LinkedIn, despite everything it occasionally does with its algorithm, is still one of the most serious social networks to me.
But over time, I have noticed an interesting anomaly.
A great many people here, it seems to me, did not come to participate. They opened a profile because it is simply something you need to have today. Like a business card. Like a good suit hanging in the wardrobe: you do not wear it often, but having it matters.
The profile is polished, the photograph professional, the title sounds serious, the company is properly listed, and there are several hundred or several thousand connections.
And then, complete silence.
Sometimes you wonder whether the person opened a LinkedIn profile or simply left a digital memorial to their career.
Even connecting is no longer particularly straightforward.
Sometimes I feel that a connection request goes through a more rigorous procedure than a loan application. They examine your profile, role, company, number of mutual connections... Perhaps all that is missing is a credit rating check.
Sometimes it feels as though you need an American Express Black card for someone to accept your connection request. 😁
And then, when they finally accept you, very often nothing ever happens again.
Of course, no one is obliged to write every day or comment on everything they read. I fully understand people who prefer observing to putting themselves out there.
But a social network without social interaction eventually becomes just a directory with better photographs and more serious titles.
And that is a shame.
Because I have never seen LinkedIn’s value in the number of connections beneath someone’s name, but in how it enabled us to talk to people we probably could never have reached a few years ago.
You can read how someone from a completely different industry thinks, have a serious conversation with a person you have never met, share an experience that might save someone a few years of wandering, or meet a future partner, colleague, client or simply an interesting person.
For any of that, though, having a profile is not enough.
You also need to be present sometimes.
Because if we have already created an account, uploaded our best photograph, listed our roles and connected with half the business world, it would be nice to say something from time to time.
If only so people know the algorithm did not open the profile for itself.
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