I love LinkedIn for my business. I love what LinkedIn is becoming to employers and employees, small businesses and large businesses and organizations alike. I love seeing what my connections are doing in the feed digest. I’m noticing though, some of my connections regularly post articles written by other people…errr…incessantly. I’m all for sharing great articles, quotes, TED Talks. I have a lovefest with information. But, as a business, when all you post are someone else’s words, you aren’t seizing the opportunity to show yourself to be as credible or intuitive as the author you reference. You are doing nothing more than copy-paste, copy-paste, copy-paste—and anyone can do that. I can hear some of you saying, “But I wanted to share the article with others because it was great information, o great and might unkanny! designer.” Yes, it may very well be great information for your audience to absorb, but how have you created a brand experience for your business by passing someone else’s words along? Maybe you don’t know how to or never considered creating a brand experience. Well you can! Marry that great content with your awesome commentary. Share with your audience why they need to read the article or what you learned from it. Show your connections that you can extract ideas from others and articulate them from your own perspective in a meaningful way. By all means, do give credit to the authors for the information you’re sharing, but also lend yourself some credibility by adding your own words to the mix.
