LinkedIn is constantly encouraging me to create content within its platform. Lately, this has taken the form of collaborative article writing and adding expert answers. Don’t get me wrong, I believe LinkedIn is an excellent platform for connecting with professionals and expanding my network. It’s also quite effective for finding intriguing candidates. However, while many individuals post low-quality content, particularly on AI and tech, others share high-quality content that I wouldn’t discover otherwise.
In this context, I understand why being named a LinkedIn Top Voice or SuperDuper contributor works wonders in establishing you as a reliable expert in your field. The incentives seem well-aligned and it appears that creating more original content on LinkedIn would be beneficial for me.
However, there’s an issue I want to highlight - participating in this game contradicts my daily work. As a data professional, much of my energy is spent breaking down data silos within my company.
Warning
Creating content on LinkedIn means that I’m contributing to the growth of a data silo.
This is exactly what platforms like these want you to do - they want you to be confined within their domain. While I understand this from a business perspective, it strongly opposes my professional mission and likely yours if you’re working in data too.
I’m not the first to raise this concern. The IndieWeb initiative has proposed an alternative for quite some time now. According to them, the main issues include:
- Difficulty finding your content within platform silos.
- Unclear ownership of your content.
- Reduced dependency on third parties.
- The ability for copies to cite the original post which improves SEO.
These issues echo problems we face with data within companies: data discovery versus silos, unclear data ownership or source of truth, third-party dependency with external services and reusability of data.
IndieWeb proposes POSSE (Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere). This involves publishing on your personal site and then sharing your content on LinkedIn, Twitter or any other platform you choose. Platforms are aware that this goes against their interest to keep you engaged for as long as possible, so they seem to decrease the visibility of your posts when you share links within them.
Lately, through this digital garden, I’ve been leaning towards POSSE. What I typically do is publish content here and then post it elsewhere. I’m currently exploring ways to automate this process within the current stack used for this site.
However, this approach isn’t without its caveats. You need to be tech-savvy to set up your own website and platforms don’t make it easy for you to integrate social interactions with your site. Some initiatives like Webmention are emerging but aren’t straightforward to set up. Solutions from Bridgy, Micro.blog, or automation tools IFTTT or Zapier may help reduce friction.
In conclusion, my aim isn’t to persuade anyone about how the internet should work but simply increase awareness that we’re contributing to the problem of enlarging the “big ball of mud”. This may conflict with your values, especially if you work in the data field.