The Practitioner: Completely Linked-Off
Social media is overloading The Practitioner's senses
Social media is overloading The Practitioner's senses
DO YOU SOMETIMES get the feeling that you are too connected?
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram etc…
I’ve been getting sick and tired of LinkedIn, especially, and their so-called ‘endorsements’.
When I first joined LinkedIn I actively requested that clients go on and recommend me, and I felt pleased when they did.
Now I seem to be getting recommended for skills by people I barely know.
I wouldn’t mind if I had actually done some work for them, (and charged them for it!), but I haven’t.
It’s bordering on spam in my opinion. I then get requests from people who I don’t know, who don’t have a profile picture, and whose company name implies they only want to sell me something.
I wouldn’t mind if it was just when accessing the internet, but its not. It’s emails, it’s on my iPhone, Kindle, and iPad. I can’t move without some Joe Random trying to endorse me for my audit skills. How does he know? I hate audit!
If I was tech-minded I would set up a rival offering called LinkedOut and steal all the disheartened customers who are sick and tired of getting spammed.
When I complain to my better half about it she says I should just de-register myself from it.
As daft as it may sound though, I don’t actually want to. I think I have LinkedOut-aphobia….the fear of coming off LinkedIn.
Whilst I detest the lack of privacy that it brings there is something slightly addictive about being connected to lots of people. I have been a member of a well-known networking group for the past seven years, and have thought about packing it in for at least the last two years but can’t seem to take that step away.
Again, there is a fear that if I leave I will be missing out, or people will think I have dropped off the face of the earth.
Once you are in you are in, and it takes a brave man/woman to cut ties altogether.
I can’t even get myself off Facebook, even though I rarely log on.
There’s always that hope that something amazing will drop through the inbox, or my next new client will ‘poke me’ or ‘like’ our page.
The Practitioner’s uncensored thoughts come from within their own practice – having left a regional firm in the heart of England