13th floor elevator or why I DO NOT want to be an Influencer

As Commandant Lassard from “Police Academy” would have put it, we have many, many, many INfluencers nowadays here on LinkedIn. They come in all shapes and sizes everywhere around Internet. As I’m writing this in the LinkedIn space, I'll look at this phenomenon from a local perspective. I’ll ignore the worlds of FB, YT etc. because, to be honest, I do not know them. I’ve been a LI user for many years now and I spent the last six months intensively getting into it (on purpose, kind of resarch). I read its content intensively on a daily basis, observe behaviours of authors and readers, take notes, listen to opinions, and finally, of course, publish my own writing. On top of that, obviously, I read a lot of thematic literature. Inherently, these analyses always mention the so-called INfluencers (spelt in such a way to make it clear it relates to a LinkedIn category).

As a habit, I try to organise intellectually the chaos around me. This allows me to start analysing that very chaos, and then manage it for a bit (or at least to manage my own life, which is a part of that chaos).

Based on that organisation I differentiate between two kinds of INfluencers:

1) CREATORS

2) CELEBRITIES

Representatives of the first kind provide their own original input (or content, if you want to abuse this word even more). Whether through scientific studies, regular market research, or long-term and in-depth professional activity, they can draw conclusions, confront them with experiences of other people, process and present them to the world (to us!) in a form of valuable suggestions. In an ideal case, these suggestions are detailed enough to be put into action immediately (we know what to do tomorrow at 9 am). At the same time, they are general enough for any thinking recipient to be individualised and processed according to their own personality, preferences, etc. It’s a difficult thing to do, isn’t it? Such INfluencers are successful in their respective fields. They have their own natural space of operation, where they have been respected for years, where their roots are. That space of theirs is NOT social media. These people have created something of value, and LinkedIn is a tool to assist them. They can make do without it just as well. Fortunately they are quite numerous. To name just a few examples: Richard Branson, Marshall Goldsmith, or Daniel Goleman. There are even personalities such as Philip Zimbardo or Robert Cialdini, both members of LinkedIn, but both lacking the INfluencer status. They could have it at a snap of their fingers, but apparently, they do not need it. Anyway, they have their place in history and their main field of activity. God bless all of them. It’s good to have people like that.

The latter kind is more scattered, but also a much larger group. Unlike the former, they do not create original content (or on a very limited and rather amateur level). LinkedIn and other social media is their fundamental area of ?existence. Without it, they cannot make do. Although they do earn money elsewhere (a full-time job, newspaper articles, books, training, webinars, presentations etc.) for them, LinkedIn is the key means of self-promotion. Well, that’s the thing; they promote themselves rather than their content, which as I’ve mentioned before shines with reflected light, and sometimes reflected several times... And because they promote themselves, they must act on a massive scale, involving the greatest number of people possible. In order to engage so many people, their product must be equally massive, catchy and simply shallow. So unless you are Stephen Hawking, you can’t change the agreed laws of physics; it’s either the quality or quantity. And in order to constantly focus mass audience’s attention, you have to constantly add to the fire. No matter what it is, as long as it burns. Sometimes the fire will be bright, but more often, giving off acrid smoke, but still - the fire is burning. Of course, I’m mocking such people a bit, but they have full right to be active in such a way. For if this makes them happy (sometimes also rich), I won’t discourage them from doing their thing. I’m discussing this with their recipients in mind, that is, all of us. It is good to distinguish between an original and a copy, to tell a source of light from a mirror reflection.

Obviously, there are further subcategories of the INcelebrities. Take politicians, for example. Some have already earned their INfluencer status, but I have mixed feelings about it... It’s crystal clear that politicians have no time to do these things, so we are subject to the influence of hired PR specialists, who treat it as another distribution channel for their client. Another example is sometimes top-level managers in global corporations (including consultancies). Observing their activity (is it truly theirs, and not of a commissioned agency?) I often fear that their essential strength is the name of their position, and their on-line status, however professional, is inflated like a balloon. If you remove such person from that top position the entire value disappears (not all of them, for sure).

