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With more people now getting their news from social media than from traditional newspapers, it’s leading to a number of fascinating consequences for how we view the world around us. For one, it is blurring the line between “fact” and “opinion.” And it is leading to the realization that the way we report the news always comes with some form of built-in bias.
As a result, the op-ed column – long a fixture of any reputable newspaper – appears to be going extinct. At one time, these op-eds were the most popular way to disseminate opinions in order to influence views on particular topics. If there was a war going on in some far-flung destination in the world, for example, people were writing op-ed columns either for or against it. And if the government was changing its economic or social policies, there was a good chance that the thought leaders of the day were weighing in on the matter.
Which social media platform is best for the modern op-ed?
So that leads to an interesting question: If newspaper op-ed columns are going the way of the Dodo bird, then which social media platform is best positioned to take over as the preeminent place to read and hear new opinions? The answer might surprise you, because it’s not Facebook, X, or Instagram. And it’s certainly not TikTok, which has a way of dumbing down just about any issue.
Instead, the answer is LinkedIn. Surprised? LinkedIn appears to be gaining a lot of traction from top CEOs and business influencers, who are searching for a new way to get their voices out there. And the early results appear to be encouraging. For example, LinkedIn has found that posts from corporate CEOs tend to get 8 times the number of impressions and 4 times the amount of engagement as other posts. In short, when a bigwig CEO has something to say on LinkedIn, people listen.
Companies that are turning to LinkedIn include Ford, Spotify, Delta, Pfizer, and Starbucks. All of these are huge companies that have the potential to impact both the economic landscape and the overall cultural zeitgeist. For example, if a top Pfizer executive is posting about vaccines on LinkedIn, you can bet that is going to have huge consequences later down the road. And if Ford executives are posting about electric cars or a new EV strategy, you can guarantee that is going to impact what is going on in the overall economy.
But what about Facebook or X?
Several years ago, the social media platform of choice might have been Facebook or X. Arguably, they still have much bigger reach (in terms of overall audience size) than LinkedIn, and they also are much more popular with users on a daily basis. It’s likely that you’re checking out your Facebook or X social media feed on a daily basis. The same is not true for LinkedIn. Usually, you’re only going to LinkedIn for serious matters – like getting a new job or finding a way to get a promotion at work.
This might be oversimplifying things, but Facebook and X are where you go for breaking news, “hot takes,” and viral trends. LinkedIn is where you go for longer-form discussion pieces and thought-provoking articles. And that might be why a post from a top corporate executive on LinkedIn can get millions of impressions at a time. The people going to LinkedIn are in the right mindset to hear what they have to say.
Going forward, it will be interesting to see how the op-ed column continues to evolve and change. That’s especially the case now, given the growing use of artificial intelligence to create content at the drop of a hat. With a single prompt and just a few seconds of your time, an AI chatbot can create a relatively sophisticated argument for any topic imaginable. Who knows? Maybe sometime in the future, AI-powered chatbots will be telling us mere mortals what to think about everything, and not just the big issues of the day.
