LinkedIN
&
Economic
Codes

Liviu Poenaru, Jan. 9, 2025

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LinkedIn, as a professional networking platform, stands apart from visually oriented and lifestyle-focused platforms like Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok. However, despite its more serious tone and emphasis on professional matters, LinkedIn operates within a framework deeply shaped by economic codes and values. Designed to facilitate career development, networking, and job opportunities, the platform also serves as a marketplace for advertisements and sponsored content promoting professional products and services. These economic imperatives are woven into LinkedIn’s structure, influencing user behavior from how profiles are crafted to the types of content prioritized. The manifestation of these codes varies depending on users' goals, industries, and strategies, yet their presence is undeniably pervasive.

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While LinkedIn places less emphasis on visual content compared to other platforms, economic codes still infiltrate its ecosystem in significant ways. Sponsored content, for instance, often highlights tools, training programs, and services aimed at enhancing productivity and aligning with professional ambitions. This reflects broader economic values that prioritize efficiency, skill acquisition, and adaptability to market demands. Similarly, the tone and language prevalent in LinkedIn profiles, job descriptions, and posts mirror the corporate world's expectations, reinforcing a culture of productivity and results-driven performance.

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Interactions on LinkedIn—such as endorsements, recommendations, and likes—are also shaped by economic codes. Unlike the social currency of other platforms, these features hold professional weight, influencing how expertise and credibility are perceived. Users often engage strategically, endorsing skills or liking posts that align with their career aspirations or enhance their professional reputation. This dynamic highlights the transactional nature of LinkedIn interactions, where engagement often serves career advancement rather than fostering genuine connection. The platform's emphasis on professional milestones, such as promotions, certifications, and achievements, further underscores its alignment with economic success and recognition.

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LinkedIn's algorithms and content presentation amplify this focus on economic values, prioritizing posts and profiles that reflect achievement, job opportunities, and discussions on productivity. This algorithmic bias creates a feedback loop, pressuring users to conform to these standards, even if it means curating an idealized professional persona that may not align with their authentic self. Such pressures can lead to a culture of continuous self-optimization, where users feel compelled to project an image of perpetual growth and relevance, often at the expense of their mental well-being.

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According to the Financial Times, LinkedIn has incorporated AI and gamification techniques to encourage users to engage with the platform on a daily basis. These strategies are designed to boost user interaction and align with the broader trend among social media platforms of employing behavioral reinforcement mechanisms to enhance retention and sustain engagement.

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Gamification techniques involve applying game design elements to non-game contexts, such as professional networking platforms like LinkedIn, to enhance user engagement and foster a more habitual interaction. By incorporating elements such as streaks, leaderboards, rewards, and progress tracking, platforms aim to tap into users’ intrinsic motivation to achieve, compete, and collaborate. On LinkedIn, for instance, gamification might manifest through daily challenges, skill assessments, or puzzles that reward users with badges, points, or public recognition for their efforts. These techniques work by leveraging psychological principles such as goal-setting, positive reinforcement, and the dopamine-driven reward loop, which makes users feel accomplished and incentivized to return regularly.

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The mechanisms driving gamification’s success lie in creating a sense of achievement, community, and competition. For example, leaderboards encourage users to compare their performance with peers, fostering a competitive spirit that pushes continued engagement. Streaks, which reward consecutive days of activity, create a psychological commitment to maintain consistency, often triggering a fear of missing out (FOMO) if a streak is broken. Progress bars, such as those used to track profile completeness on LinkedIn, appeal to users’ desire to reach 100% completion, subtly encouraging them to provide more data or interact with the platform further. These mechanisms not only make the experience engaging but also align user behavior with the platform’s goals, such as increased activity, data sharing, and prolonged time spent online, ultimately benefiting both the users and the platform’s business objectives.

 

 

In addition to gamification, LinkedIn has leveraged AI to generate career advice articles. By collaborating with specialists, the platform produces content tailored to users' professional development needs. This AI-driven approach not only provides personalized guidance but also enhances the relevance and value of the content available on LinkedIn. The integration of AI and gamification reflects LinkedIn's commitment to evolving its platform to meet the dynamic needs of its user base, aiming to maintain its competitive edge in the social media industry.

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The study, "LinkedIn or LinkedOut? How Social Networking Sites Are Reshaping the Labor Market," highlights how social networking sites (SNS) like LinkedIn and Facebook, as labor market intermediaries, create winners and losers in ways often disconnected from merit. This disconnect arises because the algorithms and filtering processes employed by these platforms prioritize visibility, networking strategies, and online presentation over objective qualifications or job-specific competencies. Workers who are adept at curating a digital persona that aligns with platform logic—such as optimizing profiles, engaging strategically with content, and leveraging endorsements—gain visibility and opportunities, while others, regardless of their qualifications, are filtered out due to less polished online presence or limited engagement. Furthermore, this digital mediation exerts immense pressure on all workers to conform to the norms dictated by SNS platforms. Beyond maintaining professional credentials, individuals must continuously manage their digital identities and participate in performative networking, often blurring the lines between professional and private life. This perpetual demand for alignment with the SNS-mediated labor market introduces a new layer of career management, shifting the focus from substantive achievements to marketable self-presentation.

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The struggle on LinkedIn, as detailed in van Dijck's (2013) analysis, revolves around the tension between user agency, platform design, and external demands from employers in shaping online identities. LinkedIn’s interface is meticulously crafted to prioritize professional self-promotion, encouraging users to present themselves as ideal candidates in a competitive labor market. This design aligns with the platform’s logic of connectivity, where endorsements, recommendations, and profile optimization are not just features but imperatives for visibility and opportunity. However, this process imposes constraints, as users must navigate a narrow framework that often prioritizes uniformity and marketability over authenticity. The platform’s narrative-driven architecture compels individuals to package their careers into linear, success-oriented stories that may omit the complexities of their professional journeys. Furthermore, the interface mediates a broader power struggle: while users aim to showcase their individuality, employers and LinkedIn’s algorithms filter these identities to fit predefined professional standards, perpetuating a cycle where the presentation of the self is dictated by external expectations rather than personal expression.

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While LinkedIn projects a more serious and professional environment than other social platforms, it remains heavily influenced by the same economic imperatives. These codes shape the content users consume, the connections they form, and the narratives they construct about their careers and identities. To use LinkedIn effectively, users must approach the platform with a critical awareness of these underlying influences. By engaging mindfully, they can align their participation with their genuine professional goals while resisting the superficial metrics and market-driven pressures that dominate the platform.

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