As Facebook veers from news, LinkedIn is expanding its operation

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LinkedIn has hired Bloomberg deals editor Devin Banerjee to lead its finance coverage, LinkedIn editor-in-chief Dan Roth told Business Insider.
LinkedIn is also expanding its newsroom globally, said Roth, having hired new editors and writers in France, Germany, Australia, Brazil and the UK in recent months.
LinkedIn sees itself as a key player in the business news sector, because it is not besieged by fake news, Roth told Business Insider.

As Facebook distances itself from news, leaving casualties in its wake, LinkedIn is charging ahead in its embrace.

The professional social network has hired Bloomberg deals editor Devin Banerjee to lead its finance coverage, LinkedIn editor-in-chief Dan Roth told Business Insider. Banerjee helped oversee coverage of mergers and acquisitions in North America at Bloomberg, and tweeted about his departure from Bloomberg Thursday.

LinkedIn is also continuing to expand its newsroom globally, said Roth, having hired or with plans to hire new editors and writers in France, Germany, Australia, Brazil and the UK in recent months. LinkedIn's editorial function currently has nearly 40 members around the globe.

For Roth, it's just business as usual. LinkedIn has been publishing both original and curated content for years, tapping its network of influencers as well as its own steadily growing team of in-house journalists, who "create, curate as well as cultivate content" in their respective verticals. (It opened its publishing platform widely in 2014).

"Our mission is to give professionals the news and views they need to talk about the things that matter in their industries," said Roth. "We're just continuing to build what we've been building all along, and are now leveraging our playbook to expand globally and fill roles similar to the ones we already have in the US ."

But as it furthers its own publishing ambitions, LinkedIn continues to view other publishers and media companies as friends — not foes.

In 2017, for instance, LinkedIn overhauled its news feed, added analytics tools for publishers and began testing a trending topics module, leading to traffic spikes for several business-focused publishers.

It also partners with select publishers (including Business Insider) on early access to new tools, and helps ensure that relevant professional content is shared.

LinkedIn's rationale is that other publishers' content, after all, is yet another way of furthering its mission of helping people have conversations on a range of professional topics that matter to them. Publishers, in turn, are able to surface their content to more people that are likely to be interested and extend the conversation around specific topics and issues.

Roth recognizes that this is a markedly different approach — especially at a time when they have been snubbed by other platforms like Facebook. But he believes that LinkedIn is poised to win in the news sector, because it is not besieged by fake news.

"LinkedIn is unique, because your professional identity is tied to the comments you make and the posts you write," he said. "There is a bit of self-policing and automatic guardrails in place, and people like seeing them enforced."

LinkedIn may have grand ambitions, but it accounts for a barely any referral traffic for publishers — less than half of 1 percent of all global referral traffic, according to Parsely data.

However, engagements on LinkedIn content have increased fourfold in the last two years, according to NewsWhip.

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