After 7 years of free blogging for my 17.000 followers on #LinkedIn and over 160.000 visits on my other blog websites during this time, I decided to shut down this chapter.
And... to re-open a new one with the BREADHUNTER Members Club. It's time now for more quality before quantity and a closer community of those, who got it...what's really going on, without generic #mimimi #content and #people. If you are used to read FAZ, Zeit, WELT, Handelsblatt, NZZ, NYT and Times London, you might know, what is the difference between free, generic, neoliberalism content and real journalism. I believe we will turn back now to these structures. We have no problem to pay 1.000 $ and more for a new IPhone, or 500 $ for the SUV leasing fee per month, but we are to avaricious to spend at least 3,5 $ per week for good content, which is a cup of coffee. So get your brain back, and think about, which good habits from the last 25 years we have lost and which addictive ones we are used to, that has changed our mindset, without seeing it. Stay tuned! You are an adult now. ;-) Mr. Breadhunter
0 Comments
LinkedIn is a business platform to connect with great people, right? And these 3 guys from the pic above are smart, but 2 of them did a great job for social media 18 years ago and 1 of them made a great turnaround of Microsoft, and now? Did you become lazy or just horny for even more profit during the last 2 years? Has Microsoft to try to get the money back they invested in the acquisition of LinkedIn via stupid ads and content? What is the status-quo of LinkedIn? "It has become a 2nd Facebook-Gram and company advertising platform and this really, really, (sorry guys) SUCKS! :-)." Maybe it would be an idea to have a paid account, where I just see relevant info, that really matters, no boring old school info an I am sure AI could do this if we just let AI do. So, I want to go deeper into the topic, because some would think, I do not know how to handle my #LinkedIn account and therefore I see so much bullshit every day, maybe you can help me if I have missed something.
On the other side, these 3 points are a chance to be creative again and disconnect from here or find a solution on how to handle your contacts that matter. In daily business, I use this here as a contact pool and after personal contact, these contacts get part of my CRM and paper address book. Maybe #LinkedIn will be in some years just interesting for new bees without any contacts and if you get older and your network bigger, you can disconnect and switch to your own blog and website only. Business and networks exist for more than 2.000 years and I imagine the times in the late 90ties when headhunters were a bit like the mystic-holy-grail-keepers with their own databases and networks before social media came up and I liked this time and also the slip box with your contacts in a mad men style, ;-) where also no one asked for GDPR. :-p Greetings from Vienna and enjoy your weekend! Thomas Picture Source: http://fortune.com/2016/12/23/microsoft-linkedin-wish-list/ So what's next? How can we change and prepare for the future instead of stewing in our own juice all the time? Yes, social media and LinkedIn is getting more boring for 4-5 years, and super boring since late 2018, because of all these generic posts big companies from DACH area create and copy from each other, but also from newbies on LinkedIn. Team pics with high-fives, funny offices with playground and unboxing my new Mac on the 1st business day has become common if you want to be an innovative company, and people like it or they don't like it and don't see it, because they are just creating content all the time, without watching..., hm ?! So, let me take a look back to 2012, where I started being more active on LinkedIn, yes I was before more on Xing and Facebook from 2003 - 2011, I believe the content was better or more international, the nowadays, maybe it was not so generic here, because it was a business platform for international people, who really worked globally. Now it is just for 50%, while it is 50% for the DACH people and an Instagram community, who wants to make business too. Yes, it was nice to get ca. 25 k contacts here during the last 7 years and grew 17 k followers on #LinkedIn, but so what? It helped me to be trendy, but for business maybe just for 50% in sales, because I could find easier my sales targets before I gave them a phone call. In recruiting I have to confess, that I did a lot of research here, even with several premium accounts, but the best candidates came from own network and classical direct search by phone or via a recommendation by not interested targets. I never placed a retainer project and position just by #LinkedIn, it just helped me to show the clients a track record of my work. Ok, #LinkedIn is great to search and filter international contacts that matter and call them after that to arrange a meeting, and maybe its also good for self-marketing, as I do for my #BREADHUNTER #Blog and #company, but that's all and I believe it will now come down as #Xing is