LinkedIn rolled out its equivalent of Instagram’s ‘Paid Partnership’ tag, called ‘Brand Partnership’, in 2023. But it started making inroads only in 2024.
As recently as January 14, 2025, The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) came down upon influencers on LinkedIn not adding disclosures to their promotional posts, and added, “Unlike other platforms, LinkedIn lacks built-in tools for disclosure, requiring influencers to manually include terms like ‘Ad’ or ‘Partnership.’ Non-compliance has led to professionals reporting suspected posts to ASCI, which has prompted further investigations.”
Recently, I noticed a couple of digital influencers in India using LinkedIn’s ‘Brand Partnership’ tag as the only form of disclosure and argue that it complies with ASCI’s Guidelines for Influencer Advertising in Digital Media.
For context, the ‘Brand Partnership’ tag most definitely fulfils LinkedIn’s own need for user disclosure on paid promotions. But LinkedIn rules/guidelines are very different from the ones set down by The Advertising Standards Council of India.
Allow me to showcase how using only the ‘Brand Partnership’ label of LinkedIn does not adhere to the guidelines set by The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI).
Let me start with what this LinkedIn ‘Brand Partnership’ label looks like.
The way to enable the tag is shown to you in a drop-down when you start a new post, either on the mobile app or on the web version.
Do note that LinkedIn’s own help page mentions this: “Please make sure to check any applicable laws and guidance in your location around disclosures for posts like this” beyond simply using Linkedin ‘Brand Partnership’ tag.
Once you enable that tag and write your post, how does that look like?
So, if Matt’s actual bio is:
‘Social Media Consultant & Industry Expert | Keynote Speaker | Clients: Google, UK Government, Meta & More | As Seen In… NYT, WSJ, BBC News + Netflix’s Depp vs. Heard’
… it becomes, after adding LinkedIn’s in-platform disclosure,
‘Brand partnership • Social Media Consultant & Indu…’
Matt’s ‘brand partnership’ posts also offer an excellent template for how to do paid posts right!
Observe the following:
1. There is a clear, attractive hook/headline right at the beginning.
2. Then, an empty line. Then, a second headline with [AD] clearly called out.
3. Why is [AD] not in the headline? Because the headline is what attracts audiences, just like a newspaper headline. That induces them to click on ‘read more’ when they see Matt’s post on their timelines. At this point, they can, if they are observant, see LinkedIn’s own ‘Brand Partnership’ tag appended to his bio.
4. But Matt doesn’t depend ONLY on LinkedIn’s in-platform tool. He adds [AD] in 2 places on his own – at the beginning of this post and again, at the end of his post. The intent is crystal clear – he does not want anyone to believe that it is his organic, unaided opinion.
For context, let me compare it with Instagram’s ‘Paid Partnership’ tag, just to show the way both platforms have executed the display of this label (differently).
Now, allow me to pause the LinkedIn context and move to the guidelines for digital influencers by ASCI. The full document is available here (PDF).
The relevant part in the guidelines is in page 3. Here are the appropriate parts:
1. Disclosure must be upfront and prominent so that it is not missed by an average consumer
2. It should be placed in a manner that is hard to miss.
3. Disclosures are likely to be missed if they appear only on an ABOUT ME or profile page, or bios, at the end of posts or videos, or anywhere that requires a person to click MORE.
4. Using a platform’s disclosure tool should be considered in addition to an influencer’s own disclosure.
Let us assess LinkedIn’s implementation of the disclosure under the ‘Brand Partnership’ label against ASCI’s guidelines meant for India.
1. Is it ‘upfront and prominent’?
I’d argue that it is absolutely NOT ‘upfront and prominent’.
Is it part of the post? No. It is above the portion where the post starts. But that’s how even Instagram has implemented it – above the actual portion where the text starts, though the wording is a lot more clear and specific – ‘Paid partnership with X’.
2. Is it ‘hard to miss’?
Of course not. It is very easy to miss because it is not part of the actual content shared at all. But I’d file this under ‘my opinion’ and your opinion may differ, understandably.
3. The point about ‘bios’
This is a clincher, though… and beyond just my opinion. ASCI states, “Disclosures are likely to be missed if they appear only on… (among others) bios”.
Now, observe where LinkedIn’s ‘Brand Partnership’ label appears.
I have already established that it is not part of the post. So, where is it, really?
The ‘Brand Partnership’ label is actually on the LinkedIn bio (what LinkedIn calls ‘Headline’, which is very different from the longer ‘About’ section below in the profile).
