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LinkedIn wants its users sharing more content, so it created a new app to help make that happen.
On Monday, the professional network launched Elevate, a standalone app that allows companies to share content directly to specific groups of employees, who can then pass it along to their own networks.
The idea is that employees of a company have broader reach — and more clout — than the companies themselves. For example, an engineering blog post shared by one of Google’s engineers will appear more authentic than if it’s shared by Google.
LinkedIn found that this kind of re-sharing by employees drives more “Likes” and profile views for both parties than if the company just shared on its own.
So while Elevate may help employees get more profile views of their own, companies appear benefit the most since they get more traffic on the content they want shared. Part of the product is an analytics tool, so an employer can measure how articles shared by its employees are helping drive things like views on job postings.
That’s why Elevate isn’t a free product. LinkedIn is rolling it out to a small group of paid-pilot companies this week, and the product should be more widely available by Q3, according to Will Sun, a LinkedIn product manager. Sun said LinkedIn is still experimenting with the price.
The launch of Elevate isn’t a surprise. Re/code reported in January that the professional network was working on a product of this nature. Elevate fits into a broader mission that LinkedIn has to get more people sharing and, in turn, make more money through things like advertising.
In the last year, LinkedIn has expanded its publishing tool and redesigned its homepage to ensure that you see more stories. It also just acquired Lynda.com, which has a massive library of video tutorials that you can bet will soon be in your LinkedIn feed.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
