LinkedIn Top Voices are not what they appear to be…
I will say what no one else is saying: orange “Top Voice” labels are worthless and misleading at best… Where do they come from? Why are they misleading? Hear it from Top Product Management Voice:
Let me just say that this is not a rant, but a constructive Product critique. That being said…
What do you think when you see that label?
This person knows the topic well? You can consider this person an authority? This person is popular on LinkedIn? This person creates unique and special content? LinkedIn recommends this person?
This is what this label implies, doesn’t it?
Well, far from any of those! Those would be the Blue “Top LinkedIn voice” labels.
The orange ones only mean that this person was invited to a new LinkedIn community posts feature and provided enough comments there to be automatically granted the label.
It’s grinded, not earned.
However, being an almost 90k follower creator, I almost felt compelled to get this label, just to reaffirm to any visitor that I really have something sensible to say about Product Management…
Listen, there is nothing wrong with the label, not the blue, not the orange one.
It’s actually quite cool to have a gamification goal that incentivizes the user to contribute to articles.
However, the way it’s phrased can lead to people who never help, say Product Manager position, suddenly becoming LinkedIn’s Top Voice of the position…
Would transparent “Top Product Management article contributor” be as appealing? I don’t think so, but it’s as accurate as a paid “verified” badge on X/Twitter…
So what went wrong here, from a Product standpoint? Either the goal of driving traffic to the articles took over common sense (An analog of a marketing campaign that hits its number of acquisitions goal, however providing users with 0 lifetime value) or it’s a poor copy decision. Either way, I believe LinkedIn should set the record straight.
What do you think? Do you think this is a bad product decision? Perhaps there are benefits to obtaining this label this way that I don’t see. Sound off in the comments :)
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