Whenever the term “social media” is uttered in our presence, our heads fill to the brim with images of hash tags, cute cats, dinners, memes and photobombs.
Facebook, Twitter and Instagram proudly lead the charge when it comes to post-Myspace social media. Between these three platforms, our digital culture has everything it needs to stay connected through small but regular interactions.
LinkedIn, for a time, was a different beast entirely. While the aforementioned trio excelled at showing the flawed-but-charming human side of our personalities, LinkedIn stood alone as the “all-business” alternative.
…For a time.
Now, more and more personality tests, inspirational quotes and other such clutter are finding their way onto people’s LinkedIn feeds. It would seem that the days of LinkedIn being a strictly business medium are fading.
But while it’s a departure from what LinkedIn came onto the scene as, it’s understandable. In order to monetise its audience, LinkedIn needs us to indirectly tell it about ourselves through constant and personalised interaction with our profiles and with each other. The platform cannot thrive if we use it as an online resume and nothing more.
This is an interesting balance businesses must strike every day: Staying true to what your audience expects of you while also being adaptable enough to remain lucrative.
If you can gather an enormous audience hungry for what you do, but “what you do” doesn’t pay the bills, then you’re going to have to change what you do—despite your audience’s approval. What happens though, if your audience leaves once you change? Where do you draw the line?
It’ll be interesting to see how LinkedIn handles this balance in the future, but for the average business, the answer is the same as always: Keep the quality of communication high.
We live in what some have called the information age. People aren’t as ignorant as they once were, and information isn’t as scarce. As a result, the transparent business will almost always trump the secretive one when it comes to customer trust and engagement. In an age where everything is easy to access, people have a right to be suspicious when details are hidden.
Tell your audience when you’re trying new things. Explain your reasoning and welcome their feedback. Trust them to understand, and work with them to find that balance. There’s no reason to evolve independently of your customers. If they feel involved, they’ll approach any changes made to your business with an open mind, and will remain on your side.
