A funny thing happened on the way to the LinkedIn forum. PR Week covered their 
CommsConnect event last week – what caught my attention was the headline:
Fortune’s Lashinsky: Branded content is ‘propaganda’
I’ll say more about this in a moment. But first let me tell you about another article which relates, and I think you will enjoy, from Digiday: How Dan Roth became the most powerful editor in business publishing
It explains how former Fortune journalist Dan Roth is now chief editor of a media juggernaut – namely, you guessed it, LinkedIn. Here’s an excerpt:
.… when you examine the multiple aspects of LinkedIn’s media operation — a popular and growing native-ads business; tens of millions of potential “content producers” churning out nearly 40,000 posts per week at zero cost… an audience that’s larger, wealthier and more engaged than that of the average website — you realize it may very well be the most formidable title in business publishing and Roth, the most powerful man in business journalism.
Of course, the LinkedIn audience is of great interest to brands and business publishers alike:
Anyone who has ever published a news story can tell you that it’s nice to have readers. That’s why every day, editors from dozens of the Web’s most reputable, highly trafficked business publications — Bloomberg, Business Insider, Quartz, to name just a few — pitch Dan Roth with their best, most timely stories. Roth and his team scour the pitches, looking to aggregate those most likely to resonate with their own audience of 86 million U.S. visitors….
The numbers have been reflected in LinkedIn’s ads business… revenue was up 44 percent. Much of this growth has been fueled by “native” advertising.
Native advertising, AKA branded content – and, interestingly enough, some customers for LinkedIn’s branded content business are publishers.
Which brings us back to the intro.
It is an interesting world these days. You have a social network that is, by some measures, the most influential business publisher. You have editors pitching the social networks, like PR flacks, and at least one very influential editor calling branded content propaganda.
A tangled Web indeed, the irony is thick.
