Boring,

Irrelevant.

Self-serving.

Nauseatingly self-congratulatory.

Arrogant.

Sycophantic.

Pointless.

Silly.

I could go on.

If you’re reading this, then maybe I’ve managed to avoid (for the moment) all these dreadful pitfalls of the mass of utter balderdash that we see posted every day on LinkedIn.

Everyone’s an author. Great.

Few can write well. Oh dear.

And most people lose their OMG-what-am-I-doing filter when the fingers get itchy over the LinkedIn posting keyboard.

What, then, are the principles that should govern our activity?

Rule #1 – Are you offering any value?

Take the example of my dear former colleagues @amy greenwood and her Weekly Wellness roundup, or @andy brown with his Little Questions podcast. They’re interesting, helpful, useful, and so on. They offer value. You may or may not be interested, but there’s no question that it’s quality content.

Rule #2 – Who are you talking to?

This is really important. If you are talking to your colleagues, then why post on LinkedIn? Why aren’t you sending them a message? Or using your internal comms systems? Why bother the rest of us and clog up our feeds? Equally, if you’re talking to a select group of customers, then for goodness sake, get in touch with them individually. If you’re using LinkedIn posts then this is really lazy. How much effort does it take to send an individual message? And how does a general posting make any customer feel special? Don’t post if you can message. Put in the hard yards.

Rule #3 – Do you have a rationale for what you’re posting?

Much posting seems to be knee-jerk, formulaic, pointless, insular. So why not always ask yourself ‘Why am I doing this?’. If you have a rationale, then I – for one – find your activity more acceptable. Maybe a senior exec is posting about themselves and their invaluable thoughts to enthuse their employees and present a more ‘human’ face to the workforce. I think that’s immensely egotistic, but… at least it has a purpose. If you’re at an exhibition and you have something new and interesting for people to come and see… don’t expect many to be interested… but at least this is posting-for-purpose. You get my drift.

Overall, the big test is this.

“Would I be interested?”

If you weren’t you, but were the people you’re aiming to talk to, would you have the slightest interest?

Think about your reaction to other people’s posts.

What grabs you? And what do you find completely uninteresting?

And act accordingly.

What irritates you will irritate the people you want to reach.

What engages your attention will engage the attention of the people whose eyeballs you’re seeking.

It’s a question of having some respect… and some intelligence.

I hope you find these bulletins entertaining. I’m happy to discuss all relevant engagements – from customer community creation, to directorial mentoring, to strategy development, to thought-leadership content development, to full campaign structuring and management, and more.

Do get in touch!