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LinkedIn Flexes Its Star Power With Addition of Gwen Stefani No doubt the blonde bombshell is now a LinkedIn Influencer.

By Kim Lachance Shandrow

entrepreneur daily

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

LinkedIn

Gwen Stefani ain't no "Hollaback Girl," but she's a bit of a follow back girl. At least on social media.

Clearly, the 46-year-old superstar-supermom is all over her social game. She's on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and you bet she's on LinkedIn now, too.

Yes, LinkedIn. Uh, not that the multi-millionaire music mogul is in need of a job or anything. But a girl's gotta network, you know?

This morning, the Grammy-Award winning songstress and global fashion icon became the first-ever singer-songwriter LinkedIn Influencer. She follows fellow girl-boss celebs Oprah Winfrey, Arianna Huffington and Lena Dunham in joining 500-plus VIPs that publish special blog posts on the popular professional social network.

Related: Donnie Wahlberg's Unlikely Ascent From Boy Band Heartthrob to Entrepreneurial Powerhouse

Publicity-wise, it's bananas -- a win-win deal. Stefani gets to promote her new album, "What the Truth Feels Like," to the platform's approximately 414 million members. (She gave the record a healthy shout-out in her inaugural Influencer post, titled "The Key to Success - and Creativity - is Truth," music video embed included.) And LinkedIn gets to flex her star power all over its site and, ahem, in the press.

After all, LinkedIn could use a bump in positive coverage. It's no secret that the 13-year-old Mountain View, Calif.-based corporation's shares have been declining. The ongoing slump even prompted Morgan Stanley analysts to warn: "With its current product offering, LinkedIn isn't likely to be as big as a platform as we previously thought."

But, hey, let's get back Stefani, everyone's favorite coach on The Voice. If she's officially on LinkedIn (and on SlideShare), why aren't you, right?


Related: 6 Music Stars Betting Big on Tech

"I love that Gwen Stefani is now writing here as an Influencer," LinkedIn executive editor Daniel Roth told Entrepreneur through a LinkedIn spokesperson. "She realized early that the music business was precarious and began building new revenue streams. Much to learn from her success…"

As for Stefani, she wasn't always so cool with sharing so much about her life on social media. "When [social media] first started, it felt really embarrassing, like you're shouting out yourself so much," she remarked in the video interview LinkedIn published as part of her Influencer launch. In the Q&A, the Southern California native and mother of three chats about, yes, that new album, captaining her own business empire and keeping it real in the cutthroat music industry.

Girl sure did wind it up.

Related: Rihanna Gives Boost to Puma With Original Clothing Line

That Miss Stefani skyrocketed to be more than "just a girl in the world" is no surprise. The fact that she's now rocking LinkedIn hella good is. Maybe she's just like the rest of us, underneath it all. (Sorry, we couldn't help fangirling a bit.)

Kim Lachance Shandrow

Former West Coast Editor

Kim Lachance Shandrow is the former West Coast editor at Entrepreneur.com. Previously, she was a commerce columnist at Los Angeles CityBeat, a news producer at MSNBC and KNBC in Los Angeles and a frequent contributor to the Los Angeles Times. She has also written for Government Technology magazine, LA Yoga magazine, the Lowell Sun newspaper, HealthCentral.com, PsychCentral.com and the former U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. C. Everett Coop. Follow her on Twitter at @Lashandrow. You can also follow her on Facebook here

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