, CEO of Night and manager to MrBeast and Dude Perfect
- Nikita Gupta, a senior technical recruiter at Uber, focused on tech diversity and inclusion
- Bill Young, head of games at Twitch and former head of video strategy at EA
Creators in the program will also attend virtual workshops every week that dive into different tools and best practices around creating content.
Oliveira, for instance, taught a workshop last week around best practices for launching a newsletter. Another workshop will teach creators how to navigate LinkedIn news and chime in on trending topics, which is an effective way to gain more exposure and visibility on the LinkedIn platform.
Rosenblum and Chaudry, who advised LinkedIn's first creator accelerator program, have encouraged LinkedIn creators to experiment with new styles and formats, and to maximize their impact on the platform through "evergreen" content that can be discovered — and still relevant — for months.
"I'm really excited to work with creators on posting more video to LinkedIn," Rosenblum told Insider via email. "LinkedIn has added some great video features, like clickable links, and I'm excited to encourage up-and-coming creators to use them. It's great to see platforms like LinkedIn invest in rising creators and take our feedback on product development."
Based on feedback from participants in LinkedIn's first US creator accelerator program, the program plans on offering more content analytics features to show how creators' content performs over time, as well as more networking opportunities for creators.
LinkedIn began doubling down on its creator-focused efforts in early 2021, when it debuted a "creator mode" to help members display their content more prominently. The company told Insider over 13 million LinkedIn members now use creator mode. The platform also hosts 49,000 newsletters, which more than 150 million users subscribe to, according to the company.
Correction: October 25, 2022 — An earlier version of this story misstated the number of users who subscribe to LinkedIn newsletters. There were 150 million, not 150,000.
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