I’ve been doing some work with a client on generating awareness recently and we’ve chosen to use LinkedIn. I’ve been following the shift in usage of LinkedIn over the last few years or so with interest.
I used to say of Twitter “think of it as like the office kitchen – you can bump into people there and allow space for serendipitous conversations without having to be in the same room as them”. At that time, LinkedIn had a much smaller user base and was seen by many as a place to stash your CV online and maybe publish the odd blog post. There’s now a lot more conversation (and a lot more noise!) on LinkedIn. It’s much more like the office kitchen.
Yet, it’s not a kitchen. In some ways sharing to social media involves more vulnerability than chatting over the kettle. It’s you, sitting at your desk or using your smart phone with no immediate acknowledgement of what you’ve said or even if you are seen at all. That’s often enough to stop us from even getting started – after all there’s a pile of urgent stuff over there …
My suggestion is to start by ‘Showing Up’. Simply being present within a network is important. Read and share what other people post. Take time to recognise colleagues, clients or contacts whose achievements you care about. Share your thoughts on an article written by someone else. Share your own achievements. I’ve gathered some examples of what I mean below …