"It's not stalking … It's expanding my network."
"Yeah, if you could endorse me for something other than 'Microsoft Word' on LinkedIn, that would be great."
"Your recent LinkedIn activity indicates you're trying to escape your demeaning, soul-sucking job."
They're just a few of the LinkedIn memes I discovered this week when I learnt for the first time that poking fun at the social media giant is apparently quite a popular thing. Although I wasn't surprised. I deleted my profile years ago after having grown tired of the unsolicited requests for coffee catch-ups, the endless invitations to join obscure networking groups, the implicit expectation of reciprocating an endorsement, and the cruel tension of wanting to check out someone's profile but holding back lest they see I've visited their page.
But despite all those inconveniences and hassles, is it true that being active on LinkedIn is a major way through which we can become "more productive and successful", as the website promises?
That's what European researchers have attempted to find out via a new study due to be published this month in the respected New Media & Society journal. Almost 2000 people were surveyed on their preferred social media platform, their frequency of use, how they utilised their online networks, and the benefits they derived. The findings are intriguing if not somewhat mixed.
Of the three biggest platforms – LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook – unsurprisingly it's LinkedIn that resulted in the greatest number of professional advantages. Facebook was the worst. But if you dig a little deeper, the reality is more complex. Most noteworthy is that there's greater competition on LinkedIn whereas there are fewer people using the others for professional purposes, thereby making it easier to stand out, albeit to a less interested audience.
Also, your level of activity on LinkedIn makes no difference to whether you're successful at cultivating career-enhancing benefits.
Conversely – and I write this with hesitation and a big gulp – there is a correlation between the frequency of your interactions on Twitter and Facebook and the business advantages you subsequently attain. In other words, status updates work.
Unless you don't simply interact but actually contribute via the posting of meaningful articles. Because that's when LinkedIn emerges as the overall victor since some of the greatest value comes from building a reputation as an individual with something of substance to share.
And that happens even when your relationship with those to whom you're connected is weak. In contrast, benefits derived on Facebook only materialise when your relationships with others are already strong.
So what about reading? Does the more you read on social networks consequently improve your professional capital? Yes. But only on LinkedIn.
That's because the content is more likely to be intellectually stimulating, thereby enriching you with information that could come in handy at a later date. The impact of reading stuff on Twitter and Facebook was found to be negligible career-wise.
One final thing. An endeavour known as 'strategic networking'. The scholars identified it as highly effective on all three platforms. Which means there's truth in memes like this one, which captures Jack Nicholson's terrifying scene in The Shining. With an axe in hand, he smashes a hole through the bathroom door only for his deranged head to emerge through the gap: "Here's Johnny!"
The meme freezes that image as the backdrop of this well-known notification: "I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn."
What we now know, empirically at least, is that there's clearly some merit in being the one who strategically initiates that invitation. Even if, for some of us, it may feel as though we're being hunted down.
James Adonis is the author of How To Be Great.
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