6 ms·

There's also real money in writing LinkedIn content that is believable enough for "influencers" to post. I'm currently contracting, and post on LinkedIn at leas

by vidarh 2y ago

There's also real money in writing LinkedIn content that is believable enough for "influencers" to post. I'm currently contracting, and post on LinkedIn at least once a day, and I've added ~1k+ followers in the last month, but it takes effort. Meanwhile, those posts have gotten me work, and so if it was feasible for me to outsource it in a reputationally safe way, I'd consider it. For me the bar for "reputationally safe" is really high because my market (cynical tech CTO's etc. don't respond well to things that sounds like ChatGPT) and so I don't expect to any time soon, but for many others that bar is pretty low as long as it's good enough for LinkedIn's algorithm to give it impressions.

isoprophlex 2y ago
I hope you realize that if everyone can do "computational influencing", everyone will. A Nash Equilibrium of automated bullshit, it'll just make everything more miserable, programmatically.
- antimemetics 2y ago
  I think if you read LinkedIn posts you get what you deserve
kklisura 2y ago
:insert Christoph Waltz meme: You're sheltering LinkedIn slop, are you not?
soco 2y ago
I don't think anybody said influencers don't put effort in it. The only argument is that the added value by influencers is zero, be it on Instagram or LinkedIn, so if AI can take that kind of job the net loss is also zero. Of course of course there's an audience for influencers, like there was an audience at Tupperware shows, but they'll be happy to move on to the next fad so again zero loss.
- avidphantasm 2y ago
  Once again, AI will automate checkboxing tasks—-things that some people think some other people value so it has to be done even though basically no on values it so no one wants to do the soulless task.
itsoktocry 2y ago
>I'm currently contracting, and post on LinkedIn at least once a day, and I've added ~1k+ followers in the last month, but it takes effort. Meanwhile, those posts have gotten me work, and so if it was feasible for me to outsource it in a reputationally safe way, I'd consider it. If you need to pay the bills and this helps, good for you. But boy howdy does this sound terrible. It's amazing to me that there are people out there who take anything on LinkedIn seriously. I mean, it's not like the posts are inherently bad, but the entire point of the site is to "influence" and sell to each other. It's horrible. If I were looking for talent, it'd probably be the last site I'd use.
- sbarre 2y ago
  Are you ok to accept that you're probably an outlier? Because while I have kind of the same opinion as you, I also know lots of (good and generally smart) people who say they learn a ton of useful work-related stuff from reading LinkedIn posts. Not everyone is at the same point in their career, or has the same level of knowledge and confidence in their craft or job position. For some folks, reading thoughts and writings from more senior people can actually be beneficial.. And yes there's a lot of platitudes and BS on LinkedIn, but some people do put real effort into sharing actually useful information as well.
  - Terretta 2y ago
    > people who say they learn a ton of useful work-related stuff from reading LinkedIn posts I suspect this says more about what the reader doesn't know and their mastery of info self-exposure than it says about the contentfulness of LinkedIn posts*. * Not counting content originating elsewhere re-posted on or linked to from LinkedIn.
    - sbarre 2y ago
      So all LinkedIn posts are of the same quality then? Would you also say that all HN comments are of the same quality too? You're painting with an awfully big brush. Look I get it, there's a lot of crap on LinkedIn for sure, and it's pretty obvious this crowd is generally against "influencers".. I also see no value in them generally speaking. But it's reductive, and inaccurate, to say that there's zero value across the board on there and that every post is low-value influencer-spam. Not everyone is trying to build an audience or push their newsletter. Some people just want to share their knowledge and interact with their professional peers, and for better or worse LinkedIn is the most known place to do that.. You could say the same thing about this place. Why are we all here?

by vidarh 2y ago

isoprophlex 2y ago

I hope you realize that if everyone can do "computational influencing", everyone will. A Nash Equilibrium of automated bullshit, it'll just make everything more miserable, programmatically.

antimemetics 2y ago
I think if you read LinkedIn posts you get what you deserve

kklisura 2y ago

:insert Christoph Waltz meme: You're sheltering LinkedIn slop, are you not?

soco 2y ago

I don't think anybody said influencers don't put effort in it. The only argument is that the added value by influencers is zero, be it on Instagram or LinkedIn, so if AI can take that kind of job the net loss is also zero. Of course of course there's an audience for influencers, like there was an audience at Tupperware shows, but they'll be happy to move on to the next fad so again zero loss.

avidphantasm 2y ago
Once again, AI will automate checkboxing tasks—-things that some people think some other people value so it has to be done even though basically no on values it so no one wants to do the soulless task.

itsoktocry 2y ago

>I'm currently contracting, and post on LinkedIn at least once a day, and I've added ~1k+ followers in the last month, but it takes effort. Meanwhile, those posts have gotten me work, and so if it was feasible for me to outsource it in a reputationally safe way, I'd consider it. If you need to pay the bills and this helps, good for you. But boy howdy does this sound terrible. It's amazing to me that there are people out there who take anything on LinkedIn seriously. I mean, it's not like the posts are inherently bad, but the entire point of the site is to "influence" and sell to each other. It's horrible. If I were looking for talent, it'd probably be the last site I'd use.

sbarre 2y ago
Are you ok to accept that you're probably an outlier? Because while I have kind of the same opinion as you, I also know lots of (good and generally smart) people who say they learn a ton of useful work-related stuff from reading LinkedIn posts. Not everyone is at the same point in their career, or has the same level of knowledge and confidence in their craft or job position. For some folks, reading thoughts and writings from more senior people can actually be beneficial.. And yes there's a lot of platitudes and BS on LinkedIn, but some people do put real effort into sharing actually useful information as well.
- Terretta 2y ago
  > people who say they learn a ton of useful work-related stuff from reading LinkedIn posts I suspect this says more about what the reader doesn't know and their mastery of info self-exposure than it says about the contentfulness of LinkedIn posts*. * Not counting content originating elsewhere re-posted on or linked to from LinkedIn.
  - sbarre 2y ago
    So all LinkedIn posts are of the same quality then? Would you also say that all HN comments are of the same quality too? You're painting with an awfully big brush. Look I get it, there's a lot of crap on LinkedIn for sure, and it's pretty obvious this crowd is generally against "influencers".. I also see no value in them generally speaking. But it's reductive, and inaccurate, to say that there's zero value across the board on there and that every post is low-value influencer-spam. Not everyone is trying to build an audience or push their newsletter. Some people just want to share their knowledge and interact with their professional peers, and for better or worse LinkedIn is the most known place to do that.. You could say the same thing about this place. Why are we all here?