LinkedIn Shares The Future Of B2B Marketing 2024

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LinkedIn Launches Creator Marketplace: What It Means for B2B Marketers

LinkedIn has launched two new offerings for B2B brands. Creator Marketplace, available inside Campaign Manager, helps brands discover and partner with vetted creators by topic, audience, and performance. BrandWorks is a hands-on team of LinkedIn experts that helps brands and agencies build higher-performing campaigns. Both launched in June 2026 (Creator Marketplace initially in the US and Canada) and reflect a clear shift: B2B buyers now trust credible individual voices more than polished brand messaging. For marketers, the takeaway is that creator partnerships and employee advocacy are becoming the core of effective LinkedIn strategy. On 10 June 2026, LinkedIn announced two significant additions to its B2B marketing toolkit: Creator Marketplace and BrandWorks. Both are built around the same insight, that buyers increasingly trust people over brands, and both signal how seriously LinkedIn is investing in the creator economy as the centre of B2B influence. Here's what each does, why LinkedIn is making this move, and what it means for how B2B marketers should think about their LinkedIn strategy in Key takeaways LinkedIn launched Creator Marketplace and BrandWorks on 10 June Creator Marketplace, inside Campaign Manager, lets brands find, assess, and partner with vetted creators by topic, audience, and performance. BrandWorks is a team of LinkedIn experts providing hands-on campaign strategy and creative support, already used by SAP and Webflow. The move is driven by data: 82% of B2B marketers say creators increase credibility with decision-makers, and 83% say credibility now matters more than traditional brand messaging. Creator Marketplace launches first in the US and Canada. Creator partnerships and employee advocacy are complementary, and the strongest 2026 strategies use both. What is LinkedIn Creator Marketplace? LinkedIn Creator Marketplace is a tool inside Campaign Manager that helps brands discover, assess, and partner with vetted creators. It centralises creator discovery, insights, and partnership tools in one place, so brands can find the right voices to amplify their message to a decision-maker audience. According to LinkedIn, the marketplace lets brands do three things: Find credible creators who influence buying decisions. Marketers can search for vetted creators by topic and content expertise, then assess each profile for audience make-up, performance, and fit. Turn creator conversations into paid impact. Brands can identify organic and sponsored content that already features them, then amplify it with Thought Leader Ads to boost visibility with decision-makers. Move from discovery to partnership faster. Brands can access creator contact information to connect directly about collaborations. For creators, the marketplace is opt-in. Once a creator chooses to share their information, they control how they collaborate, which brands can reach them, how their work is showcased, and how sponsored content is used. Eligible creators sign up through a new Monetization tab. Creator Marketplace launches first in the US and Canada, available via a new section under "Content and Assets" in Campaign Manager. What is LinkedIn BrandWorks? LinkedIn BrandWorks is a team of LinkedIn experts that provides hands-on campaign strategy and creative support to B2B marketers. Where Creator Marketplace is a self-serve discovery tool, BrandWorks is a service: a team across brand, creative, content, and events that works directly with brands and their agency partners. LinkedIn says BrandWorks helps marketers turn audience insights into smarter strategy, create content aimed at how buyers actually engage, unlock more value from existing creative, and connect that creative to high-impact opportunities. Early customers include SAP and Webflow, who LinkedIn says used BrandWorks to turn strong creative into higher-performing campaigns. Why LinkedIn is investing in creators LinkedIn is investing in creators because B2B buyers increasingly trust individual voices more than brand messaging, and the platform's own data makes the case starkly. From LinkedIn's 2026 Global B2B Marketing Outlook: 82% of B2B marketers say creators increase credibility with decision-makers. 83% of B2B marketers say credibility matters more than traditional brand messaging. 70% of marketers say buyers rely more on peer voices and experts than brand-produced content. 56% of B2B buyers depend on creator input in the final stage of the buying process to validate recommendations. 