‘The new white space’: Why M.M.LaFleur is creating a dedicated LinkedIn strategy

M.M.LaFleur is finding LinkedIn a fitting place for this content, as its customers are active in the workforce and already spend time on the platform. Now, the strategy is paying off, according to data the brand shared with Modern Retail. In two months, “The M Dash” on LinkedIn has racked up more than 1,045 subscribers. What’s more, since Aug. 1, page views to M.M.LaFleur’s LinkedIn profile are up 266%. Meanwhile, for the same period, the brand’s LinkedIn follower count is up 46%, reactions on its posts are up 488%, and comments on its posts are up 557%.

“We’ve started to think about all the arms of our organic content, and we realized this was very much a time for us to lean into LinkedIn,” Maria Costa, M.M.LaFleur’s director of brand and integrated marketing, told Modern Retail. “We didn’t think of ourselves as playing in the LinkedIn influencer realm. But we have built out a whole other channel where we’re sharing who we are.”

LinkedIn has more than 1 billion members, and it’s not uncommon for retail CEOs and executives to post on the platform as “thought leaders.” But now — as M.M.LaFleur shows — more brands are crafting strategies for LinkedIn in a way that they might with, say, TikTok or Instagram. And they’re doing so as younger users flock to the platform for career advice or networking.

“Given the oversaturation on other platforms, I just think LinkedIn is the new white space,” Costa said.

Reaching the consumer

M.M.LaFleur’s demographic on LinkedIn is the same as its demographic offline, Emma Steinbergs, the company’s brand manager, told Modern Retail. “It’s consistent with our customer base: working professionals spanning a wide range of ages, from women in their early twenties through those entering retirement,” she said. M.M.LaFleur’s LinkedIn content thus aims to be wide-ranging and inclusive. Two recent “The M Dash” posts are titled “How to Wear Wide-Leg Jeans at Any Age” and “How to Level Up Your Professional Look — According to Your Career Stage.”

M.M.LaFleur has close to 9,000 followers on LinkedIn. It isn’t alone in betting on the platform, although other brands are using LinkedIn in different ways. In September, the makeup brand Vegamour appointed its first-ever “chief LinkedIn advisor,” Innocos founder Iryna Kremin. In May, the hair-care brand K18 teamed up with LinkedIn influencers Jade Walters and Elvi Caperoni on a campaign. And, going back further, LVMH has used LinkedIn to livestream its brands’ runway shows since 2019.

This spike in brand interest comes as teenagers and 20-somethings sign up for LinkedIn accounts. Gen Z is the fastest-growing global demographic on LinkedIn, per the company, and also the “most mobile” workforce segment in the U.S. The platform has also found that most Gen-Z members join LinkedIn right after graduating from high school. What’s more, LinkedIn is a popular channel for B-to-B brands, and a 2023 Forrester survey found that the majority of B-to-B buyers (71%) are millennials or Gen Z.

Lia Haberman, who writes the marketing Substack “ICYMI,” told Modern Retail she’s been waiting for a brand to show up on LinkedIn in the way M.M.LaFleur has. LinkedIn is a business community, she said, but it’s also a platform like any other social media. “When Gen Z finishes scrolling TikTok or Instagram and gets to LinkedIn, it’s not like they put on a different hat and want to see different types of content,” Haberman told Modern Retail. “They’re bringing their expectations over to LinkedIn.”

Haberman said that users will still look for brands to be professional, “because that’s the DNA of [LinkedIn].” But, she added, “That’s where I think we’re going to see more work-adjacent content [from brands], like what to wear on stage at conferences, meal prep for work lunches and accessories for the office.” In the future, Haberman surmised, users could also see more personality-driven posts from brands, considering the “more casual, candid approach from the average user [on LinkedIn].”

Posting original content on LinkedIn, Haberman said, “gives brands an opportunity to reach a new audience or an existing audience that may not have [traditionally] thought about them when they’re scrolling that platform.”

M.M.LaFleur, for its part, is finding that LinkedIn can be a valuable source of revenue, too. More than 85,000 people subscribe to “The M Dash” on Substack, and posting the same content on LinkedIn is helping to drive sales, the brand said. For instance, a Q&A the brand conducted with Corinne Low, an associate professor of business economics and public policy at the University of Pennsylvania, on “Why ‘Having It All’ Is A Myth” generated $3,000 in product sales across Substack and LinkedIn. Another recent “The M Dash” post generated about $15,000 in sales, said Steinbergs.

Now, M.M.LaFleur is starting to figure out its LinkedIn strategy for 2026. One key point will be increasingly featuring its founder Sarah LaFleur, who used to work as a management consultant, Costa said. M.M.LaFleur is also looking to craft “engaging prompts” tied to events and cross-publish content with other social networks, Steinbergs said.

“It sort of feels like we’re on an inevitable path toward every brand showing up in this way [on LinkedIn],” Haberman said. The brands on there now, she said, “are going to set the example for other brands.”