Can you hear it? It’s silence… And silence can also leave a mark. Even on a social network. Why wouldn’t that be the case on LinkedIn? Bear in mind that our activity on it can have loopholes. Loopholes where we haven’t said anything. Shush, the time to be on mute on LinkedIn has arrived…
What are the reasons for remaining so quiet?
Curb the urge to step in and keep taking part on LinkedIn (or any other network, if that were the case). And when you participate, let’s look at the big picture. We could be sharing our own content, hoping for a big break to become viral and thereby being “somebody” on LinkedIn. Or perhaps we interact with other people via the trinity that every single user should heed: liking, commenting and sharing.
Once we have mastered self-control, we will be the masters of our “silence” on LinkedIn. Because who said that we have to speak up each and every day on LinkedIn? It’s worth thinking about it, could this blue world become an addiction to some?
Just in case we’re somehow hooked, “under the influence”, considering that our addiction may last our whole life, let us have a look at the following reasons to keep quiet on LinkedIn. I’ve chosen 7 because that’s my favourite number, but there could be more. Let’s get to it:
1.-We may not have something to say that day, or week..
Who do we think we are, to post something half decent, coherent and professional every single day on LinkedIn? Our product, service, company, brand or professional experience may not yield itself to charge ahead with an imaginative reflection, create a cool video, post a super well articulated presentation, share and comment a mega interesting piece of news, design a wicked infographic, and a long etc.
That’s right ladies and gentlemen, coming up with your own content every day (or often) is not easy. Take this article, for example, I need time to prepare, I have to work on its structure and then I still have to write it. And why bother? To “release” it on LinkedIn for it to have 2 ephemeral days worth of visualisations tops, and that’s at its peak of popularity (supposing it is somehow viral, we wish..), only to move onto something new.
If you have this “sausage machine” of content creation, hats off to you. Otherwise, you are only human, go on and prepare a plan to launch your content based on the best strategy that you can come up with.
2.-Life gets in the way or our circumstances change
A good reason, I would even say the most powerful. Don’t we have a life outside of LinkedIn? Put your hand up if you don’t and (especially this year) if your social life hasn’t creeped into this network (and possibly others) more than once.
In the future, we will look back and hopefully remember getting over this pandemic. We will be able to tell the story of what happened all these months. What we may not tell is how the pandemic is impacting our habits and routines, including how we manage our social networks such as LinkedIn.
I have my own experience of feeling overwhelmed by personal circumstances and, that’s right, unless I had previously prepared some content using Hootsuite, I let days go by without posting anything. Did it have an impact? Not much, to my knowledge.
3.-Ticking boxes might not be a good idea
Following up from the first reason to keep quiet, we may break into a cold sweat, when there’s a gap in our calendar of posts on LinkedIn. This might be a good time to take a deep breath, count to three and calm right down, not letting anxiety come over us and make us click “like” on the first post that meets our eyes, or make a trivial comment on the second one. “Doing something” on LinkedIn might pacify those butterflies in the stomach, however we may not have added any value with our activity. Most importantly, we may not have added any value to our contacts.
My takeaway on this topic is what one of my acquaintances with a huge amount of contacts was telling me the other day. He mentioned he didn’t click on the reactions buttons hastily or carelessly. Furthermore, whenever he endorsed any content, he always made a point of adding a comment to elaborate on the reasons why that was the case. This is a great example of somebody who isn’t just ticking boxes.
4.-Reading somebody else’s content might be enough, at a push we can interact with it
Don’t be tempted to think that we are the navel of this blue network. Chances are we are also adding value by reading somebody else’s content and making meaningful comments, adding value. Alternatively, we can also share what we find interesting with our contacts, with a purposeful and worthy introduction.
I study users’ profiles and find those people who add value with their comments super interesting, they also share their own content at times, at a regular frequency and with a cool format. Articles are a great format to share fantastic content and don’t require daily activity. Have a look at this format and take it into account when designing your content strategy:
5.-We’re in LinkedIn’s backroom
LinkedIn’s backroom, pantry, backoff. There’s a whole life in it. That’s the life!
How many days have I spent (and hopefully there are many more to come) sending invites, replying or sending messages to my contacts, doing research with my basic or premium accounts. That’s for me to know (and those I interact with, of course) and a job I strongly recommend, if we want to capitalise this network. Despite not leaving any trace on your activity view, it should definitely be part of your overall strategy on LinkedIn.
6.-We may “speak” from more than one profile
We may speak from groups or a company profile. Our LinkedIn profile may not be the only place where we showcase what we have to say. If we have a company page, it also needs content. And on days when we share content over our company page, it might not be appropriate to share content from our personal profile and vice versa.
With groups the same might be the case. As we go into groups in order to read interesting information, it makes sense to interact with it. If, on top of it, we manage any group, we may devote a day of the week to inject content into it.
To sum up, there are ways of diversifying, beyond “speaking” from our profile. There are many loudspeakers on LinkedIn..
7.-We may not feel up to it or be feeling blue
The seventh and most obvious reason. Let’s not lose our way when we deal with LinkedIn. It’s a network for professionals but it is made of, above all, people. Therefore, some days, or even weeks or longer, we may not be in the mood, our life does not revolve around this wonderful blue world after all.
That’s completely understandable and we don’t, by any means, need to justify our state of mind. There’s a world out there and, sometimes (often) it takes priority. So be it.
Seven formidable reasons to put the mute on LinkedIn, stay still and make no noise. There may be more and even better grounds. Feel free to bring them to my attention via your comments, here or even on LinkedIn. Or we remain quiet. It’s up to you..
Thanks for being there. Let’s stay connected.