81% of B2B CMOs agree their organisation needs to deliver in new ways, and 78% say they need to change how they show up to stay relevant. The pattern is unambiguous: polished corporate messaging is losing ground to credible human voices. LinkedIn has been building toward this for two years through BrandLink, Top Voices 360, Advice Sessions, podcast sponsorships, and creator-led events. Creator Marketplace and BrandWorks bring that ecosystem into one place. There's a commercial logic for LinkedIn too. Funnelling revenue share to creators keeps top voices posting, which sustains the engagement that powers LinkedIn's ad business across its membership of more than 1.3 billion. LinkedIn has also benefited from the migration of professional conversation away from X, much of which has landed on LinkedIn. What this means for B2B marketers The launch confirms a strategic reality that's been building for a while: on LinkedIn, who says something now matters as much as what's said. For marketers, that has two practical implications. First, creator partnerships are becoming a mainstream B2B tactic, not an experiment. With LinkedIn building dedicated infrastructure for brand-creator collaboration, partnering with external creators to reach new audiences is now a supported, measurable channel. If creator marketing has been on your "maybe later" list, the tooling to do it well now exists natively. Second, and more importantly, the same trust dynamic that powers creator marketing also powers employee advocacy, and that's the channel most brands can act on immediately. Creator Marketplace helps you borrow credibility from external voices. Employee advocacy lets you build credibility through your own people, at a fraction of the cost and with no sponsorship fees. The two are complementary, and the strongest 2026 strategies use both. Creator marketing and employee advocacy: complementary, not competing It's worth being precise about how these two channels differ and how they fit together. Creator marketing brings external reach and borrowed credibility. You partner with (usually pay) an established voice to put your message in front of their audience. It's powerful for reaching new audiences quickly, but it's a rented relationship that stops when the budget does. Employee advocacy builds owned, sustained credibility through your own team. Your employees share authentic content through their personal profiles, reaching their networks consistently over time. It's lower cost, fully owned, and compounds as participation grows. The most effective B2B brands run both: creator partnerships for spikes of external reach and credibility, employee advocacy as the always-on engine of owned reach. If you're weighing where to invest, employee advocacy is the foundation, because it's the channel you control entirely and the one that keeps working when campaign budgets pause. We cover how to build that foundation in our complete guide to employee advocacy strategy. A note on the trust shift driving all of this The data LinkedIn cites (credibility overtaking polished messaging, buyers trusting peers over brands) is the same shift that makes employee advocacy so effective. When 70% of marketers say buyers rely more on peer and expert voices than brand content, the logical response isn't only to hire external creators. It's to turn your own credible experts (your employees) into consistent, authentic voices. For more on why personal profiles outperform company pages, see our guide to how LinkedIn's 2026 algorithm works. How to prepare, especially in the UK Creator Marketplace is launching first in the US and Canada, so UK and other international marketers can't use it natively yet. But the underlying shift applies everywhere, and there's plenty to do now: Build your employee advocacy programme. It's available to you today, in any market, and it's the owned-reach foundation that creator marketing complements. See our roundup of the best employee advocacy tools. Identify your internal creators. The employees who already post well are your most valuable advocates. Support them first. Map relevant external creators in your category. Even without the marketplace, you can identify and build relationships with credible voices now, so you're ready when the tooling expands. Strengthen your measurement. Both creator marketing and advocacy need clear ROI tracking to justify investment. Our practical framework for measuring employee advocacy ROI applies to both. The bigger picture LinkedIn's Creator Marketplace and BrandWorks confirm what B2B marketers have been seeing in their own data: trust now flows through people, not logos. LinkedIn is building the infrastructure to match, giving brands more ways to work with credible voices and more support to make campaigns land. For most brands, the immediate opportunity isn't the marketplace itself (especially outside the US and Canada). It's recognising that the trust shift behind it is something you can act on today through employee advocacy, the one channel where your own credible voices, your own people, build owned reach that compounds over time. Creator Marketplace is a powerful addition to the toolkit. Employee advocacy is the