As I said in a previous article I call myself a straight talking Dutchman and often find myself giving feedback to members on LinkedIn who ask to connect to me. It’s always meant with the greatest intention and often it can come across as being critical. So I’m sticking with the theme and want to go a little bit more in depth on this.
By far what I witness on social is self-congratulatory language, especially LinkedIn.
Someone recently commented on a blog of mine, where I asked the question; ‘Employee! Do you see any value being on LinkedIn? The last sentence in his comment was:
‘The contributors are smug. It’s like Facebook without the jokes. It’s a breeding ground for envy. It isn’t healthy to spend your whole life comparing yourself to other people.’
Initially I felt like he might be attacking me and I because his language was quite direct and very very honest, maybe it wasn’t a good thing to approve the comment to be shown on my blog.
Seeing as I hardly receive any comments on my blog and after reading his comments a few times, I concluded that actually there is a lot of truth in his statement. People are smug on LinkedIn, it is a breeding ground for envy and people do compare themselves with others.
One of the bits of feedback I give is on people’s profile photos. See, I believe they need to look professional, a head and shoulders shot, produced by a professional photographer and when I see folks with their kids, drinking alcohol, being on holiday, on a stage, showing off with a headset microphone or anything else equally at home on Facebook I say NO! Sort out your profile photo, you look ridiculous. Judging again!
Often people come back to me and say, well I’m not doing so bad and I have more connections then you after all’s who are you to tell me what I should and shouldn’t do. Not exactly those words, but pretty much the same.
I do believe social has become all about ‘look at me’, look how great I am, look at my achievements, if you don’t hire me either as an employee or as someone to solve your business issues then you are off your head, because actually I am the best thing you will ever find on here. I see no humbleness any more and don’t even get me started on the videos and adverts people post. Yuk!
Happy social networking!