Everyone wants to be a LinkedIn influencer — and it’s becoming big business for big-name PR firms.
The once profoundly uncool professional social network has seen a renaissance with the rise of online figures called “workfluencers,” “LinkedInfluencers” or, more generally, thought leaders. Some of these influencers have built massive audiences on the site numbering in the tens of millions, helping propel LinkedIn this year into the coveted club of platforms with one billion users.
Executives looking to boost their own profiles have been paying freelancers to ghostwrite their LinkedIn posts for years. Now the big PR firms are getting into the game and LinkedIn profile management is going mainstream.
Business Insider spoke with 14 PR firms, who said more companies are asking for LinkedIn writing and strategy services for their leaders.
“These are incredibly smart people, they just don’t have the time,” said Erin Ledbetter, head of digital at Ketchum. “That’s what they come to us for. And we get to know them very, very well because we have to write in their voice.”
Large consumer-facing PR firms such as Weber Shandwick, Zeno Group, BCW, Ketchum and Ogilvy are banking on LinkedIn’s “editorial services” and — although most of them don’t use the term — ghostwriting. These firms are building practices with names like “executive visibility” to bring LinkedIn’s expertise to clients.
“LinkedIn has really become a major aspect of executive visibility,” said Contessa Kellogg-Winters, head of executive visibility at Weber Shandwick. “With LinkedIn, you have an instant, ongoing connection with the people who care about you the most.”
The relationship between an executive and a PR firm can take many forms. Sometimes the firm provides strategic help on how best to use the platform. Other times it will handle everything from writing, publishing, commenting, resharing and measuring posts.
The rise of AI is also putting pressure on PR firms to prove their worth in creating communications strategies that create buzz and sales for companies, pushing them to explore new strategies like LinkedIn support.
“There’s an intense lens to measure how every cent is spent,” said Lana McGilvray, partner and CEO of Purpose Worldwide, a marketing and PR firm that specializes in working with marketing and advertising companies. “It’s the state of the economy and the intense pressure on AI to do more with less.”
The Rise of the LinkedIn Influencer
Ghostwriting on LinkedIn is growing in part because it’s becoming harder for clients to get press coverage, PR executives said. They said widespread layoffs in journalism have made it harder for reporters to pitch and client promises to be mentioned in articles. Instead, some businesses are increasingly recommending that executives build a LinkedIn brand where they can directly connect with the public and customers.
“LinkedIn is truly an innovative way to share your POV without annoying the Washington Post editorial team,” said Katie Burcham Glashoff, senior vice president of corporate affairs at BCW Global.
In some cases, PR contractors said LinkedIn content creation was added to existing media relations services, such as relationship building and journalist introductions.
“There’s a desire to go direct,” said Chris Harihar, executive vice president of Mod Op-owned Crenshaw Communications, a PR firm that works with advertising and marketing technology companies. “It means bypassing the guards and going directly to the audience.”
Harihar added that CEOs are also focusing on LinkedIn for thought leadership as X becomes less relevant to business executives and news.
LinkedIn-focused PR services aren’t new, but they’ve gained popularity recently, PR insiders said.
“It’s the mid-market that’s exploding with interest, and in particular the B2B leaders in that space: technology, finance, healthcare, consulting,” said Dan Aloka, partner and head of digital and integrated marketing at Prosek.
Joe Zappa, CEO of Sharp Pen Media, a PR and communications agency that works with ad tech companies, estimated that he ghostwrites LinkedIn for between a third and half of his clients. Zappa said he doesn’t offer specific prices for LinkedIn posts and instead includes LinkedIn in broader content contracts. However, he estimated that PR firms focused solely on LinkedIn ghostwriting could charge companies $5,000 a month for three to five LinkedIn posts. He said ad tech companies typically pay between $10,000 and $15,000 a month to maintain an agency to handle all PR services.
LinkedIn has also capitalized on the trend, from the introduction of “creator” features in 2021 to the recent launch of “Thought Leader” ads, which allow individuals and companies to promote individual posts from a LinkedIn profile.
LinkedIn recently introduced “thought leader ads” as a way to promote posts published by users on the platform.
How Ghostwriting for LinkedIn Works
Working with an executive on their LinkedIn content often begins with a “deep dive” – a video call or meeting – where the PR firm gets to know the person and their role, including their life story, passions and unique traits.
For example, Nicola Dodd, managing director of PR at Ogilvy UK, said the artists her team work with will have an associated “idiolect” that PR reps can refer to, which includes “their unique tone of voice, phrasing, language nuances that this person will use when speaking.”
Laura Franklin-Hollier, UK digital director at integrated PR firm MikeWorldWide, said her team put together “keyword bingo” with words that executives use in their everyday lives.
In many cases, the artist will sign off on the content before it is published, or they may be charged by pressing “publish” from their account.
“Getting people on board with signing content fairly quickly, which traditionally wouldn’t be easy for a larger corporation, is becoming increasingly important,” Franklin-Hollier said. “Quite often we end up having WhatsApp groups instead of email chains to make sure the content is real-time.”
Helping companies and their senior management establish trust and authority is the primary goal of ghostwriting PR firms. Having a data-first measurement strategy that identifies the target audience of posts—shareholders, customers, consumers, or employees, for example—and goals such as follower growth, targeted engagement, and earned media opportunities has become important.
Kim Metcalfe, Zeno Group’s US head of corporate affairs, said that ideally companies will coordinate the roles of multiple executives — such as CEO, CMO and CFO — to reinforce messages.
“You want a chorus of voices,” she said.
LinkedIn is introducing various AI-powered features, such as a bot that helps job seekers draft messages to recruiters.
“AI will be as good as we are”
One thing that threatens to eventually upend ghostwriting for PR firms is generative AI.
William Dobinson, senior account manager at London-based creative communications agency Farrer Kane, emphasized that his firm is not considering using generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT. The content they produce is generic and issues of factual inaccuracy have been a deterrent. But that’s just for now, he said.
“I’m sure we will in the future and I’m sure there are companies that are probably already using AI or finding applications for it, but I think there are risks in implementing it and people need to be aware of those risks,” he said. .
Other firms are taking a more proactive approach. Greg Swann, senior partner and Midwest digital lead at Finn Partners, said his firm is scaling AI for a range of applications, from content development to identifying actionable insights, campaign deployment and crisis management.
Louis Goldberg, managing partner at KCSA Strategic Communications, estimated that AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude are able to copy an executive’s voice by 50% to 60%. Goldberg’s firm is experimenting with AI tools for in-house content creation.
“It’s not yet able to really emulate the voice of an executive, but in six months AI will be as good, if not better, than we are,” he said.
