Bored Panda was interested in JR's take as to why some LinkedIn users go to such great lengths to create fake stories and soulless reposts. We were curious to hear his thoughts on what their end goals might be.
"For a lot of these so-called 'LinkedInfluencers,' this is the first time they’ve had a platform of any size, so one of their end goals is to simply not lose their platform," the founder of @BestofLinkedin said.
"This is why they resort to copy and paste style posts that they’ve seen go 'viral' on the platform from other LinkedIn users. Basically, it’s like the kid who nobody was friends with who starts copying the other kids to get recognized/fit in. It works, but at the end of the day they’re not being authentic or true to themselves," he said.
Unfortunately, JR pointed out that there isn't really a clear or concise solution for how LinkedIn users could stand out from the crowd without becoming LinkedInfluencers. However, being authentic can help a lot.
"The internet is undefeated in sniffing out if somebody is full of [dung]. The way people get truly loyal/responsive followings is if what they’re presenting to the world is as close to or at least a version of their authentic self as possible," he told Bored Panda.
JR gave us a specific example of how this works. He actually practices what he preaches. For instance, he has a TikTok account called 'That's A Nice Touch,' @thatsanicetouch, where he goes around pointing out all the nice touches he finds around the world.
"It’s a little obnoxious and corny, but it’s a version of my personality that’s actually there, and that’s why people like it."
LinkedIn is huge on the internet. A whopping 830 million people use it in over 200 countries. So it’s hard to avoid making a profile if you’re looking for a job or want to make it easier for others to find you online.
At its core, the idea of LI doesn’t sound all that bad on paper: it’s all about networking with other professionals, looking for new jobs/talented individuals, and sharing awesome insights with one another. In practice, however… well, like any ‘regular’ social media site, LI has devolved into a weird digital space where job industry pros are trying to out-flex each other.
Some of these industry veterans resort to ridiculous measures to get attention. Like outright fabricating stories and bragging about how much overtime they work (weddings, birthdays, kids being born—it doesn’t matter to them).
They also try to turn boring everyday events into ‘deep’ tales about morality. A select few shamelessly copy someone else’s ideas by listing them in a slightly different format (it’s not that hard to credit the original creators, people!). While others see it as their ‘calling’ to comment on random stuff on popular users’ posts to show everyone how wonderfully active and clever they are.
There are some competent and interesting people posting on the site, but there are far too few of them. It makes sense why we’ve seen so many strange posts popping up on LinkedIn. If you want to have a strong online presence and have tons of people looking at your products and services, you need to stay relevant.
It also feels good to have people praise you for your insights and share your posts across LinkedIn and pretty much anywhere on the internet or in real life. The simple fact is that people want respect, adoration, and wealth.
A part of gaining a following on the internet comes down to luck. But there are some things that you can control, including posting consistently, making your content relevant, and trying to share some unique interpretations of current work trends and events.
That’s why you have so many folks being incredibly active on LI, trying to have an opinion on everything and anything. Some of them are desperate to stand out but don’t know what to write about, so they go a bit… wild with their [cough] imaginations [cough].
California-based JR, the founder of ‘The Best of LinkedIn’ calls out the very worst of the bunch on his Twitter page. The last time that Bored Panda featured his account, he told us about the origins of @BestOfLinkedin.
"Back in 2018, I was an Account Executive for a SaaS company in San Francisco. I had a boss who was a dinosaur—his idea of a good follow-up to a meeting was mailing laminated copies of the deck we presented to the prospect after the fact. The phrase, 'Stop by Kinko's' was uttered a few times in my short tenure there (Kinko's was dropped by FedEx in 2008, ten years prior)." At the time, a pretty significant chunk of JR’s job involved cold-calling on LinkedIn.
"I was already dissatisfied with my role, my career, and the company, so spending a few hours a day on LinkedIn just about pushed me over the edge. I began seeing the first inklings of these so-called 'LinkedInfluencers' and started screenshotting their posts and sharing them on my personal Twitter account. Once those gained traction, I decided to create a dedicated Twitter account for it, and thus, @BestOfLinkedin was born,” he told us during an earlier interview.