coming down for DACH region(because all DACH people discover now LinkedIn). So why coming down? Because people will be getting bored with all the content here and the return on investment is low for your business but good to show off. I think social media was a nice playground for us in the last 10 years, but I am not sure about its real impact or return on investment we got. Maybe in the short term, but not sustainable. Trends are always like a pendulum and now I believe we have the turning point before it goes to the other direction. Maybe not the generic crowd, but the thinkers and creative people feel like me. This is what I have learned from recent talks during the last 6 months. So what's next? After 4 weeks of detox from social media and even Linkedin(ok I had some few automated posts and comments), it feels good and I met more people or called more friends by my #Punkt-Phone . I think for some it's now the renaissance of a new kind of business area, going back to #madmen style and personal, strong, global networks. While the crowd has even more fun here, we change our business habits to be more effective, selective and sustainable regarding our contacts and friends we do business with. In the end, it's just hard work, that makes us happy, not the dopamine-kick from posting and liking things on social media. To discover this, you need to be creative without social media and just do it, after a social media and device detox.
I think in times with a lot of work and social media overkill, it feels good to kill social media and focus. Who is always available belongs to the staff. ;-) Build your own business and life around you and do not let built it by the others for you, otherwise, you will be a glassy robot. So, my conclusion is, that we can slow down to hit the right targets like a sniper. We are not hamsters in a wheel, we are human beings, who think, feel and can make fast turnarounds if needed, but let the hamsters run, if they want, it's a chance for you to be different and hit the goal like a blind ZEN archer. Thoughts from Vienna by BEADHUNTER Picture source: https://www.powertobefound.com/black-hat-social-media-will-kill-business/ After getting bored about social media for 4 years more and more, I changed my behavior regarding workflows and social media by a 180-degree turnaround and I like it more and more. It's not about using only paper, pen, and telephone again, it's more about self-discipline and also about the devices you use. Tech and Social Media is ok, if you create something, that makes others think or has a value, but not about reading feeds all the time and answering silly WhatsApp messages and emails. These 2 Videos from Remarkable and from Punkt made me more to think about it and change it, because I was bored about our behavior for the last 4-5 years, yelling bullshit via social media into the world and waiting every year for the new Samsung or Apple device coming out with some more addictive features. Yes, I like tech and devices, but now it's time to select more and more wisely. So what did I do now? I made some rules, how to use social media and my devices during the day and also while I meet with good friends, and this made my life more satisfying and productive, even I was productive and satisfied before, but you can always finetune. So what are these rules and workflows?
Which devices I use?
So in the end I just use my phone, where I can get called and the e-ink notebook during meetings and there is no interruption during the day than by a phone call or personal meeting, because I check my eMails 4 times per day only and only on my computer not a mobile device. The result is that from this video: I think after 20 years of internet and 10 years of intensive social media, we need a change in how we communicate and use these devices, but maybe the crowd will experience this in 5 or 8 years, because at the moment the DACH area people discovering #LinkdIn at the moment, as their new #facebook. On the other side, my global early adopter friends are on my side and started the described change for 6-12 months, because they feel like me. Maybe this is also something for you, to say NO to your devices and social media and don't let them take over the control over you. I believe that we became addicts of our devices and business robots, who are always on for stupid content. We are not the Mr. President, who has to be always on, but we behave like this and it makes us stupid by producing senseless content and hunting for likes. You decide, when you are available and not your smartphone and I am sure you do not miss anything if you are more offline. Good friends call or visit you if it's important, and the rest is just advertising and irrelevant content you do not need. Even the quality of your meetings with business partners and friends will increase because you have more topics to discuss when you meet. Enjoy your offline weekend and be social in real life not in social media. Greetings from Vienna, Thomas www.breadhunter.at |
AuthorThomas Zahlten is Archives
June 2019
|