social media – Page 22 – Andrew Careaga

I recently was invited to be part of a 25,000-person group to test LinkedIn’s new blogging platform. I just tested it out this morning. You can read about it there.

Or, if you’d rather not jump, here’s the extent of that post. I’d be interested in what other regular bloggers think about LinkedIn’s strategy.

Late last week, I received an invitation to start blogging on LinkedIn’s blogging platform. LinkedIn bills it as a tool to help members build their brand in the realm of this network.

I think it’s a good move for LinkedIn, and a great way for LinkedIn members to share their ideas. I welcome any tool that will facilitate more open communication and sharing of expertise.

But for those of us who have already built a network through our own blogs (I’ve beenblogging about higher ed marketing, branding and PR since 2005), I’m not sure how much value this platform will bring to us. For example, I already automatically push my posts to LinkedIn from my WordPress site, in order to gain more eyeballs, and it seems to work. Why would I need to replicate my blogging efforts over here?

It promises to open new pathways to additional readers, and perhaps, with LinkedIn’s strong reputation as the network for professionals, it will provide even more networking opportunities. That, at least, is the promise.

As for me, I won’t be giving up my existing blog anytime soon. But for people who want to start blogging and build a following in the LinkedIn sphere, this may be just the ticket.

The trick with blogging anywhere — within a community like LinkedIn or out on your own — is that you’ve got to stick with it.

Photo: Tim Boyle/Bloomberg, from The Washington Post article, LinkedIn has added a publishing platform. Here’s why that matters.

I just finished watching the PBS Frontline documentary Generation Like. Here’s the trailer:

Generation Like is the latest project by author and mediasphere commentator Douglas Rushkoff, and if you have an hour to spare I think you’ll find it worth watching. Anyone who’s interested in a better understanding of how today’s adolescents — tomorrow’s college students — are coming of age in such a rich digital-media environment ought to watch at least some of this video.

The premise of this documentary, in Rushkoff’s own words (around the 5:48 mark), is that “likes, follows, friends, retweets — they’re the social currency of this generation.” And that social currency can translate into actual currency for many corporations. Generation Like, says Rushkoff on his website, “explores how the perennial teen quest for identity and connection has migrated to social media — and exposes the game of cat-and-mouse that corporations are playing with these young consumers.”

I’m still trying to process what Rushkoff’s documentary all means for higher education — from a branding and marketing standpoint as well as from the perspective of our educational missions — so I don’t have much commentary to add at the moment. I will say that some of the concerns expressed in the film will probably turn out to be overblown. That’s typically the case with documentaries that try to critique or analyze a cultural shift as the shift is happening. It’s like trying to analyze the damage of an earthquake while the ground is still shaking. But this seemingly insatiable hunger for likes and recognition in the digital sphere does have major implications for how adolescents are marketed to — and how they can become brand ambassadors for those entities they “like” in the social sphere.

I think this program offers some valuable perspectives for those of who are responsible for communicating with future college students. They, like us, are affected by the culture around them, and their quest for identity is being affected by the digital world. And as one corporate marketer interviewed by Rushkoff says, “To stand on the sidelines is not an option.”

(Hat tip to Kevin Wood for pointing me to Mitch Joel’s post about Generation Like.)