The ‘Headline’ (or Bio) section gives LinkedIn users 220 characters (on the desktop; and 240 characters if you add/edit it via the mobile app) to write a crisp version of what they are working on/good at/interested in.
However, another LinkedIn user X can only see about 60-75 characters when they see posts by the user Y on their timeline. Only when they visit that user X’s LinkedIn profile can they see the full 220/240 character bio right under the name (besides the more detailed ‘About’ further below in the profile).
So, for all practical purposes, the headline IS a bio because that is what becomes visible in other people’s timelines (which is different from going to someone’s profile specifically). We see posts by LinkedIn users on our timeline.
Now, where does the ‘Brand Partnership’ label append itself as per LinkedIn’s implementation? At the beginning of the bio! It literally pushes the bio to the right and places itself as the start of the bio.
This is vastly different from Instagram’s ‘Paid partnership with…’ tag. Why? Because there is no bio visibility in individual Instagram posts – Instagram posts only show the user handle. But a shortened bio is clearly visible on LinkedIn timelines, right below the user’s name.
So, when ASCI calls out that “Disclosures are likely to be missed if they appear only on… bios”, going by LinkedIn’s current implementation of ‘Brand Partnership’ tag, it is adequately likely to be missed, mainly because it is above the actual post and it is also part of the bio and not the post.
To be fair, the influencer is not manually adding this disclosure to the bio. LinkedIn is. But the end result is what matters. ASCI doesn’t say, ‘Disclosures shouldn’t be added only on bios’. It says, ‘Disclosures are likely to be missed if they appear only on… bios’. And it does appear in the bio.
4. ‘In addition to’!
ASCI also says that ‘Using a platform’s disclosure tool should be considered in addition to an influencer’s own disclosure‘. This makes it obvious that a mere platform-level disclosure is not enough, but should be in addition to.
Meaning: Adding a ‘collab’ or any of the other options on ASCI’s guide is the right way to add a disclosure ALONG WITH the platform’s own label.
5. Deceptive phrasing
There is another major issue with LinkedIn’s execution, and not specific to ASCI’s guidelines. The phrase ‘Brand Partnership’ itself is deceptive. Why? Many marketing professionals have ‘brand partnership’ as part of their job description, and hence, as part of their bios!
For instance, consider a ‘brand partnership’ (as defined by LinkedIn) by Abhiram Koushik, if he does it, that is. Would we see, in his bio, ‘Brand partnership. Brand Partnership at Sosh TV’? If so, isn’t it extraordinarily easy to assume ‘brand partnership’ as just his job description?
Ishika Gupta? ‘Brand partnership. Brand Partnership Manager’!
Even if you consider someone like Ankita Deshpande where her bio says, ‘Sr. Manager Brand Partnership & Alliances’, a paid post is going to change it as, ‘Brand partnership. Sr. Manager Brand Partnership & Alliances’. Isn’t is misleading and beating the point of a clear disclosure?
In comparison, Instagram’s implementation is well thought out – it says, ‘Paid partnership’, but doesn’t stop there. It also adds ‘with (brand name)’ making it both fool-proof and idiot-proof.
I hope LinkedIn reconsiders the way it has implemented the ‘Brand Partnership’ label. It is inadequate and deceptive. That should never be the intent of a disclosure for a paid post/promotion.
A genuinely good paid promotion should confidently start with a clear and straight disclosure, and then go on to present a useful or educational or entertaining piece of content in any format so that people enjoy or gain from the content after clearly being made aware that it was a paid piece of content.
Paid promotions or Brand partnerships should not depend on subterfuge, that is, expecting people to not know that it is paid-for and use that grey zone as a way to convince people about what is written. This is usually the Times Group’s model when it comes to the city pages. There is just one sweeping disclosure on the top, near the masthead, and everything in the following 4-8 pages may or may not be paid-for. This method depends entirely on people not noticing or not understanding the disclosure and then go on to the grey the lines between editorial and advertising.
Paid posts or digital paid promotions are perfectly legal and there is no shame in making some extra money through them (that I do not do any paid posts at all—and I have mentioned this in my bio—is entirely my personal choice). It’s, in fact, a much-in-demand potential career option for most youngsters these days, while also being a great side hustle for anyone with any reasonable following on any digital platform.
But intentionally masking the disclosure to make it seem like an organic point of view is where the line is crossed. This is especially crucial when paid posts alternate between other, actually organic perspectives and opinions on the same person’s timeline.
I had written about a case like this involving Shah Rukh Khan’s Twitter timeline earlier.
I’m also sharing the details of this argument (above, in this post) with ASCI, in the hope that when they update the guidelines document, they consider making relevant edits to include LinkedIn-specific rules.