Where's the line?

This article has also been recorded as a podcast;

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LinkedIn content has changed almost beyond recognition from where it was 10 years ago, even perhaps 5 years ago.

We now see pictures and videos of pets, people talking openly about their emotions, and posts designed purely to entertain us so the question I want to ask in this episode is this;

Have we gone too far and where is the line of appropriateness?

But before we get to that…

Interesting Stuff I Saw This Week

Massive LinkedIn breach reportedly exposes the data of 700M users This is obviously very worrying news that is being reported everywhere. No passwords were leaked and LinkedIn say the data was not hacked but obtained by scraping public data from LinkedIn and combining this with data from other public sources. I’m very suspicious that this is what it is claimed to be, take a look at the screenshot of a section of the data below;

Note the section ‘LinkedIn username’ - we don’t have a LinkedIn username! When you log in you do it via your email address or telephone number plus the Facebook data doesn’t add up either - there is no field to add your Facebook username, url or id, yes you can manually add the url to your contact info website links but this would suggest we have an option to link our Facebook account in the way we can with Twitter, which isn’t possible (although it was many years ago).

This could just be fabricated or the data they are showing is from the original (and genuine) data breach that dates back to something like 2012 from memory.

LinkedIn formally joins EU Code on hate speech takedowns This is obviously good news but my only concern is how far they take it. Hate speech is a problem and needs to handled better by all social media companies, LinkedIn has much less of a problem with this than others but I do get worried when they get into the conflict it has with freedom of expression. When does a disagreement become hate speech? I think most of us know the difference between the two but do LinkedIn?

What Is Appropriate?

“This content should be on Facebook” “That post is all about vanity metrics” and “Why are people posting about deeply personal issues?”

Have you ever seen or heard others making these comments? Maybe these are things you have found yourself asking as well.

So this week I decided to explore this controversial subject and to do so I enlisted the help of several listeners of the LinkedInformed podcast. This whole subject was originally inspired by an interaction I had with my buddy Marcus Boswell who sent me this video post;

Marcus is not a dog lover but his main point is that this post, which has just been downloaded from TikTok, has no purpose and it is just content posted for vanity metrics. He asks the question - what benefit does this provide to Isabel or her followers?

I am a dog lover so I actually enjoyed seeing this video but I have to admit that if this sort of content appeared in my feed frequently then it would become somewhat tedious…but it doesn’t and that is no accident!

I make sure that I spend time ‘cleansing’ my feed by unfollowing people who regularly post content I don’t wish to see and by engaging consistently with content I find interesting. These actions give clear signals to the algorithm and the net result is a productive, interesting feed.

As to the question of what benefit Isabel receives from this post the answer is simple - visibility and improved relevance with followers.

I’m not suggesting it’s good practice to consistently post such material but the fact is that over 15,000 people engaged with this post, hundreds commented and that means that those who are her followers are more likely to see her next post and that post may have more business/commercial context. In addition, she would have undoubtedly grown her followers.

There is an argument that Isabel is doing no harm here - those that don’t enjoy this type of content can simply scroll by or unfollow her but it’s clear that there are many people on this platform that do enjoy this sort of content and as a result, she has an opportunity to benefit from that.

This example is just one way of looking at appropriateness - Bruce Johnston made the point that whilst he is tempted to advise people to stay away from posting topics that people have emotional opinions about or "just stick to business", but that would imply that Steve Phillip's excellent work on mental health doesn't have a place on LinkedIn, and it surely does.

Angus Grady also added that he openly posts about his battles with alcoholism because he knows that doing so, helps others and he also admits that it is helpful to him. Is there anything wrong with that?

Mary Fain Brandt made the point that she believes that 20% of our content should be of a personal nature, this allows our followers to get to know us better but it’s better if the personal content has at least some applicability to LinkedIn…She believes it is OK to post about your kids graduating from college because they are about to enter the workplace but it’s not OK to post about your 5-year-old’s kindergarten graduation ceremony.

Karen Tisdell went further stating that the newsfeed should be just that - news only! Interestingly I noticed that about 6-8 months ago LinkedIn actually changed the name from ‘Newsfeed’ to ‘LinkedIn feed’ - the fact that they changed the name is telling, LinkedIn clearly felt it shouldn’t just be about news but I do think they prefer members to stick to business-related content and describe LinkedIn as a place for ‘professional conversations’.

I also feature some excellent feedback and views provided by Paolo Lanciani, Mark Lee and Sandra Clarke but to cover those here would make this article far too long - I would strongly advise listening to the podcast episode in full to hear their perspectives but also much more detail from the other contributors.

I will finish with a point made by my good friend John Espirian (he made several others as well) who believes that we should be consistent with our content and approach across all platforms. John believes we shouldn’t act any differently on LinkedIn as we would on Facebook or Instagram, this means that anything goes, provided it is within the rules set out by LinkedIn.

This is a widely held view these days, especially amongst people in the social media and digital space but it’s one I’m very uncomfortable with.

If we are to use social media as an integral part of our lives (and the younger generation are largely doing so) then I think there is a great danger with behaving the same way on every platform. I believe it’s healthy to ‘switch on’ for work and to switch off in the evenings and at weekends and I think it’s wise to do this with social media as well.

No wonder we have serious mental health issues when people are expected to remain in the same mindset 24/7!

Summary

My belief is that ‘the line’ of appropriateness is entirely your line - Your content should harmonize with your LinkedIn objectives and be suitable for your target audience. Hate speech, obscene content and derogatory comments are never OK and reflect very badly on you but apart from that, anything goes.

LinkedIn should be a place for everyone.

The content you see is heavily influenced by your actions. Instead of complaining and especially in comments (which means you will see more like it and you are exposing some of your followers to it!) try commenting and engaging with the content you do wish to see (keyword searching for posts) instead and unfollow anyone who lowers the quality of your feed.

A big thank you to all those who contributed, your views were diverse and insightful and that is what I love most about the LinkedInformed audience.

Post Of The Week

In line with the subject this week, I thought this was a good choice. It’s also the first nomination I’ve ever had from Nigeria and a worthy winner.

It’s a personal post and has only tenuous links to business and careers but that doesn’t matter. It’s written from the heart and a topic that most people on LinkedIn will be able to relate to. Congratulations Chidiebere, a fantastic post.

That’s it for this week. Tune in and subscribe to the podcast for next weeks show which will be an interesting debate with someone who is a big fan of company pages!

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