Danger: your fourth weekly dive into LinkedIn’s fascinating terrarium of real, live professionals making it rain. Getting it done. Building movements.
Here’s the question: is posting on LinkedIn a good way to build a movement? Everyone’s doing it… how much is garbage?
Golly. Those are loaded questions. First, you’ll find plenty of garbage and gems alike on LinkedIn – decide according to your taste. Second, the internet is the wild west – find your audience wherever they may be. Go for it. We support you.
Third, if your goal is to build an audience/movement, LinkedIn is a great place to do it. But is it networking (by its proper definition)? It looks like sales and marketing to us, which, by the way, is fine. But have you made any real relationships on LinkedIn recently? Gotten any digits? Sparked any thoughtful conversations? Seriously, let us know.
Our apple box is simple: building real business networks through in-person relationships. LinkedIn, on the other hand, is getting some flack for what some think is “garbage:”
First, we know…we know. The Reddit gang can be cynical and loves to make fun. We also know it can attract some really helpful people (we’re trying to be one of those, check us out).
Either way, this post from user Existing_Foot_3411 gave us a chuckle…at first. Coming in at 305 upvotes and 93 comments as of this writing, this insight struck a chord with the Reddit masses:
Alright alright alright. Calm down. We’re not trying to shame anyone and by all indications, Mariam seems to be a really kind, inspiring, and accomplished person. This isn’t sh*tposting – far from it. We’re trying to get to the bottom of something: why did the Reddit crowd beef and balk so hard at her post?
We think we know why, but we won’t say whose side we’re on just yet.
Let’s see what the LinkedIn Complaint Box had to say.
Color me surprised: Reddit did not disappoint in its creativity or criticality. User benblais fired a $hot at what may be behind this level of influence:
Ok, while funny, both quips are decidedly bad faith. We have a different observation:
Some folks join LinkedIn to build wealth and influence, others have wealth and influence and join LinkedIn.
Mariam’s fundamentally right. Bill Gates, for example, has one of the best personal brands on the planet. He has wealth and influence, which is why he can dominate on LinkedIn (whatever that means). Score one for Mariam.
We went on to notice countless commenters completely (perhaps willfully) miss her point:
Want us to keep going? Ok…
Honestly, we could keep going…and going. Instead, you’re about to witness the rarest of Tripally phenomena: a LinkedIn defense.
One could easily call Reddit folks critical, cynical, jabby, hilarious, and more. It’s typically a fun cocktail of contrasting opinions, petty jabs, and funny insights. People do what they do and we’re here for it.
But to say they’re missing the message, possibly even cynical to the point of being willfully ignorant of Mariam’s key point? That’s rare. These aren’t dumb people. But they missed it.
It’s 2024, and regardless of how you earned it, your online/personal brand is [most of] your reputation. Can you be a software or newspaper magnate like Bill and Ariana without a strong personal brand? Nope.
Mariam’s right and commenters chose heckling over thoughtfulness. And the joke’s on you, Reddit commenters: you’re talking about her. She won. She’ll continue to win. It’s no easy task to build a brand with your name on it and risk bad-faith critiques like this.
She’s who she is, taking risks on her content and her message without an anonymous username, and it’s gotten her 21,000 followers so far – not to mention her professional accolades. LinkedIn isn’t even our preferred platform and we hope to match her one day.
If she or anyone else isn’t your style or preferred type of content, let it go. Critiques for the sake of critique is a weird mind virus motivated [typically] by insecurity. You don’t have to pile on in response to [what appears to be] an envious impulse to undermine a successful young person. It’s weak sauce, not fair dinkum.
Mariam, keep going.
**takes a deep breath**
Shoo. We’re getting heated over here but we can’t give up yet. We have more jewels for you. Next up:
Mariam herself wins this week’s funniest comment, and it’s not even on Reddit. It’s her original post on LinkedIn and it’s funny because… schadenfreude. She’s so much more influential than the naysayers already, which is funny to us.
Coming in at 707 reactions, 211 comments, six reposts, and one magnificent moment of self-aware clarification, Mariam herself seems to be killing it at the LinkedIn influence game:
Nice one. It’s a great clarification. Arguably not needed, but great nonetheless. Look, publishing a thought online with your name attached comes with its fair share of exposure. Folks either interpret your message as intended, or they don’t. The most egregious of us willfully misinterpret to get our jabs in.
Seriously, props to Mariam. We wouldn’t call it “networking” as it’s properly defined, but it’s excellent brand building.
We think our comment speaks for itself nicely:
As you can see we were a little late to the party. No upvotes for us. But frankly, we didn’t expect any going against the grain on this r/.
As always, we’re “honored, thrilled, delighted, and humbled” you read this far. You know our thing: digital networking is great for building an audience, but bad for building relationships.
For that, you need proximity and shared intent. We’re about to launch the only app designed to connect power networkers one on one and in person. With aligned expectations, all you need is connection.
Opportunities come from relationships, not likes, follows, and DMs. If that sounds interesting to you, join the waitlist. Tripally is free!