foundation it sits on. Frequently asked questions What is LinkedIn Creator Marketplace? LinkedIn Creator Marketplace is a tool within LinkedIn Campaign Manager that helps brands discover, assess, and partner with vetted creators. Brands can search for creators by topic and content expertise, review audience data and performance, identify organic and sponsored content featuring their brand, and access creator contact information to start partnerships. It launched in June 2026, initially for the US and Canada. What is LinkedIn BrandWorks? LinkedIn BrandWorks is a team of experts across brand, creative, content, and events that provides hands-on strategy and creative support to help B2B marketers build higher-performing LinkedIn campaigns. It works with brands and their agencies to turn audience insights into strategy, create content suited to how buyers engage, and connect creative to high-impact opportunities. Early customers include SAP and Webflow. How is LinkedIn Creator Marketplace different from employee advocacy? Creator Marketplace helps brands partner with external creators and influencers to reach new audiences, usually through paid sponsorships. Employee advocacy activates a company's own employees to share authentic content through their personal profiles. The two are complementary: creator marketing brings external credibility and reach, while employee advocacy builds sustained, owned reach at lower cost. Most effective B2B strategies use both. Why is LinkedIn investing in creators in 2026? LinkedIn is investing in creators because B2B buyers increasingly trust people over brands. LinkedIn's 2026 research found that 82% of B2B marketers say creators increase credibility with decision-makers, 83% say credibility matters more than traditional brand messaging, and 70% say buyers rely more on peer and expert voices than brand-produced content. Investing in creator tools helps LinkedIn keep top voices posting and gives brands more effective ways to reach buyers. Is LinkedIn Creator Marketplace available in the UK? At launch in June 2026, LinkedIn Creator Marketplace is available to brands in the United States and Canada. LinkedIn typically expands such features to other markets, including the UK, over time, but no UK availability date has been confirmed. UK B2B marketers can prepare by building their employee advocacy and creator relationships now so they are ready when the marketplace expands. Further reading Employee Advocacy Strategy: The Complete Guide The Best Employee Advocacy Tools How LinkedIn's 2026 Algorithm Works and What It Means for Your Content Strategy How to Measure Employee Advocacy ROI: A Practical Framework to Prove Impact External reference: LinkedIn's official announcement: How B2B Brands Can Drive Impact With Creators and Stronger Creative

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LinkedIn Crosscheck: Test AI Models for Free Inside LinkedIn

LinkedIn has launched a feature that lets Premium subscribers compare AI models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft and others, side by side, without paying for separate subscriptions or hitting token limits. The feature is called Crosscheck, and it is rolling out now to LinkedIn Premium subscribers in the United States, with broader availability planned for additional countries and free users. How LinkedIn Crosscheck Works Crosscheck is described by LinkedIn's Chief Product Officer Hari Srinivasan as a "blind taste test" for AI models. The experience works like this: You enter a text prompt LinkedIn returns two answers, each generated by a different AI model You choose which answer you prefer Only after making your selection does LinkedIn reveal which models produced each response The feature already supports a wide range of models. Early testing has returned responses from Anthropic, Google, MoonshotAI, Mistral, and Amazon, with more expected to be added. Crosscheck also has its own leaderboard tracking how professionals across different industries rate the various models against each other. What Crosscheck Does and Does Not Support Crosscheck is currently text-only. You cannot generate images, upload files, or access the more advanced capabilities available directly on each AI platform's native interface. What you do get is unlimited text-based conversations with no token limits, and no requirement to sign up for additional paid subscriptions to access models you want to try. On data sharing: LinkedIn states that anonymised usage data is shared with the AI model providers to help them understand performance across different professional roles and industries. According to LinkedIn's own documentation, no personally identifiable information is passed to model builders. Why This Matters for B2B Content and Advocacy Teams For marketing, content, and employee advocacy teams already working inside LinkedIn, Crosscheck removes a meaningful barrier. Testing whether