The Dark Side of LinkedIn

Just when we thought LinkedIn was this magical place, filled with unicorns, rainbows, and magical networks, a gut punch sets in. Like all situations, experiences, and journeys, there’s always a chance of encountering conflict. Struggles that can consume you if you let them. It’s time to get real and discuss the dark side of social networking.

When we joined this platform, we never would have imagined messaging people we don’t know, establishing friendships, and even meeting these new acquaintances in person. But low-and-behold, here we are…networking like champs!

We’ve created life-long friendships and incredible opportunities have flourished. Dreams of a bigger purpose have come to fruition and, thanks to this professional platform, we are further on the path to achieving our goals.

But it didn’t come without a price to pay. I’ve asked the other #LinkedInCreators to weigh in on their struggles… we’ve had to get vulnerable, break off from connections, fight the addiction of social acceptance, and even cry through some terribly negative comments from complete strangers.

We all learn from mistakes… learn from our mistakes and save yourself the trouble.

Exposing Vulnerabilities

The Benefit: Exposing personal vulnerabilities makes you real, relatable, and encourages people to join your network.

The Problem: You are wearing your heart on your sleeve. Putting yourself out there and a target on your back. People may perceive you to be a sad individual if you constantly share your problems so there has to be a striking balance between sharing problems and sharing lessons people can learn from them.

Vulnerability makes you relatable. And that gentle vulnerability means that you can connect better with others who have had tough moments in their life, too. People who chose to attack you while you’re being vulnerable usually are insecure, jealous or dealing with hardships on their own.

The Solution: In a recent conversation with Michaela Alexis, she mentioned the major difference between “oversharing” and “delivering value” - be sure you aren’t oversharing by always leveling lessons learned without seeking empathy. Also, in order to remain focused and avoid negativity, try to establish your own set of values (and stick to them). Our trending values? Authenticity. Passion. Purpose.

Sometimes there is a challenge in showing balance with what you do both in your professional setting vs what you do just on LinkedIn. If you are trying to brand yourself as a professional service provider, ensure that you don’t tip the scale into your posts as more about you than the people you hope to serve.

Everyone has problems. What makes you so special? People want to hear solutions. -Sina

Our Examples

Fahad: Day 83 and Day 112 were 2 of the worst days for me. In both videos, I had experienced some tough issues and wasn’t in the mood to shoot a video so I decided to go to my “therapist”- LinkedIn Video and speak my feelings for a short few seconds. People loved the rawness, honesty and were encouraging about the whole situation I experienced.

Sonny: As #Fansof3, Focus - Find your voice and continue to develop what it is you want your message to truly be. Collaborate - There is absolutely no shortage of community here that want to see you succeed. Inspire - Don’t ever think that you are alone in trying to be a part of something larger than just yourself.

Mark: Focus your message on “who am I trying to reach” with this message? What action do I want from them (or what feeling do I want to convey)?

Sina: Get clarity about your goals, whom you want to become, and what you want to contribute to the world. If your story is in line with those things, then share it.

Goldie: As long as you are giving information back in a meaningful way that’s still genuine, you’re golden.

Laci: There is a reason that vulnerability resonates with others. It depends on what you want to get from LinkedIn, but I personally have established amazing connections with those who have pushed through rock bottom or are currently struggling to get out. When you get your first message from someone thanking you for saying what they couldn’t, it makes it all worth it.

Curt: I've seen too many posts where some people post pity-parties where they talk about how recruiters are terrible, how hard it is to get a job, and how bad LinkedIn is for getting a job. My heart goes out to people who are looking for work, but there's a massive difference between using the platform to complain and using it to provide value to the community. It's not just about providing value to the community, it's about telling their story in a constructive way so they can find a job. 

Establishing Friendships

The Benefit: What’s not to love about a stellar, supportive friendship?! Social media is an outstanding place to find like-minded and different perspectives. There is massive opportunity to find and interact with people that can become offline real friendships or business collaborators. It’s amazing to see when you compliment a person, or group of people without ever having met them. Those that understand that the engagement and conversations are really just the starting point of laying a foundation for what might come next, those are the ones that truly understand the meaning of value in friendship.

I have made so many beautiful friendships here on LinkedIn - I feel so personally thankful that the majority of people who chose to engage with me are doing it from a place of understanding. -Goldie

The Problem: People often surf social media for clients and the friendships can very quickly turn into a transaction. It can be tough to know whom to trust as well. There is a much wider net of people to expose yourself to and get hurt. (See trolls) ASKING or DEMANDING a favor, it will not lead to a friendship or long-term business relationship (on any platform).

The Solution: Set Rules of Engagement. For example, you may be seeking activity in order to grow your client base. In other cases, you may simply be engaging with a growing network to learn and grow professionally. In either case, make sure you set rules for yourself to stay aligned with your objective/networking purpose.

1. Set a frequency of how often you check your messages or interact. This will help you balance social media and off-digital relationships and responsibilities.
2. Don’t allow yourself to get into personal matters or share personal information unless it is necessary to build the relationship.
3. Put some time to really learn about the person your connecting with. That will make your interaction a lot deeper and meaningful.
4. Boundaries are necessary. Set them and let them dictate how you interact with your connections.

