Why Getting Rid of the 'Great' is, well, Great.

We've all been there. It's a networking breakfast or evening talk. You've taken a photo of the screen on a perfect slide. The speaker is really jazzing you up or, worst case scenario -- putting you to sleep. You open LinkedIn, scroll your notifications, glance at the speaker once more, nod understandingly as they emphasize the point of the entire event and then you might throw up a quick post about it.

About six months ago, I noticed I was starting every single post of mine on LinkedIn with "Great XYZ this morning/afternoon/evening". When I started to notice this habit in myself, I noticed in others. I started to notice it all over the place (i.e. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook -- yes, I still check Facebook). Writing content shouldn't be rocket science but it also shouldn't be so rote that each post is a copy-paste for the one before. I set myself three challenges around my own content:

Write Differently: Start every post with something other than "Great!". Other quicksand adjectives here include: "Fantastic", "Interesting", "Thought-Provoking". You don't have to be a Nobel Prize Winning author, but you can bring a lot of life to a post by hitting refresh on your vocabulary and odds are you'll get more traffic if your visual and content are something your connections haven't seen 100x times already.

Connect with a Message: Try to be as authentic in your review of the event as you can be -- introduce a quote or idea (you don't even have to agree!) -- and start a conversation amongst your connections about the topic. Though we like to think LinkedIn is a different type of social media, it's business social. You're meant to be engaging with your contacts not barraging them with blurry photos of a powerpoint. Post something you found interesting, and odds are your contacts will too.

Say Thanks!: Connect with your host and new connections. I recommend posting about an event no more than 24 hours after it happens. Let your host, whether they be the speaker or team who organized the event, know that you appreciated their time and effort. It takes a moment to do but says more than you'd imagine.

You're welcome to heed or ignore this advice as you desire but next time you're having no doubt a "Great" time at that talk on XYZ, think about how you can get even greater responses with a little bit of a content tune-up.