Claude, Gemini, or GPT-4o produces better output for a specific use case, such as a thought leadership post, a comment response, or a newsletter section, has historically required maintaining multiple subscriptions and switching between platforms. Crosscheck consolidates that comparison inside a platform your team is already using every day. A few practical implications worth considering: For content quality benchmarking. If your team uses AI to support LinkedIn post drafting or employee content kits, Crosscheck gives you a fast, free way to identify which model produces output that resonates with your specific audience and industry vertical. For employee advocates. Employees who are less familiar with AI tools now have a low-friction way to experiment with AI assistance directly inside LinkedIn, without needing separate accounts or training on new platforms. For advocacy programme managers. The Crosscheck leaderboard, broken down by industry, could become a useful proxy for understanding which AI models are gaining traction among your target audience, informing both content strategy and tool selection. What to Watch Crosscheck is currently an early-stage product from LinkedIn Labs, and Srinivasan has acknowledged there is work to do on speed, model range, and supported prompt types. It is also US-only for LinkedIn Premium users at launch, which limits immediate access for UK and European teams. That said, LinkedIn's track record of rolling features out globally after US pilots, combined with the stated intention to extend access to free users, suggests Crosscheck will reach wider audiences within months rather than years. The Bigger Picture for LinkedIn Content Strategy LinkedIn's move to embed AI model comparison directly into the platform is part of a broader pattern. Over the past 18 months, LinkedIn has introduced AI writing assistance, AI-powered post suggestions, and now a structured way to evaluate models against each other, all within the interface where B2B professionals are already spending time. For teams running employee advocacy programmes, this trajectory reinforces a simple strategic point: LinkedIn is becoming a content production and evaluation environment, not just a distribution channel. The tools employees need to create, refine, and share professional content are converging in one place. If your team is not yet building a structured approach to LinkedIn content and employee advocacy, the platform's own investment in AI tooling is accelerating the gap between organisations that are and organisations that are not. Frequently Asked Questions What is LinkedIn Crosscheck? LinkedIn Crosscheck is a feature from LinkedIn Labs that lets Premium subscribers compare responses from different AI models side by side using a blind test format. You enter a prompt, receive two anonymous answers from different models, choose the one you prefer, and then LinkedIn reveals which models produced each response. Which AI models does LinkedIn Crosscheck include? At launch, Crosscheck includes models from Anthropic, Google, MoonshotAI, Mistral, and Amazon, with more expected to be added. LinkedIn has confirmed it plans to expand the model range as the feature develops. Is LinkedIn Crosscheck free to use? Crosscheck is currently available at no additional cost to LinkedIn Premium subscribers in the United States. LinkedIn has stated it plans to extend access to free users and additional countries, though no confirmed timeline has been given. Does LinkedIn Crosscheck share my data with AI companies? Yes. According to LinkedIn's documentation, anonymised usage data is shared with AI model providers to help them understand how their models perform across different professional roles and industries. LinkedIn states that no personally identifiable information is shared with model builders. Can I use LinkedIn Crosscheck to generate images or upload files? No. Crosscheck currently supports text-based prompts only. Image generation, file uploads, and the more advanced tools available natively on each AI platform are not supported within Crosscheck. Is there a limit on how many prompts I can send in LinkedIn Crosscheck? No. LinkedIn has confirmed there are no token limits or usage caps on text-based conversations within Crosscheck, which is one of its main advantages over testing models through their native platforms on free or limited tiers. How can employee advocacy teams use LinkedIn Crosscheck? Advocacy teams can use Crosscheck to benchmark which AI models produce the best output for specific LinkedIn use cases, such as thought leadership posts, comment responses, or newsletter sections. It is also a useful onboarding tool for employee advocates who are new to AI writing assistance, as it removes the need to sign up for separate platforms. Where can I access LinkedIn Crosscheck? Crosscheck is available through LinkedIn Labs for LinkedIn Premium subscribers in the United States.

