LinkedIn is stepping up its pitch to creators with a new marketplace

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LinkedIn is leveling up its pitch to creators.

The company said on Wednesday that it's introducing "Creator Marketplace," a new section within its ad platform to help advertisers identify creators relevant to their sectors and desired audiences.

Creators can opt in to share their contact information with brands and showcase their best posts. Advertisers can boost creator content featuring their brands through ads or connect with the creators directly to explore other partnerships, such as speaking at a conference.

LinkedIn is relatively late to the creator marketplace game. Rivals like YouTube, Meta, and TikTok have long offered similar services to help match brands with creators, and several third-party services work across various social apps. LinkedIn said its marketplace differs from these offerings because it highlights creators' credibility on specific, sometimes niche business-to-business topics, rather than spotlighting influencers with the biggest reach.

"Whereas on other platforms you might go to the marketplace to be like, 'What are the cheapest CPMs I can get if I push my messaging through people?' Here, what you're looking for are subject matter experts and practitioners in addition to capital 'C' creators that can speak credibly to their experience with your product," Sam Corrao Clanon, director of product at LinkedIn, told CMO Insider in an exclusive interview. ("CPM" is an advertising term that refers to the cost to buy 1,000 impressions.)

Patrick Zielinski, CEO of The Drive Agency, a talent management firm that focuses on expert creators, said that, unlike with Instagram or TikTok, there aren't many available tools that make it easy to search LinkedIn creators by expertise, audience, industry, and the performance of their content.

"A creator marketplace would give CMOs a more efficient way to identify credible voices, evaluate fit, and move from research to partnership much faster," said Zielinski, who previously helped lead LinkedIn's Top Voices program. Plus, he added, the LinkedIn marketplace could offer creators more opportunities beyond traditional brand partnerships and sponsored content, such as speaking engagements, advisory roles, and consulting projects.

LinkedIn has been steadily ramping up its courtship of creators.

Last year, it launched a slate of original video shows from business-focused creators, including "The Diary of a CEO" star Steven Bartlett and the fashion designer and "Real Housewives of New York" star Rebecca Minkoff.

It launched BrandLink, previously known as its Wire program, that lets brands place in-stream video ads in publisher and creator content, with those creators receiving a revenue share.

Leaked documents obtained by Business Insider show LinkedIn is planning a slate of new creator-monetization products, including subscriptions, an events program, and a system that lets users purchase "experiences" from influencers like advice sessions.

The LinkedIn-LLM equation

LinkedIn is also looking to pitch advertisers on its authority in the fast-growing AI answer engine space as brands step up efforts to boost visibility on platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.

Research released this week by the SEO company BrightEdge found that LinkedIn accounts for about one-third (33%) of the sources ChatGPT cites when answering users' "how-to" questions. Google's AI Overviews cite LinkedIn 22% of the time for these queries, BrightEdge said.

"Sophisticated B2B marketers are using LinkedIn as a secondary platform to their own websites," Davang Shah, LinkedIn VP of marketing, told CMO Insider.

He added that these advertisers are also recognizing that the majority of buyers of business products and services are now in the millennial and Gen Z age groups, and that these cohorts of customers are looking to trusted sources like creators when researching their decisions.

"The most valuable currency in the world right now is trust," Shah said.