What does an INcelebrity do to keep this metaphorical fire still burning? Here we have a whole range of behaviours, some of which I’m presenting below. I believe this can help us during our activity on LinkedIn to build immunity to such actions. Here are the key examples:

- INcelebrity hardly ever gets into a discussion; they post something - an image, a note or a link and they disappear. They don’t moderate what happens later, they are beyond the crowd of their followers

- they are "gurus", so they have universal solutions, good for everybody, straight from the shelf; something like intellectual aspirin; just take it as it is and you'll be happy now

- they use maxims such as "Love conquers all", attribute them (whether correctly or not) to some great author proven with their picture, and then just counts the “likes” and comments such as "So true!/ amen!/ wow!/ thank you/ you’ve opened my eyes/ it’s amazing!" and of course, see point one, they won’t go as low as to leave any personal reply

- some people are in their own eyes so much of a guru as Socrates or Descartes were; they would post their own quotes; of course, intellectually on a secondary level, similar to the one about love conquering all

- an extreme case is to quote someone else's idea (changing two or three words and shuffling the word order a bit)... and signing it with their own name. Oh yes, quite recently I saw on LI a quote written in capital letters and signed by a person, who has the status of a mega-super-total-celebrity-role model on leadership and motivation. When I finally regained consciousness, I checked the original sentence (which I accidentally happened to know) over seven times and I politely commented, asking rhetorically "I was wondering, who was the first and if it’s worth to re-invent the wheel all over?" And then what happened? Ha-ha-ha, see point one. But the quote is probably gone now, or at least I haven’t seen it later

- they create and replicate simple posts like "What do great leaders do between breakfast and lunch, but rather closer to lunchtime, although not necessarily / 1327 things successful people do while brushing their teeth / How outstanding people talk to their cats if they have a cat  / What can make you a true leader - no one else knows about it, but now you will find out / 7 features of that, 5 features of this, 3 steps to..." and so on and so forth...

- in an act of desperation, they would publish an FB type of a post, such as "Tonight I’m in this/that town. Anything interesting here?" True story, I kid you not, I saw that

- they ask a question "If someone paid you 500 euro a month, provided that you start living a healthy life, would you do it? Type in YES or NO in the comment" or "Would you prefer to be rich or healthy? Comment with your answer" and this is how you generate traffic

- another question such as "I’m conducting a study on the impact of eating lobsters on leadership styles, please write down in the comment what you think about it" and, again, traffic is being generated

- another act of desperation is an entry like "20% effort gives 80% effect, and vice versa, amazing!" – I’ve really seen it. Nonsense, but ... it still generates traffic. I even allowed myself to comment that by virtue of being an INfluencer he could probably do better (as he is inevitably smart and intelligent person), but again, see point one :-). Once I have understood the gravity of point one, I completely stopped reacting to such quasi-intellectual provocations. Of course, with the full knowledge that my act is of no consequence (it is for me, though)

- writing a post offensively aimed at a commonly unpopular subject or group, the safest being: corporations ("Shake off the chains!"), tough bosses ("You can’t only demand, you have to talk to us!") or recruiters ("They never call back!"). These never get old, so the traffic is guaranteed, thousands of “likes”, hundreds of people expressing their solidarity and sharing their traumatic experiences on the subject ("yes! they broke into my house, kidnapped me while asleep in the middle of the dark night, than chained to the desk and I'm rowing 24/7 now, help me!"). And when you get bored, you can always turn to plumbers and aliens

- infantile hand-drawings, sometimes comics type bringing "12 features of top leaders / 8 personality features / 5 something..." and so on. Usually this is the only content, just childish hand-drawing and extremely general and simple statements / words. You can easily produce such drawings, so source of wisdom never dries off.

The result is that INcelebrities increasingly polarise the LinkedIn user environment. Next to a multitude of followers ("Wow, you’ve opened my eyes, does love really conquer all?"), there are other people growing a little tired of it, to put it mildly. Hence, such language gems appear more often as INfluenza (thanks to Pawe? Pamu?a) and post-truth (thanks to Magda Stawska).

Let me emphasise once again that with these reflections I address all of us. The point is to be an aware reader and not a manipulated follower. I also address those who dream of becoming an INfluencer, because they associate it with prestige, recognition and such mumbo-jumbo. Do you want to become one? No problem! Just think which of the two paths you would follow and whether you are really ready for it, with all required consequences. And above all, think whether you actually need it.

These words have been written by a man who’s not without blame. I had thought about it nearly half a year ago. Fortunately, the habit of disciplined self-reflection brought me to the ground and I quickly gave myself a clear answer: NO. But that's just my way, of course, and every one of us chooses own one.

PS Where did the illustration and the post title come from? Elevator and stairs are of course the easy and difficult solutions (to choose from at will). And why 13th floor? This is the “floor” metaphor actually... On one hand, floor 13. is unlucky, so beware amateurs of easy solutions. On the other hand, the metaphor has a very personal touch, connected with my passion, which is the music (especially one genre of it). Complicated a bit? Well, hard not to agree, but... I like it :-)).