LinkedIn has over 900 Million users as of 2023. Over 199 M of these are in the US and over 101 M in India. LinkedIn Creator mode was launched in March 2021.

A year later, over 10 Million users turned on Creator mode and 2 years in, 30 Million have turned it on. Less than 400K users, however publish weekly and fewer than 100K daily.

Creator mode offers 1/ LinkedIn Live ( video and audio streaming), 2/ Newsletters, and 3/ Follow link (instead of connect)

Having been using it for the last few months after an initial use in 2021 (Mar – Aug), there are 5 things I have learned about it. There are many articles on how to use it and why you should use it, but this post is focused on who should use it and for what purpose.

1. I would only recommend LinkedIn creator mode if you are selling to businesses and have services that they desire. That means if you are an eCommerce company, consumer internet startup, etc. it wont give you the return on time spent.
2. LinkedIn Creator mode (LCM) is best if you are offering services (consultants, non-fiction book authors, personal branding as a business coach, boutique small agency) as opposed to products (SaaS companies are not a good fit).
3. LCM makes most sense if you intend to create content frequently – which ranges from daily to weekly. It is also helpful to have everything in one place – a newsletter, “Podcast”, live webinar, recorded video, etc.
4. LCM is useful if you create content that does not drive traffic away from LinkedIn (i.e. link to your blog post, etc.) When I created content on my blog (outside LinkedIn) and posted a link on LinkedIn, the # of visits and views were < 100, but when I took that same content and posted a summary of the blog post in < 100 words, with no links and no hashtags (to test the platform), the number of views increased to > 2400.
5. Since the content “lives” on LinkedIn, the discoverability is a lot harder with organic Google search. I took 3 articles which I ranked on the first page of Google search results organically (and have little competition for) and repurposed the content for LinkedIn, with some changes, but the LinkedIn optimized content does not show up in the first 2-3 pages of search results.

LCM makes sense if you do not want to spend money on hosting your own website, blog or podcast (which can be a cost and daunting for non technical folks, albeit easier now than ever before).

A big disadvantage of using the LCM newsletter is that you do not have access to the email addresses if you ever wish to move to a new platform (such as Substack for example).

One list of the top 200 LinkedIn creators shows most of them are personal branding coaches and career coaches.

Another angle to use is it for “temporary” branding.

Lets say you are in between jobs or taking a break in your career, or you wish to write a book, but that’s not going to be your main focus in the long term. LCM would be the best use of your time, with a low footprint, low cost approach to “temporary” personal branding or campaign.

Bottom line if you intend to be a consultant or freelancer, or offer a service (courses, tutorials, etc.) that appeals to career professionals, then LinkedIn Creator Mode may be a good option for you.