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LinkedIn Content Benchmarks 2026: Which Post Format Drives Most Engagement

If you are still guessing which LinkedIn content format to prioritise, new benchmark data from 1.3 million posts makes the answer clear: native document posts (uploaded PDFs displayed as carousels) generate the highest engagement rate of any content type on the platform at 7.00%, followed by multi-image posts at 6.45% and video at 6.00%. This matters because LinkedIn's overall engagement rate has actually increased 8% year-over-year to an average of 5.20%, even as organic reach continues to decline. The platform is rewarding depth and substance over volume, and the formats that keep people on the page longest are winning. This guide breaks down the latest Socialinsider 2026 LinkedIn Benchmarks data, explains what it means for your content strategy, and shows how employee advocacy programmes can use these insights to maximise performance. Document Posts Now Outperform Every Other LinkedIn Format The biggest finding from the Socialinsider study is that native document posts have overtaken all other content types for engagement. As Social Media Today reported, this is a significant departure from other social platforms where short-form video dominates. Here is how each format performed based on average engagement rate by impressions in 2025: Native documents: 7.00% (up 14% year-over-year) Multi-image posts: 6.45% Video: 6.00% (up 7% YoY) Image: 5.30% (up 9% YoY) Text: 4.50% (up 12% YoY) Poll: 4.20% Link: 3.25% The year-over-year trend is notable. Engagement grew across every content format except polls and links. Document posts saw the largest increase at 14%, but even simple text posts climbed 12%. LinkedIn users are engaging more across the board. Julia Holmqvist, Social Media Manager at Semrush, explained the document trend well in the Socialinsider report: documents perform because they deliver downloadable, practical value like frameworks, templates, and checklists in a format that is easy to scan and save for later. This aligns with what LinkedIn's own algorithm now rewards: dwell time. Document carousels require swiping through multiple slides, which keeps users on the post longer than almost any other format. That extended attention signals quality to the algorithm and triggers broader distribution. Multi-Image Posts Drive the Most Likes While documents lead on overall engagement rate, the data shows a different winner for likes specifically: multi-image posts generate the most likes across every page size. For pages with 100K to 1M followers, multi-image posts average 180 likes per post compared to 155 for video and 30 for native documents. The pattern holds for smaller pages too, though at lower absolute numbers. This creates a useful strategic distinction. If your goal is overall engagement (comments, shares, saves, clicks), prioritise documents. If your immediate goal is social proof through visible like counts, multi-image posts are your best option. For employee advocacy content, this distinction matters. Employees sharing document carousels will generate deeper engagement that drives profile visits and conversations. Employees sharing multi-image posts will generate higher visible reaction counts that build credibility in the feed. Both have a place in a well-rounded advocacy programme. Video Views Are Declining Despite More Video Being Posted One of the most counterintuitive findings in the data is that LinkedIn video views dropped 36% year-over-year across all page sizes, even as brands doubled their video posting frequency from 2 to 4 posts per month. The decline is consistent across every audience tier. Pages with 10K to 50K followers saw average video views drop from 1,000 to Even the largest pages (100K to 1M followers) saw views fall from 2,430 to 1,This does not mean video is dead on LinkedIn. Video still generates a 6.00% engagement rate, which is above the platform average. But it does suggest that the market is saturated with video content, and the returns are diminishing as more brands compete for attention in the same format. The Socialinsider report includes a useful insight from Semrush's social team: LinkedIn is not a video-first platform the way TikTok or Instagram are. Users do not open LinkedIn to scroll through video feeds. They come for professional knowledge sharing, and the formats built for that purpose (documents, text, images) are outperforming video on the metrics that matter. For employee advocacy, this reinforces the case for document carousels and well-crafted text posts over video. Most employees are more comfortable creating a PDF or writing a text post than recording and editing video, and the data shows those formats perform just as well or better. Impressions Vary Dramatically by Page Size and Format The benchmark data reveals how much content performance depends on audience size. The right format for a page with 5,000 followers is not the same as the right format for a page with 100,For pages with under 50K followers, multi-image posts consistently generate the most impressions per post. A page with 10K to 50K followers averages 1,850 impressions per multi-image post compared to 1,420 for video and 1,150 for native documents. For pages with over 50K followers, polls become the highest-impression format. Pages with 100K to 1M followers average 9,797 impressions per poll compared to 3,867 for multi-image posts. This is a significant finding for employee advocacy. Most employee LinkedIn profiles have follower counts in the low thousands, which means the multi-image and document formats are their best options for maximising both reach and engagement. Polls may work well for executive profiles with larger followings but are less effective for the broader employee base. Posting Frequency Is Increasing Across Visual Formats Brands are posting more on LinkedIn, particularly