Jayde Powell started her social media career over a decade ago, working for wellness brands and big name companies like Delta Airlines. She never imagined she’d make money creating content as herself — especially not on LinkedIn.
Powell started posting observations from her experience in corporate America on the job search-platform after she noticed other creators were shifting away X.com, formerly known as Twitter, at the end of 2022. Within a year, the posts started gaining traction and catching the attention of past clients.
When the social media management platform Sprout Social, offered $1,000 for Powell to write a sponsored post promoting their upcoming event on her personal LinkedIn page, she says, it was a light-bulb moment. Powell — whose day job is running her Atlanta-based social media strategy agency, The Em Dash Co. — realized she could leverage the skills she used to write for corporate companies on her own accounts.
The epiphany has helped her grow her career and earn money in unexpected ways. This year, she has made $27,000 posting content as Jayde I. Powell on LinkedIn, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.
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As a solo business owner, that cash has come in handy. The money she earns from LinkedIn helps her pay her mortgage and utilities bills, and offset monthly business expenses, while she grows her own company, she says. Powell has made $32,700 through The Em Dash Co. and another $2,750 from other social media content so far this year.
The combined income hasn’t yet surpassed her $95,000 annual salary from her last full-time job at wellness beverage company Sunwink, she says — but it outpaces the $52,100 she earned solely from The Em Dash Co. last year. It’s also slightly higher than the median annual salary for social media managers in the U.S. ($60,000 a year, according to job recruiting site Glassdoor).
“Having brand partnerships [on LinkedIn] has really saved me and allowed me to pay my bills,” Powell, 31, tells CNBC Make It. “There have been times where I haven’t been able to pull in new client work [at the Em Dash Co.].”
Here’s how Powell developed her voice on social media and leveraged it into a lucrative LinkedIn side hustle.
‘Influencer marketing is very hot’ because ‘people trust people, not brands’
Before Powell built her audience of more than 19,000 followers on LinkedIn, her specialty was making content for X.com, she says.
Her posts, which often reflected her personal experiences at work and prompted conversations among other users, regularly attracted hundreds of thousands of likes and reposts.
Looking for more flexibility than traditional corporate jobs offered, Powell started freelancing full-time and launched The Em Dash Co. in October 2022.
Her secret to going viral revolved around mastering one skill, Powell says: marrying corporate content with a conversational tone.
The key is injecting enough personality to make people feel like they’re talking to a real person. “Consumers are more savvy than ever; they know when they’re being marketed to,” Powell says. “It feels inauthentic when brands are like, ‘Buy this product,’ over and over again. The messaging becomes boring.”
That’s a big reason why “influencer marketing is very hot right now,” she adds.
Advertisers are on pace to spend more than $8.1 billion on influencer marketing this year, a 16% increase from 2023, according to estimates from eMarketer.
“People trust people, not brands,” Powell says. “Creators provide a level of personality, comfort and familiarity that brands just cannot accomplish.”
More than two-thirds of U.S. consumers say they are more likely to trust the recommendation of an influencer, friend or family member than they are to be swayed by content coming directly from a brand, according to a 2023 survey from PR firm Matter Communications.
Powell has worked to translate her personal voice from X to LinkedIn, where the tone remains “unserious,” she says. She tweaks her content to fit trends and issues young professionals experience.
Becoming a LinkedIn influencer
After her first LinkedIn post for Sprout Social, Powell began seeking out clients for her personal page. She did it the same way she found corporate clients for The Em Dash Co.: She made a list of the tools she used as an influencer — like Teachable, where she hosts a webinar series — and slid into the platforms’ DMs, she says.
Businesses know their customers want to hear from real people, Powell says. That’s why she believes the income from her LinkedIn side hustle could soon outpace her solo agency.
At the same time, Powell — who now works about 25 hours per week for The Em Dash Co. and 10 hours per week on LinkedIn — says that running a business and a side hustle by herself has pros and cons.
“The traditional 9-to-5, 40 hours-a-week model is a bit much for me,” Powell says. “I like having more flexibility and the freedom to adapt my schedule … but it can be scary in those moments where you’re like, ‘When is my next paycheck coming? When is my next invoice going to process?'”
Powell, working remotely from her home in Atlanta
Diandra Thompson
Still, after her unexpected success promoting brands as herself on LinkedIn, Powell is strongly considering shifting her focus to her personal content.
Her next goal: hit 100,000 followers on the platform by the end of 2025.
“I’ve just really been taking this platform so seriously, so I kind of want to see the fruits of my labor in that way,” Powell says. “I would also love to get to a place eventually where I can do this full time, [and] be a LinkedIn influencer.”
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