Drsql.link

I have pretty recently started to spend more and more of my technical social media time on LinkedIn instead of X. I really enjoyed X/Twitter for the many years I have been on the platform, since that day back in May 2008 when Allen White encouraged a table of us to get onboard. I haven’t left yet, and I may not. It is kind of a mess, but social media is a mess.

My handle there is simply louisdavidson, and I generally enjoy the more professional aspects of the platform. Join me there!

But let’s be fair, as it becomes a more social platform, figuring out how to get the most views is also growing. Views are clout, and that leads to something that has not helped any other social platform. Engagement farming.

Engagement Farming is growing

When I first heard that term, I loved it. And I love the concept. If you want your influence to grow, you need to get people to notice you. The problem is…we all want a shortcut. There are many of these techniques, but the one that feels like it is the worst for the rest of is people trying TOO hard to get noticed.

What too many people don’t realize, is that when people are trying hard to get comments, one easy technique is to make a slightly incorrect statement. This gets people to correct you…and we all regularly take the bait.

As such, I have noticed that the same patterns are showing their face there as have frequented X. There seems to be more and more posts that say something like one of the following:

• Hiring managers are looking for something that doesn’t work for the writer
• AI will never take the place of real programmers
• AI will take the place of real programmers
• Some language does something that is not exactly true with no example or platform described
• Some tech job is the best to get
• Some type of management is finally realizing something obvious that they should have already known
• Some feature is the biggest thing missing from all database platforms…most of which already have that feature
• Some ridiculous stat that is meaningless indicates something that everyone cares about and needs to correct
• Doing something mundane, let me tell you the hidden treasures you will find
• Something is better in some other country than the one you are in
• Trying to tell me how to avoid making the biggest mistake of my life
• A post that was supposed written by someone who also included 50 different emojis that would have taken 2 hours to manually add to the post.

Not every one of these posts is completely disingenuous, but so many of these posts feel like they were written by someone in marketing that didn’t actually know the products that they are working with.

I hope I am not just giving you ideas. These are tactics that work for a while, but never really gets you what you want in the long run.

Why LinkedIn is hesitantly becoming a favorite

I found posts that fit each of the pattern just scrolling through, but I also found a lot of great stuff too. Conferences and presentations galore, people writing books, announcing achievements, good stories, some actually interesting tips,

Hey, it could be worse

At least I am not (so far) seeing ads for some game that isn’t fake anymore or tools to clean my iPhone so I won’t make mistakes old people make,

Especially since the biggest mistake anyone could make in their life is to trust an app that you give access to all of your data and settings without knowing anything about the company’s reputation. Bad enough the amount of knowledge Google, Apple, and Microsoft have about me.

And if you want to be really scared of the internet, read some of DBAKevlar’s (Kellyn Gorman) security posts and you will almost be terrified to give your data to anyone.

Summary

Professional social media is great, but it has the realistic possibility to become a negative very quickly. Without it, I wouldn’t know 1/2 of the people I do, or at least I wouldn’t feel as connected to my computing friends. LinkedIn used to be just a great place to put in your resume, but it is fast becoming more than that and I am trying to participate myself.

I just don’t want to see it become a dumpster fire of people trying really hard to be noticed, but not in a manner where they participate in actual, factual, interesting conversations. That is what I am here for.