By Adrian Miller
Take a good look through your LinkedIn newsfeed and you’ll probably see an assortment of posts. The “good” ones provide some valuable information and have an important takeaway. These posts help the person doing the post to get positive recognition and become known as a subject matter expert. You’ll also notice the posts that are “hard sell” plain and simple and most social media gurus say that this is the least effective way to utilize social media or at least on a “regular” basis.
You’ll also see posts that are quite personal in nature and can mention family or some significant event that had a strong and long-lasting impact. Many of these posts will draw an analogy between the personal situations to something that also occurs in business but many do not. These posts reveal a bit of the “real” person doing the posting and interesting enough, and at least for me, these posts often get the most engagement.
After all, regardless of our unique circumstances, we (humans) share many of the same good and bad experiences. We find that we can “relate” and it feels good.
Experiment with this more “personal” approach and see if it can work for you. Look at your engagement and see if interspersing personal stories can help you start conversations and gain traction but be careful about what you share and the impact it may ultimately have on your personal brand and business.
Do you have questions about whether you’ve “gone too far?” We’d be happy to weigh in and brainstorm with you.