Yes, you read right, I think that most of the content on the awesome new social media platform that was thought to be a platform for companies is cringe.
There are many people that try to use LinkedIn as a social media platform, just because they get hated in Instagram or TikTok etc., as no one wants to hear their opinion there.
Examples
Let's begin directly with the examples, so you all know what I mean:
Do you believe me that it's not hard to go viral on LinkedIn?
It's really simple👇
Yes, it's really simple to go viral. Achieving this in a plannable way is more difficult.
My post on the KRANZ (koelnistkool) advertising campaign achieved almost 300,000 impressions
These are my learnings from it
📢 Headline & visual
The combination of visuals and content must trigger a thought in the user's head "I want to know what's behind this"
what kind of respect?
It's the exact opposite of what you're thinking...
>>free beer! + QR code
🧠The psychology behind it
1️⃣ Attention: You have to stand out with the visual aspect. In this example, you can see how simple this can often be.
2️⃣ Curiosity: freer!
3️⃣ Create a knowledge gap: "what respect?! It's the exact opposite of what you think..."
4️⃣ users arrive at the exact thought you want them to have "What's behind this?" and click on show more...
🗣️Erzeuge an opinion with the people
100+ comments
50% celebrated the campaign
50% were very critical of the campaign
That's a bit exaggerated, of course, but you can basically summarize it like this.
5% on LinkedIn always comment on everything, but they won't let you go viral.
The remaining 95% do. But they only comment if they really have an opinion on your post.
If this was not already cringe enough, here is his post that went viral:
The joke was okay, but 3k likes is viral? In what world do we live?
I got many views on Reddit in the past, but I don't do posts how to get viral.
This is just one example, there are many more, which is why I created a subreddit to collect them: https://www.reddit.com/r/cringelinkedin/
How did LinkedIn develop into being so cringe?
People like thinking they would be a big entrepreneur, when they have no substance. But they then say they would be self-made millionaires with drop-shipping or other things, which most of them have 0 substance, just like social media or mentoring.
These people then discovered LinkedIn, a page where many of them then settled:
These people then push each other into posting even more cringe posts.
This slowly evolves into LinkedIn getting into a new social media page for the cringe no substance wannabe entrepreneurs instead of professional companies.
Which is a very sad but truth evolving.
You know what is not cringe?
DevsForDevs, the platform where you read this post right now, is 100% not cringe. That's why you may join it now at: https://www.devsfordevs.com/signup
What can we do to fix this in future?
If not, someone else founds a new platform like LinkedIn with less social features, we can only hope that this movement of cringe gets gone and more companies post serious stuff.
That is why I think it's best to post high quality professional things and encourage your companies to do exactly that, instead of letting these wanna-be entrepreneur take over the platform.
Also, you can repost the LinkedIn cringe to r/cringelinkedin, as a movement against it.
