Look At My Wad

“Entrepreneurs may be brutally honest, but fostering relationships with partners and building enduring communities requires empathy, self-sacrifice and a willingness to help others without expecting anything in return.”

Ben Parr

A connection on my LinkedIn ‘liked’ a post from a man who was announcing the birth of his first child.  I don’t know the new father but it made me smile, he was so proud of his achievement that he’d announced it to everyone he could.  The post was a week ago, I wonder if his mood is still one of elation after a few nights of broken sleep, green nappies and no clean shirts? But what saddened me was the fact that he’d felt the need to start his announcement with an apology so as not to offend those who complain about LinkedIn being used as Facebook.  Do we really work in an environment where we are supposed to have no lives, no personality, no opinions?  Are our hearts so stony that we can’t smile at someone else’s joy?  (If you have answered yes to this stop reading my blog, remove yourself from my LinkedIn and let’s never talk of this again).

So, where is the line on LinkedIn between business and social? And is any social interaction acceptable?

I accept that I don’t want to know that someone has just bought a new car (“look at my wad”**), that someone has just come back from a great holiday (it was raining last weekend when I was away so stop gloating) and I certainly don’t need to know that someone has been chatted up via LinkedIn (not that she was really complaining, just showboating).  I personally don’t find a load of motivational quotes that interesting either (I have yet to read one that’s made me think “wow, I need to work with you immediately, you are so original and I feel so much more motivated to tackle this pile of invoices now I’ve read the same quote I’ve seen 20 times on LinkedIn!).  If the quotation is supporting something else I’m being told then great, crack on, but just a load of regurgitated words?  But I accept that some people do find these things interesting and therefore they do have a place on LinkedIn.

It’s also beyond me why job adverts start with “I’m looking for”, “We are currently recruiting for” –  who cares?  These adverts just disappear into the mass of words and don’t get looked at.  Why don’t people start their adverts with something that will talk to the audience they are trying to start a conversation with? I saw an advert the other day which started with “I’m looking for a Yorkshire based IT recruiter who is sick of being micro-managed, pointless KPIs and who would like to develop and manage their own team”. What a brilliant start to a post, it’s talking directly to the recruiter who has spent all day telling their manager what they are doing whilst thinking that they are reporting to someone who couldn’t do the recruiters job half as well if they tried! I’m not suggesting that all adverts should start in a negative way but I bet these first few lines resonated with a lot of recruiters who clicked on the link and read the rest of the advert.

But I accept that as someone who would talk to the cat if it talked back, I am going to be interested in the people I work with; I’m interested if they have run a marathon, if they have raised money for charity, if they have had a baby or got married because a) I like to see people I know achieving things b) it gives me something to talk about when I next see them and it helps to build relationships.  And is that not the purpose of LinkedIn, to build relationships?

If you only want to know business related information use Google, LinkedIn is social media and by definition, that means social interaction.  Part of social interaction is empathy, the ability to recognise that other people may find things interesting that you don’t.  You wouldn’t stand in someone’s face and say “you are boring me, the information you are spouting is dull and irrelevant, please shut up” (well maybe you would but really you shouldn’t) and writing it on LinkedIn doesn’t make it less offensive.  Equally, if a group of people are talking about a work issue you don’t chip in with “I went shopping yesterday and bought some rather good fishcakes” (unless you are me and just discovered the very good fishcakes in Aldi) because frankly, you look a bit of an idiot.

LinkedIn posts should be interesting to most of your audience and your audience should be respectful enough to skip past the things that don’t interest them without stopping to be rude.  And if you only want your LinkedIn to be 100% relevant to you be more selective with your connections – if you are going to try and connect with every man and his goat, accept that your LinkedIn is going to be very diverse.

And to the nice man who announced the birth of his baby, there was no need to apologise, save those apologises for when your child is having a temper tantrum in the supermarket.  Congratulations!

** For those readers who weren’t around in the 80s you missed a lot of good TV, sorry.

Chelle