May 29, 2019
Back in 2011, LinkedIn announced that it was hiring Dan Roth, who was then the editor of Fortune.com, to serve as its editor in chief. Given LinkedIn’s then role as mostly a repository for online resumes, the move had many scratching their heads.
Over the next few years, though, Roth’s team would roll out a number of editorial products. It started by curating outside news sources, sending LinkedIn users to articles published by business publications like The Wall Street Journal and Business Insider. Then it rolled out a blogging platform that was only available to influential users like Richard Branson and Bill Gates. Eventually, it then opened up its blogging platform to all users.
During all this time, LinkedIn
was steadily hiring journalists from some of the world’s top
business publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes,
and Fortune. Today, it has an editorial staff of 60, and these
editors are responsible for everything from curating user content
to producing their own original reporting.
I
recently sat down with Linkedin senior editor at large Isabelle
Roughol. I asked her about how LinkedIn editors go about curating
content, how they distribute this content on LinkedIn, and how they
approach original reporting projects.