Professionals arrive in droves on LinkedIn, a popular social network made for the professional— so why is their an outpouring of drab conversation in group settings? Usual group participation goes as follows: read a comment in a group, respond to the comment with a link, or completely go off topic and talk about how much you need a job.
This is a conversation format we see too often part of social networks, and we just ignore it. In a not so long ago Minnesota PRSA conference, Peter Shankman informed this entire crowd of professionals that he didn’t like LinkedIn, and now I understand why. LinkedIn is becoming a spam-lover’s domain, one who acts in the guise of a professional.
There is absolutely nothing worse than seeing a comment that does not add value to the topic of conversation. It makes me want to leave a group that has worked so hard to establish its 300-member base.
When jumping on LinkedIn and joining groups, please avoid the following:
- Arriving in a forum or discussion and trying to answer a question to a topic you clearly don’t know anything about. Ask yourself: Can I REALLY answer this?
- Starting your comment with “Great post” and then moving on to tout your business and provide links that force the person out of the topic of conversation
- LinkedIn "easy-handing", meaning don't ask people to link in with you via leveraging a comment thread... yuck.
- Not being transparent about your reason for being in the group and saying something like “Here’s some videos that I just found…” when you’re trying to pitch the person you work for, and again—it’s not helpful.