Almost a year ago, LinkedIn made an unusual play for a site that’s made its reputation around business.
It tossed games into the content mix, further enticing over 1 billion users to make LinkedIn a daily stop in their workday.
And it hit a homerun.
Nicholas Pezarro, senior product manager of games at LinkedIn, says 84% of players return the next day, and 80% come back to play a week later.
But the content strategy is more than a game. It’s a standout example of personalization using first-party data and delighting the audience with the unexpected.
In an interview with the Content Marketing Institute, Nicholas explained the thinking behind LinkedIn’s strategy, who’s playing the games, the role of personalized leaderboards, and the expansion plans.
Games play engaging role
Over 100 years ago, newspapers published the first crossword puzzles, giving readers the opportunity to do more than passively read the publication. Though newspaper readership has dwindled, people’s interest in puzzle games has not.
Remember Wordle? Within weeks of its public release in 2021, 300,000 people were playing it, and within a year, millions were trying to figure out the five-letter word of the day. The big audience attracted the interest of The New York Times, which paid a reported seven figures to acquire the game (and, more importantly, the audience).
For LinkedIn, the gaming revolution arrived because of the workplace evolution.
“We study the world’s best workplaces every year, and one core cultural trait that’s been on the rise is the value of having fun,” Nicholas says. “When colleagues have fun together, they build stronger relationships, think more creatively, and collaborate better.”
LinkedIn offers 5 games
In May 2024, LinkedIn launched three games:
Pinpoint — Players identify a common category with as few clues as possible.
Crossclimb — Players complete a word ladder by solving clues and arranging the rows so each word differs by only one letter.
Queens — Players place a crown in each row, column, and color region in a grid without any crowns touching each other.
In October, it added Tango, a logic-based puzzle game where players fill a six-by-six grid with two different symbols (usually a sun and moon) to ensure an equal number of each symbol in rows and columns.
Nicholas says Queens and Tango emerged as fan favorites, proving logic games are a big hit.
In March, Zip joined the lineup. It’s branded as a warm-up game for the harder logic puzzles. Users must connect numbers in order by drawing a path through a grid while ensuring every cell is used.
The game lineup takes up prized screen real estate on the right side of a member’s home page, just below the news.
Cultivate connections with single-player games
All the games are played individually, but they ground a connection strategy.
LinkedIn uses the first-party data already provided in the players’ professional profiles to let them know who among their connections plays and how their solving time compares to others in their network (and among all players). This screenshot for my Crossclimb game last week shows my time was better than half of my connections and the profile images of five out of the nine connections who played it.
LinkedIn also uses a member’s profile to show leaderboards with results from their company and alma mater, adding another layer of friendly competition.
LinkedIn also displays comparisons to others with similar titles and makes it easy for users to post, send, or copy their results on their widget screen, as shown in this screenshot:
Nicholas says game personalization acts as a conversation starter as players compare scores with colleagues, strategize with industry peers, or spark alma mater rivalries.
"While the discussions may start with scores and strategies, they often lead to bigger professional conversations — making LinkedIn games a fun and engaging way to build relationships in a professional setting,” he explains.
Gen Z is the largest audience of players. Geographically, the United States leads in game play followed by India and the United Kingdom (tied for second place). Other countries in the top 10 include Canada, Germany, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Spain, and Brazil.
Encourage people to keep playing
Competition can motivate repeat visits, but LinkedIn has other strategies to spur return play. Under a member’s notifications, it not only lets the user know a new game is available but also shares a personalized fact or connection.
In this image, my LinkedIn notifications encourage me to beat my average score for Crossclimb and my best record for Tango. For Pinpoint and Queens, the notifications name one of my connections who played it alongside the total number of my connections who already did it.
Nicholas says LinkedIn has also introduced new features like streak freezes to help members keep their progress even on busy days when they may not be able to play. A LinkedIn games widget is also available for easy access on mobile devices.
As for the future, LinkedIn sees no end to its business-can-be-fun strategy. “We’re always listening to member feedback and exploring new ways to keep the experience fresh. Stay tuned for more games and features designed to spark connections and engagement,” Nicholas says.
Play your own content game
Though LinkedIn has a mega audience to keep engaged, organizations of all sizes can adopt the LinkedIn games strategy (and you don’t even need games to do it). Follow these tips:
Give your audience a reason to return to consume your content. By publishing one version of the game a day, LinkedIn uses a finite strategy to cultivate an eagerness in players to come back the next day. No binge-playing to see here.
Use what you know about your audience to deliver a personalized experience that they’ll appreciate. LinkedIn uses its first-party data to create competitive leaderboards based on employers, alma maters, and job roles.
Don’t treat your audience as a cohesive, homogeneous group. LinkedIn’s five games offer choices of difficulty levels to accommodate players of all interests and skill levels.
Gaming is a no-brainer engagement strategy, but it must be the right content for the right audience at the right time. LinkedIn’s done that. What about your brand?
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