One of the many reasons that people flock to the social media site Twitter (OK, so I couldn’t resist the pun) is the opportunity to track with the activities and observations of those they admire.
Whether it is Lady Gaga or Deepak Chopra or the Dali Lama, our favorite sports figure or the leading thinkers in our industry, we have a window into their lives and their thoughts.
Now the professional social media site LinkedIn has gotten on this band wagon by inviting LinkedIn members to follow people that LinkedIn has identified as influencers.
So far, just over 100 people are in the initial list of such influencers, and any LinkedIn member can apply to be added to this list. Here is a link to the application http://partner.linkedin.com/influencer/
Quoting from the application:
“LinkedIn’s Influencer program enables top thought leaders in business, non-profit, or the public sector to gain a following among 175+ million professionals worldwide by writing and sharing great content on LinkedIn.
Our members are looking for professionals who can write engaging original posts and share links to relevant, thought-provoking presentations, articles, polls, SlideShares, videos, infographics, and more.”
What do you think of this program? Would you find a value in it?
Curious about what other LinkedIn users thought about it, I posed a question via the Answers feature of LinkedIn, plus I asked a number of my LinkedIn connections their opinion.
In my not so scientific study, in that so far about a dozen people have responded, most don’t seem particularly enamored of the influencer program.
Stephen Hart, a corporate trainer specializing in recruitment, management, sales, LinkedIn, communication and Neuro-Linguistic Programming, wrote: “If I want to find someone whose information I would like to follow, then I will do so through my own research. LinkedIn is about connecting and doing business with people that I actually know on some level. Following some remote ‘thought leader’ who has been picked based on unknown criteria, by unknown people does nothing for me. “
Victoria Ipri, a LinkedIn marketing consultant, echoed Stephen’s remarks when she wrote: “But what about the thousands of hardworking, intelligent ‘thought leaders’ who never become household names, yet still influence large numbers of followers? I know some and I bet you do too. While I was surprised to find some of these well known names actually participate on LinkedIn, I was equally disappointed about the way such leaders are chosen.”
While others, such as Marilyn Jess, a wellness coach, speaker and writer, were more positive about this new initiative. “People whose influence attracts others–following them is a good idea to me.”
As for me, it is too early to come to determine whether I am a fan of this new offering. Typically being up to try the new features of LinkedIn, I did opt to follow about a dozen of these influencers, including Deepak Chopra, by the way. They didn’t include the Dalai Lama or Lady Gaga on the list, FYI.
What are your thoughts on this new program? If you are on LinkedIn and opted into this program as I did, who are you following?
Joyce Feustel, Founder of Boomers’ Social Media Tutor, helps people relatively new to social media to become more effective and comfortable in their use of this medium. Find her at www.boomerssocialmediatutor.com
I tend to agree with Stephen. Each network came with its own features and benefits. I find
NAND share thought leaders primarily via Twitter. I see LInkedIn as a place to network and connect with others I. My professional circles.
If you belong to Groups on LinkedIn there is plenty of thought leadership (a little spam also). This is also where you can learn what your peers (people like your) are thinking. I don’t need the clutter of another feed from LinkedIn.
Make it a Great Day
Thanks, John, for your thoughts, and I appreciate you taking the time to share them. If nothing else, seeing this new initiative rolling out on LinkedIn has made me want to spend more time on Twitter to follow the thought leaders that are important to me, not necessarily those that LinkedIn thinks might be important to me. Ironic, isn’t it?
Joyce
I find this feature as applicable and as effective as I want to make it. If you are like me, you too can do your own study and have such “influencer” on your list, not depending on LinkedIn 😉 – at the same time, chances are LinkedIn can be a real source of knowledge about such an influential personality, who you never knew, existed.
Thanks so much, Raj, for sharing your perspective ont his new feature. I appreciate you doing that.
Thanks for the mention Joyce what has interested me about this new option is that the vast majority of people I have talked to about it have been negative. I had expected to be a lone voice.
There are some good changes going on with LinkedIn at the moment but this one just doesn’t do it for me.
Regards
Stephen
Thanks, Stephen, for weighing in on this topic. What is interesting to me is that I elected to follow about a dozen or so of the roughly 150 “thought leaders” in this initial group. Some are periodically contributing, and others are not. The main one I seem to hear from is the head of LinkedIn.
Joyce