Our Examples

Fahad: I met Goldie because of LinkedIn Video in the early days of her video journey- Day 10 I believe. She commented on one of my videos and the shortened version is that we have been in touch ever since. She is one of the most awesomest (yes I made that word up) humans and really fun to be around. She is just as real as it gets and before I turn this into a whole essay about her- long story short, I cherish our relationship very much.

Jake & Sonny: we met from the #Let’sGetHonest campaign in the comments section somewhere. We got to talking in DM and have now created 2 hashtags, a LinkedIn show, and a budding friendship. That would never have happened to a guy from Dallas and DC otherwise!

Sina: I met all of these people in this amazing creators group and honestly feel a strong sense of family which I thought was impossible on social networks.

Goldie: Always begin by offering or giving something that they want - whether it’s a listening ear or a useful tip/trick/solution. The more you think about what they want, the stronger the initial relationship becomes.

Hyper-Active Engagement (AKA Social Media Addiction)

The Benefit: Engagement allows us to amplify our message to a large community and gain new followers and business. With this in mind, we design content that is engaging, entertaining, inspirational and sometimes raw. We create deeper relationships with people that we meet and interact with regularly. We gain further reach and engagement on our content and hopefully our business goals. Active engagement allows us to be a part of more opportunities that others who aren’t as engaged miss.

The Problem: Do you feel your pulse race when you hear your phone vibrate with a new notification? Does panic instill when you notice that you have 10 new messages in your social messaging inbox? It can hurt the relationships with people offline. You spouse. Children. Family. Friends. They ask why your always on your phone and not focused during mealtimes or activities. Not excellent.

We’re all members of a tribe called FOMO, but one of the benefits of high engagement is that your network trusts that you’ll get back to them in time and that you truly are accessible.

It can take over your life psychologically. Relationships in the real world get damaged on don’t grow due to a lack of being “present” even though you are in the room with them.

The Solution: Schedule time to interact each day. Have someone you love keep you accountable. Set timer on your devices to shut you down (if need be). Focus on creation instead of consumption. Establish clear times in your day for social interaction and hold yourself accountable for sticking to these times.

Remove notifications. Trust me. It will change your life. -Sina

Our Examples

Jake: I go in seasons of controlling my need to over-engage and only jumping in at my scheduled times. The times that I focus on my daytime work, friends and content creation, the better time I have when I jump back into social media.

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder”

Chantel: I have been creating some extremely incredible friendships through social engagement, but I also noticed it take over time with my family. I have learned to put my phone on Airplane Mode during dinner, family time, and before I go to bed for uninterrupted sleep. Kinda crazy that social media can consume such a big piece of your heart, right?!

Sina: I love spending time on LinkedIn. But it’s been hurting my workday. I’ve learned that it’s okay to respond 1 or 2 days later. No one is going to die.

Toxic Negativity (AKA Trolls)

The Benefit: Are there really any benefit to trolls? This was a question we bounced around in our creative group... like all things, there is always a silver lining. For example, you learn to develop thick skin through the negative comments and feedback. However, there are some trolls who also provide valuable feedback and don’t sugarcoat anything. Your content is monotonous, repetitive, etc. they’ll say whatever is on their mind and you choose whether to implement their advice or not. Trolls can also help you become more patient. They help you find constructive ways to dissolve situations.

The Problem: Trolls send a lot of people off social media or specific platforms. We lose valuable voices due to this ridiculous behavior. It can be tough certain days to ignore toxic people, even if you are well versed in handling them.

Trolls can also make degrading remarks and comments about you or your post. It’s difficult to handle at times and can send someone into a mental frenzy/breakdown. It’s not easy being a public figure on the internet with the community entomb you with messages about your opinion, insecurities, or even telling you to stop producing content.

The Solution:

1. Report the person and delete the comment if it offensive.

2. Either ignore the individual or reach out to clear up any potential miscommunication.

3. Share the negative comments with friends and ask how they would respond.

4. Ask friends to come to our aid and kill them with kindness. (Care Bear Stare)

5. Leverage your supportive community to re-encourage you. Make sure their words mean more to you than the negative trolls.

F*@& the trolls!

Our Examples

Chantel: I think it was my fifth video, I was delivering a message about my vulnerabilities. A guy made the comment that he was annoyed by my use of “ums” so it was a good thing that I was “nice to look at”. I was livid. I took a few moments to calm down and later responded. Once I told this person that a lot of my cognitive functions are slower than perfectly healthy individuals, due to copious damage/lesions, he was taken back and apologized for the remarks. We should always remember to approach others with caution and respect.

Laci: I recently was subjected to a particularly vicious article that named me along with other members of LinkedIn. It was hateful and spiteful and mean. It was written by a person who I thought was a friend. What was written about me wasn’t true. However, (1) I didn’t have a way of proving it wasn’t true; and (2) I didn’t feel as though I needed to justify myself to this person, or anyone else. I could see the pain and the anger through this person’s words. I commented on his post wishing him love and amazing things. And I relied heavily on those who know who I am and what I stand for, my #LinkedInFam. There is an epic power in building a community on LinkedIn. One that will remind you of your "why" when you lose sight it yourself.

Curt: LinkedIn creators are putting content out there for good or for bad. There's a certain amount of courage that goes with doing that. There's always going to be people that have an "envy-mindset" and instead of saying, "hey, I would love to do that" they often post negative, unconstructive remarks, and leave the sandbox.

Have anything to add to our list or examples worth sharing?

Make sure to drop them in the comments for everyone to learn from and grow!