trends - 24 fingers

Is LinkedIn the new Facebook?

Emma Goode — Thu, 04 May 2017 17:16:11 +0000

The signs are all there. Execs (and exes) being followed ~~stalked~~ with a passion, casual requests for dates popping up from anywhere and everywhere, random connection requests and a whole lot of humblebragging going on. Word in the boardroom is that LinkedIn suddenly got a whole lot like Facebook. Here’s how.

One inspirational quote does not maketh a content strategy

OK, so it might if you’re Richard Branson, granted, but if your whole feed suddenly gets overtaken by motivation of a Monday kind, you might start to get some pretty strong #TuesdayThoughts. Especially from the British amongst us.

Avo on toast, and make it snappy

What may be viewed on Facebook as a little window into one’s life as a Hackney hipster, craft ale et al, probably won’t have the same effect on LinkedIn. No one needs to see a continuous stream of perfectly-curated foodie shots; your network’s too busy changing the world, one Pulse article at a time. Much more interesting to reveal the story behind that avocado, the human angle, the way that ‘breakfast of champions’ made you feel and what you’d achieved by elevenses.

No one likes a humblebrag

A note of caution. Too many posts which begin with “So, I’ve been working on this little thing” aka world domination, is going to get your card marked as a humblebrag. And that’s not great. The perfect LinkedIn post requires the right proportion of humility, humour and hubris.

TMI

We’ve all got that one oversharer in our network. Most typically found at the end of a dinner party, sharing all the nitty gritty on that time they blah blah blah *reveal as appropriate*. The LinkedIn equivalent is that one user who shares EVERYTHING, without thought or consideration, who does all the quizzes ~~all the quizzes~~, reveals the results and generally creates noise of a shouty kind. Be judicious, be select and maintain your professional dignity at the working lunch that is LinkedIn.

Let me circle back to you on that

How wide is your circle of influence? Do you know all your connections, or are they just numbers on a ~~vanity metric~~ spreadsheet? Thing about LinkedIn is that you can afford to be a little more circumspect on who’s invited into your circle of trust. Sometimes Zammo, it’s ok to just say no.

With this post, I thee recommend

Same goes for recommendations. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow but one day, they’re going to reflect back on you. Make sure it’s a good look by only recommending people for their actual skills, rather than the ones they’re hoping to rank for. Or get an interview with. Unlike Facebook, where you can go mad with the ‘Go girl, you got this’ and lots of fist bump emojis (Ed’s note: also perfectly acceptable Instagram behaviour).

Message me

Those instant messages that annoyingly pop up when you’re updating yourself with the latest trending topics on Facebook ~~FB-stalking~~? Yep, they’ve hit LinkedIn now too. The LinkedIn dev team say: Smarter messaging that helps you connect and unlock new opportunities. We say: a little note to anyone thinking of messaging us – please don’t include the words ‘reach out’. They’re reserved for the Four Tops and them alone.

Could you be any more on trend?

Trending topics – tick. LinkedIn’s algorithm will now serve you curated content based on your connections, who you follow and your interests. FYI, the pug life did not choose Deirdre from accounts, it chose her. Just saying.

Does anyone else have an opinion on that?

Jump into a discussion, a conversation, a hotly-contested debate, all from within LinkedIn, the same as you do on Facebook. And the best bit? The platform will now share who’s engaging with your content including showing you their company, job title and location. Useful insights, especially if you’re considering moving onto their paid advertising platform. Every little helps.

Strike a pose

Visually, it’s the little things too. Or the big things like making sure you have a decent profile pic. Bladdered with the girls in Blackpool, not so much. On Facebook though? Practically mandatory.

Enough about me, let’s talk about you. How can I sell to you?

Facebook’s got Marketplace, LinkedIn’s got an inbox. Let us clarify. Facebook has a specific area for people to buy and sell hedgehogs and stuff (yup, we were shocked too). LinkedIn’s got an area for you to message and connect with people for mutual professional benefit.

