Sunny days are warm: why LinkedIn rewards mediocrity

This thread is headed by defensive comments alleging that they have benefitted financially from LinkedIn.

These comments only strengthen the premise of the OP that "toxic mediocrity" is rewarded.

It is like a submission that is critical of multi-level marketing that generates a stream of defensive comments from marketers alleging that MLM "is responsible for millions of dollars in revenue". Of course it is, but that is not why the author of the submission is bothered by it.

Fortunately companies are comprised of more than just marketing departments. For many folks, the appeal of their employer, their job and their work is found in those other departments. IMHO.

The OP is not trying to engage in LinkedIn marketing. He is complaining about being on the receiving end of self-made internet marketers.

It would be one thing if the OP claimed "LinkedIn marketing is not effective". The OP does not do that. He claims LinkedIn marketing is "annoying".

This thread (so far) contains zero replies rebutting that claim.

Who is the company behind all this toxic, mediocre marketing and data collection about LinkedIn members to produce more internet advertising revenue, among other things. According to HN commenters, it's the "cool guys"^1

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44866666

That is but one example of many, many HN comments going back years (part of an ongoing HN meme) presuming that Microsoft has "changed" (I could choose any of them to illustrate, but this one has a nice ID number with lots of sixes)

It's true. Microsoft has changed. It is even worse than it used to be when it was considered very bad

HN commenters trying defend Microsoft may attempt to divert attention away from LinkedIn and blame self-marketers, i.e., computer users. That would be nothing new. But both the OP and the HN title specifically identify LinkedIn. The problem is the so-called "tech" company that acts as an unnecessary and irresponsible intermediary, not the www users they usurp and target for profit.

Because a megacorporation hires psychologists (in the form of marketers) to gin up scenarios where class mobility is implied as a subtext in the acquisition of their goods? I mean, who doesn't want to have the fun/get the girls/get the money because they bought {insert product here}?

How is one to defend one's self against the constant onslaught of bullshit meant to part fools with their money? How is an individual supposed to have any defenses against that? When they're raised in an endless din of lying noise?

Yours is the classic _abusers take_. "If only you were a better person you could stand up for yourself"

Actually, "quality-of-work" and "time-you-share-it" are both necessary to get on the flywheel of product improvement.

Folks who obsess over only quality of work in a vacuum and don't put it in front of users end up building vaporware or non-scalable products.

It's not some zero sum game. And "work that matters" or "practical impact" are deeply subjective and contextual.

If someone is a freelancer that makes websites more accessible then what qualifies as "practical impact" will change. Finding clients who need your service, sharing your work with others so they can see what you do, actually doing the work, dealing with boring but necessary business admin, etc... All of that is necessary.

And optimizing one precisely does mean avoiding taking time away from the others. If you work for yourself then you have to get clients / sell products -- there's no way around that.

Anyone who is serious about that type of marketing knows you treat it like a system.

You have evergreen content that you evaluate to see if people find it useful and engaging.

You slowly build up to having a library of that evergreen content. Maybe it's something like 30 long-form blog posts that people really love.

You then chop up those 30 blog posts into useful nuggets for posting on whatever social channels your audience is on (e.g. LI). Say you end up with 150 actually useful nuggets.

And then you rotate through those. Maybe you post three a week. It will take about a year to get through them all.

Then you rinse and repeat. That's an oversimplification, but you get the point. And this is clearly amenable to partial or full automation or delegation after you've written the original blog posts.

It works because not everyone sees your posts. If your most popular nugget is #57 and you only post it once, you can bet it will be popular again next time you post it and that new people will see it.

That's how you get your 1000x of content in a way that doesn't really take any extra time if you already were wanting to do long form writing anyway (which anyone with expertise really should do, if they enjoy writing).

I try to avoid resorting to ad hominem, but maybe it's just you? In general, no marketing would dial back the economy drastically, which I think is a good idea. Depends on your goals of course.