Invented by Twitter, now X, the once-hallowed blue tick was the internet populace’s first badge of honour. Originally meant to verify accounts of newsmakers and trendsetters on a platform rife with trolls, the blue (and eventually black, gold, every other ‘cool’ coloured) badge began to float around every social media platform, as a mark of validation, public trust, and kudos. Linked is the latest in that line.

As examined before, LinkedIn is becoming the serious social media platform of choice, a fact especially not lost on b2b advertisers, especially going by LinkedIn Ads revenues. As more and increasingly varied industry stakeholders, policymakers, brands, businesses, and the men and women who run them, connect more over the platform, LinkedIn’s Top Voices badges are suddenly en vogue.

When contacted, LinkedIn told exchange4media, “Members on the platform can earn one of two versions of Top Voices badging on their profile, either as part of the LinkedIn Top Voices or the Community Top Voices programs.”

“The blue LinkedIn Top Voice badge is invitation only, featuring senior-level experts and leaders. The light gold Community Top Voice badge can be earned through significant contributions to collaborative articles for specific skills. To keep the Community badge beyond 60 days, members must stay in the top 5% of contributors, ensuring their input is relevant and valuable,” they added.

And as the briefest glance on your own LinkedIn FYP might tell you, these articles are being pushed more and more into your feed, even as the number of badges on profiles of those you’re connected with or follow has begun to inch up. And as you may have never ended up getting the original blue tick mark on an ex platform, how can you not but help reach out for this particular new gold star for grownups?

However, this strategy may not be working out exactly as some might have hoped. With some other platforms having already tarnished said badge of honour by allowing them to be purchased rather than earned, others are saying even the latter are increasingly becoming hollow.

As previously reported by exchange4media, Rammohan Sundaram, President - Integrated Media at DDB Mudra Group wrote on his LinkedIn post last week. “I recently let go off a badge on LinkedIn because I realised I don’t need vanity validation. I was given “Top Brand Management Voice” - first few days I was thrilled and then I saw at least a 1000 posts that had these vanity validations. Smart strategy for continuous engagement for LinkedIn. It works for them because they realise the world is full of people who needed validations. I didn’t post anything for 3 months and then it disappeared! The reason it disappeared was I was not ready to dance to the tune of LinkedIn on topics where they needed my free inputs for their engagement even if it meant there were a whole host of people trying to get a badge.”

In comments on the post, and in similar posts, other users, industry seniors all, also noted they had done the same. A senior ad tech industry veteran, who was invited to join that elite echelon, when contacted told this reporter, “I really haven't used it that much, because it’s basically one responding to random questions that LinkedIn sends your way and that's how you earn the badges.”

However, LinkedIn further told exchange4media, “Since launching Collaborative articles, we’ve seen over 10 million contributions, and a 270+% increase in members reading them since September 2023.”

And from personal experience, as well as asking others in our network, we can confirm that this is the case, as everyone reports being interested in what their contacts have to say on a shared topic of interest, and sharing their own views.

And perhaps, just perhaps, try to get invited to get badged up, by answering questions, if asked, even as AI algorithms tracking engagement, subject matter expertise and answers to questions. But, as we were also told, “Now with ChatGPT; I don't know how many of those responses are real.”

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