The LinkedIn Selfie

There is a blight on my Social Media consumption. It started off as something I aspired to. Something I couldn’t wait to be invited to do, or even to find a way to invite myself.  (yes I do that) I was pretty excited when I was allowed in the club.  OK, it was purely an ego thing, and an experiment, but after submitting 2 blogs and waiting for the OK, I was pretty excited when LinkedIn gave me the OK to work with the LinkedIn Publisher tool.
However, that was so 3-4 months ago. But now, to me LinkedIn Publisher has become the latest “Selfie” style craze in my Social (ME)dia feeds.   The LinkedIn Selfie is initially pretty, but on closer inspection, actually are little cheesie snapshots of a topic with little depth or effort of exploration.  This could be seen as a little hypocritical of someone like me, to write this, but seriously it’s hitting epidemic situations and beginning to hurt my eyes.
My feed on Linkedin is changing for the worse.  It is being flooded with baseless or obvious to blind freddy style blogs.  Which is fine, BUT when LinkedIn starts pushing them in my face, and you see some of these posts having 12,435 likes and comments, for a 400 word blog, astounds and makes me sad.  (yes, I made those numbers up to protect the innocent)
I started off in this social media malarkey to learn, and was able to, through the generosity of the global community.  This community wrote for the betterment of the profession, they weren’t marketing their company, although they probably had a “personal brand” before that term became a term.  I know I sound like an old man whittling  on his back porch pining for the “good old days” but hey, it was a different world.  I really don’t think these people blogged for the glory or fortune or really to see their name in “print”.  People didn’t read their content due to it being forced down their throat from LinkedIn’s Pulse.
One of the things that people hate about the Recruiting industry is the easy of entry, the fact that there are no barriers, anyone can hang their shingle and call themselves a “Recruiter”.  LinkedIn, in its wisdom, have used this same theory in opening up its Publisher platform, opening it up for all the “Look at me Mum”(s) who’s goal is to publish and self promote the hell out of the platform whilst they can, this isn’t why I started dabbling in social media.  To be bluntly honest it’s sucking the fun out of it.  So please if you’re thinking of publishing something, follow the Thumper Principle, “If you can’t say something nice (or useful, informative or at least entertaining), don’t say nufin at all!”
Dan will be running a track at #SST2014 in Melbourne on the 13th of Novemeber. Find out more about the event in Melbourne, Sydney and Auckland.