LinkedIn Employs AI and Games to Promote Daily User Visits

How often do you visit LinkedIn? The platform wants your answer to be “every day.”

To that end, the Financial Times (FT) reported Sunday (FT), LinkedIn is offering artificial intelligence (AI)-powered career advice and has rolled out games to get its users visiting more often and drive growth.

The report noted this is part of a broader overhaul for LinkedIn, whose members tend to visit the site less often than visitors to more entertainment-focused social media platforms like Facebook and TikTok. 

With revenue growth slowing, analysts have called for the Microsoft-owned platform to branch out, keep users on the site and create ways to generate income other than offering subscriptions.

“It’s about building this daily habit,” Editor in Chief Daniel Roth told the FT. “Once you’re on LinkedIn, it’s time to share your knowledge, get knowledge, get information and get content.”

According to the FT, LinkedIn said it had seen “record engagement” of 1.5 million content interactions per minute in June, but declined to share figures for site traffic or active users.

Data from analytics firm Similarweb shows that visits to the platform, which hit 1.8 billion in June, have climbed in recent years, though growth has slowed since the start of the year. Year-over-year site visit growth was at 5% in June, less than half the rate LinkedIn averaged in 2021 and 2022.

“In order to get continued growth, they may need to make the platform ‘stickier,’” Kelsey Chickering, a media analyst at Forrester, told the news outlet. “Just being a place for jobs and applications may not be enough to keep gaining consumers’ attention and time.” 

Meanwhile, PYMNTS wrote last week about LinkedIn’s emergence as a place for merchants to reach and influence consumers, with companies like Amazon and Nike garnering millions of followers on the platform.

“While LinkedIn might not seem like an obvious choice for consumer engagement as it is traditionally known as a professional networking platform, its unique positioning and robust user base offer a compelling avenue for retailers looking to tap into a more sophisticated and influential audience,” that report said.

The platform’s fastest-growing audience demographic is Generation Z, and most consumers from this age group — 68% — shop via social media, according to the PYMNTS Intelligence study “Tracking the Digital Payments Takeover: Monetizing Social Media.” 

In addition, social commerce can be especially effective for food and beverage companies. The PYMNTS Intelligence report “Connected Dining: Word of Mouth in the Digital Age” found that 37% of diners search for restaurant information by accessing a restaurant’s social media page, a share that climbs to 42% for Gen Z and 46% for millennials.