Jon Stojan
In a remarkable and somewhat unexpected shift, high-profile celebrities—especially those hailing from the realms of music and entertainment—are increasingly gravitating toward LinkedIn to enhance their personal and business brands.
Historically dominated by corporate professionals, entrepreneurs, and executives, LinkedIn is now experiencing an influx of entertainment figures who are keen to exploit the platform’s unique potential for thought leadership, networking, and sophisticated brand expansion.
One such expert ushering in this evolution is Samantha McKenna, the founder and CEO of #samsales, a leading consultancy in LinkedIn strategy. McKenna’s career exemplifies her expertise in this space; she boasts nearly 15 years of experience in enterprise sales, during which she has broken over 13 sales records. Moreover, McKenna has earned a coveted spot as a LinkedIn brand ambassador and LinkedIn Sales Insider, distinguishing her as one of the platform’s most influential voices. With an impressive following nearing 100,000 LinkedIn users, she is an authoritative figure who has been shaping LinkedIn’s narrative for over a decade.
“There’s been an uptick for sometime around the different reach and audience one can build on LinkedIn, but we started to see the climb in early 2022,” McKenna remarks. She notes the growing number of celebrities leveraging LinkedIn to tap into a more refined, professional audience.
Her insights are not just theoretical; under her leadership, #samsales has scaled to multi-million dollar revenues and continues to see double-digit growth annually. McKenna’s deep understanding of LinkedIn’s algorithms, content strategies, and audience engagement tactics has positioned her as a go-to expert for celebrities and high-profile individuals looking to establish their presence on the platform.
While platforms like Instagram and TikTok have long been the preferred avenues for celebrities to engage with their fanbases, LinkedIn offers a distinct and compelling audience—one that is more corporate, intellectually curious, and poised to take a celebrity’s non-entertainment ventures seriously. McKenna articulates that LinkedIn’s perception has undergone a significant transformation in recent years: “The masses are finally understanding what many of us long knew: it’s a site that offers opportunity to build community, demonstrate thought leadership, and influence buyers, hiring managers, and those hiring for board seats alike.”
This reimagining of LinkedIn’s utility is especially enticing for celebrities with diversified interests, such as entrepreneurship, philanthropy, or venture capital. “Celebrities often have varied interests outside of the core of what they’re known for, ranging from beauty lines, to venture capital, to philanthropy; LinkedIn offers an incredible chance to capitalize on the brand recognition that individual already has while marketing themselves and their brand and experiences in a completely different light.”
She adds, “The differentiator isn’t in what the artist does as a celebrity, it’s in what they want to achieve on LinkedIn. They come to LinkedIn to build a different brand – usually as an entrepreneur, philanthropist, venture capitalist – so as you they start to create content, we ask them the same question we ask everyone: who is your audience and what are we trying to convince them of?”
McKenna underscores that LinkedIn furnishes these individuals with a platform to showcase multifaceted dimensions of their identity, thereby leveraging their established brand recognition in a new and impactful context. The strategic use of LinkedIn by major entertainment figures exemplifies how celebrities are successfully engaging with a more discerning, business-oriented audience.
McKenna says, “Tech celebrities have always had a voice here, from Mark Cuban to Bill Gates to Arianna Huffington, but then you started to see Snoop, Alex Pall, Kevin Durant, and Rainn Wilson pop up with profiles and content, and you could see how they saw an opportunity to show up in a different way to a different audience.”
However, establishing a formidable presence on LinkedIn entails far more than simply creating a profile. McKenna stresses the paramount importance of consistency and the delivery of value-driven content. “The first key is to show up consistently… and demonstrate that you have value to share,” she advises. In stark contrast to other social media platforms, where entertainment often takes precedence, LinkedIn’s user base expects content that educates, inspires, or provides deep insights.
She adds, “Followers won’t just port over from other sites. It still takes work to build an audience here, so having a team like ours that manages the full back-end administration of your account is key. Without that support, the connection requests and DMs will immediately get out of control, and you’ll wind up missing the ‘leads’ you’re here to capture, whether that’s awareness to a specific audience, raising capital, raising charitable funds, or finding new companies to invest in.”
For celebrities, this necessitates a fundamentally different approach to LinkedIn compared to platforms like Instagram or Twitter. The objective transcends merely accruing followers; it involves engaging a specific, professional audience with content that resonates within the context of their industries. “The LinkedIn audience does not wish to be told or sold—they seek to learn or be inspired,” McKenna elucidates. This approach requires a meticulously crafted strategy that includes a sophisticated understanding of LinkedIn’s algorithms, the curation of platform-specific content, and efficient management of account administration.
McKenna’s own experience underscores the importance of a strategic, well-executed approach on LinkedIn. Under her stewardship, her consultancy has successfully managed LinkedIn profiles for numerous clients, some of which are notable within the music industry and other forms of entertainment, leading to astonishing results:
Her team’s ability to match an individual’s voice highly accurately has led to content that resonates deeply and inspires countless individuals across the platform.
As more celebrities become cognizant of LinkedIn’s strategic advantages, McKenna anticipates that this trend will continue its upward momentum. The platform offers a distinctive avenue to broaden their influence beyond traditional entertainment spheres, delving into business and philanthropy with greater gravitas.
The accelerating presence of celebrities on LinkedIn may signal the dawn of a new era in personal branding—one that melds the allure of fame with the substantive authority of professional influence. McKenna’s insights offer a masterclass in how entertainment figures can adeptly navigate this transition, transforming their celebrity status into a powerful instrument for business growth and thought leadership.