{"id":567,"date":"2018-03-24T21:37:53","date_gmt":"2018-03-24T21:37:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alchemyfor.life\/balancecoaching\/?p=567"},"modified":"2018-04-17T11:51:58","modified_gmt":"2018-04-17T11:51:58","slug":"linkedin-participating-reciprocating-cheerleading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alchemyfor.life\/balancecoaching\/2018\/03\/24\/linkedin-participating-reciprocating-cheerleading\/","title":{"rendered":"LinkedIn: Participating, Reciprocating and Cheerleading"},"content":{"rendered":"

Social media and LinkedIn<\/h2>\n

If you are on a social media platform, you may interact with posts for one reason or another.\u00a0 Some platforms are mostly for personal stuff, others are for business.\u00a0 I’m going to focus primarily on a particular platform because I see the most egregious demonstrations of what I’m about to discuss.<\/p>\n

I’m going to focus on LinkedIn, because on a bad day it’s High School For Business People.\u00a0 On a good day it is a platform to share, to market, to solve and to connect with others in business.\u00a0 Some may be potential clients while others are your peers, still others are those who would become your mentors.<\/p>\n

What you and others should be doing<\/h2>\n

Let’s start with what you and others should be doing on LinkedIn.\u00a0 Besides the connecting with others, updating your profile, researching possible leads, etc etc there’s one other thing you should activiley be doing – posting updates.\u00a0 The updates should take the form of discussion starters, interesting updates about your business*, helpful info graphics that mostly originate from you, etc.\u00a0 So when your contacts make these kinds of updates I’m focusing on what you do next…<\/p>\n

Participating and Reciprocating<\/h2>\n

You can thank my shower for that handy rhyming phrase.\u00a0 When others post things you should be doing three things – Participating, Reciprocating and Cheerleading.<\/p>\n

Participating<\/strong> – This means you read though the actual post\/update and join the conversation.\u00a0 If an article was posted, you actually read the article.\u00a0 If a point is being made directly, you read, absorb and understand what they are actually trying to say.\u00a0 Then you participate by commenting on it.\u00a0 Perhaps you had a similar experience?\u00a0 Perhaps you disagree with the article or its delivery?\u00a0 Perhaps you know how your contact would handle the point of the article.\u00a0 Let them know – make a clear, intelligible statement about it.\u00a0 Grunting a yes is not participating.\u00a0 If you want to grunt your affirmation you can use the like button – it’s the equivalent of a head nod or a smile.<\/p>\n

By offering what you know – what you’ve experienced from your world – you are participating in the discussion.\u00a0 This kind of interaction is very satisfying to see because you get to see other perspectives and experiences.\u00a0 That’s very valuable in the kind of tehno tribal setting I’m talking about.\u00a0 And yes I just made that up.\u00a0 So now you’re participating in a discussion.<\/p>\n

Reciprocating<\/strong> – At its core it just means giving back what you take, and that’s exactly what it amounts to.\u00a0 So if you are learning from others – following others and learning from them – make it a point to do the same for them and others.\u00a0 Share your knowledge, share your wisdom.\u00a0 Sometimes something is really obvious to you but not others, and because it’s so obvious you tend to undervalue it.\u00a0 And you don’t share.\u00a0 So share.\u00a0 Share things like how new tax law affect your business.\u00a0 Share how you were afraid to hire your first employee.\u00a0 Share how you stressed about your logo and experienced paralysis\u00a0 by analysis for almost a year.\u00a0 Stuff like that.\u00a0 You may have a particular flavor of things that you share, and that’s fine.<\/p>\n

Cheerleading<\/strong> – This means you are, for the most part, just saying ‘hooray!” to something you read.\u00a0 There’s nothing wrong with that, except for the following –<\/p>\n