in visual formats. Image posts increased from an average of 5 to 7 per month. Video doubled from 2 to 4 per month. Native document posts rose from 1 to 2 per month. This increase in posting frequency aligns with Buffer's finding that top-performing LinkedIn accounts post more frequently and more consistently than the median account. The "no-post penalty" is real: accounts that skip a week consistently underperform their own baseline growth rate. For employee advocacy programmes, the practical takeaway is straightforward. Encourage employees to post at least 2 to 3 times per week. Provide them with a mix of content formats, particularly documents and multi-image posts. And make the content creation process as frictionless as possible so consistency does not feel like a burden. Our employee advocacy training guide covers how to build posting habits that sustain momentum without burning employees out. Audience Growth Is Slowing, Especially for Large Pages LinkedIn follower growth rates declined across every page size in Pages with 1K to 5K followers still saw a respectable 24.5% average growth rate, but pages with 100K to 1M followers saw growth slow sharply to just 6.4%, down from 21.6% the previous year. This slowdown has a direct strategic implication: growing an audience through your company page alone is increasingly difficult. The brands that maintain healthy growth rates are those that supplement company page content with employee-driven distribution. Our analysis of 400 million LinkedIn impressions found that employee posts generate 14 times more engagement than company page content. When audience growth on your company page stalls, activating employee voices is the most effective lever available. Employee networks are roughly 12 times larger than company follower bases, and the LinkedIn algorithm allocates approximately 65% of feed real estate to personal profiles versus just 5% for company pages. What This Means for Your LinkedIn Strategy in 2026 The Socialinsider data points to a clear set of priorities for marketing teams. Lead with documents and carousels. They generate the highest engagement rate and align with what LinkedIn's algorithm rewards: dwell time and substantive content. Invest in creating original frameworks, research summaries, checklists, and guides in PDF format. Use multi-image posts for visibility and social proof. When you need likes and impressions rather than deep engagement, multi-image posts are consistently the top performer across page sizes under 50K followers. Be strategic with video. Video still works on LinkedIn, but the declining returns mean it should complement your strategy rather than dominate it. Use video for content that genuinely benefits from the format, like executive interviews, behind-the-scenes footage, or product demonstrations, rather than defaulting to video for everything. Post consistently. Frequency matters. The data shows brands are increasing output across visual formats, and top performers post more often and more consistently than average accounts. Aim for at least 2 to 3 posts per week per employee in your advocacy programme. Invest in employee advocacy. With company page growth slowing and the algorithm favouring personal profiles, employee-driven content is the highest-leverage organic strategy available. Equip your team with document templates, multi-image assets, and clear guidelines. For practical guidance on getting started, see our employee advocacy buyer's guide. Personalise everything. The algorithm penalises mass-identical resharing. When employees share content from your advocacy programme, even a single line of personal commentary transforms a templated share into authentic content that performs dramatically better. Frequently Asked Questions What is the best content format on LinkedIn in 2026? Native document posts (uploaded PDFs displayed as carousels) generate the highest average engagement rate at 7.00%, according to Socialinsider's analysis of 1.3 million LinkedIn posts. Multi-image posts follow at 6.45%, and video at 6.00%. What is a good engagement rate on LinkedIn? LinkedIn's overall average engagement rate by impressions is 5.20% in Content above this threshold is performing better than typical. Native documents average 7.00%, making them the format most likely to exceed the benchmark. Are LinkedIn video views declining? Yes. Average video views dropped 36% year-over-year across all page sizes, even as brands doubled their video posting frequency. Video still generates above-average engagement rates, but the returns are diminishing as more content competes in the format. How often should a company post on LinkedIn? Benchmark data shows brands are increasing their posting frequency, particularly for images (7 per month) and video (4 per month). Top-performing accounts post more frequently and consistently than the median. For employee advocacy, aim for 2 to 3 posts per week per advocate. Why is LinkedIn audience growth slowing? Follower growth rates declined across all page sizes in Pages with 100Kfollowers saw the sharpest slowdown, from 21.6% to 6.4% average growth. The brands maintaining growth are those supplementing company page content with employee-driven distribution through advocacy programmes. Do document posts work for employee advocacy? Yes. Documents are an ideal format for employee advocacy because they showcase expertise through practical resources like frameworks, checklists, and research summaries. They generate the highest engagement rate on the platform and align with what LinkedIn's algorithm rewards: dwell time and substantive content. Ready to equip your team with the content formats that actually work on LinkedIn? Vulse helps marketing teams create, distribute, and measure employee content that drives real engagement. Start your free trial or book a demo to see how it works.

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