Time to seal the deal

We’ll ask Swiss Toni to close the LinkedIn pitch, if we may. While the tech and innovations seem to be heading in the same direction, with network building and content discovery at the fore, the two platforms should be treated very, very differently. Your professional network on LinkedIn should be treated like a fine wine, or a beautiful woman for that matter. With a great deal of R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

The post Is LinkedIn the new Facebook? first appeared on 24 fingers.

The post Is LinkedIn the new Facebook? appeared first on 24 fingers.

Using hashtags, one day at a time

Emma Goode — Tue, 08 Nov 2016 10:32:51 +0000

Part of the joy of working in social media is that the internet doesn’t sleep. It means that every morning, there’s a whole new slew of trends to catch up with, more inspirational quotations and more cat videos than you can shake a ~~mouse~~ stick at.

At 24 fingers, we take a primal joy in catching up with the online world, and every day brings new treats. It’s vital we know what is trending online at any given time, and the one of the best ways to navigate social media these days is through the power of the #.

In fact, there’s popular hashtags to mark every day of the week. A bit like a digital version of Craig David’s, 7 Days, if you will. Let us break it down (uh, break it down) for you…

On Mondays, when the rest of the world wakes up with a faint frown as the alarm reminds them that a Sunday evening doesn’t promise the same hangover lie in as a Saturday, we’re beavering away on our phones discovering which #MondayBlues are affecting the interweb.

For #MusicMonday, our favourite song to dance to work on is ‘Manic Monday’, by the inimitable Bangles. Believe me, we’ve tried to imitate those haircuts – we can’t get near them.

It goes without saying that we change the chorus to ‘Marvellous Monday’ – it’s a bit of a syllable squeeze but we’re used to fitting pearls of wisdom into 140 characters so we manage. Obviously.

#ManicureMonday is sadly a bit of a ‘look but don’t touch’ occasion for us. Have you tried being a social media guru with 10cm nails? The cacophony of typing that comes with false nails is enough to force Managing Director Emma to throw a precious can of Pepsi Max all over the culprit. Jokes.

Before we know it it’s Tuesday, and #TransformationTuesday is a sight to behold in the 24 fingers office. I’ll give you three songs from our Inspirational Playlist…

Circle of Life – Elton John, obviously. An excellent warm up for a day of conjuring magic from our fingertips.
Gonna Fly Now – Rocky. Need we say more? After a rousing chorus of this, we’re ready for anything.
Survivor – Eye of the Tiger. Because anybody who doesn’t feel they can run a marathon after listening to this probably doesn’t have ears.

Thank goodness the internet exists to help us climb over #HumpDay on a Wednesday, with over three million Instagram images tagged. One of our personal favourites is ‘If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door’. Damn right.

#WednesdayWisdom is a motivator, too. Sometimes we wonder whether the internet would have broken had it been around in Winston Churchill’s heyday – nothing we have seen online yet comes near to his ‘We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give’. Here at 24 fingers HQ, that’s our modus operandi.

One day closer to Friday, online woes are forgotten to make way for #ThirstyThursday and the like. Clocking 384 million posts on the platform for #tbt is no mean feat either. Sport, fashion, age, songs – you name it, somebody is remembering it on a Thursday.

Friday, Friday, Friday…. Enough said. #FridayReads is a favourite in this office. Not quite as popular as #tbt, with 17,417 posts at time of writing, but still up there. It is reassuring to see some people still buying those things called books – anything longer than 140 characters had better be reaaallllyyy good. The most amusing thing to come of #FridayReads has to be #bookfacefriday. Whoever came up with that hashtag deserves a biscuit.

Come Saturday, you’d think we might be tired of all of this viral nonsense. But how could anybody tire of #Caturday? It’s one of the highlights of our week. Nobody quite knows how cats came to have such a presence online – but we’re not complaining.

Now Craig David would recommend we chill on Sunday. But roll on #SundayFunday we say…we expect this hashtag to go through the roof as that round yellow thing brings us office dwellers out of our not-so-little cave.

So, there you have it. A beginner’s guide to navigating the complex web of filters that’s called hashtags. If you’re not planning your next week of uploads by now, give us a call. Any day of the week is good for us.

The post Using hashtags, one day at a time first appeared on 24 fingers.

The post Using hashtags, one day at a time appeared first on 24 fingers.