I'm Melting! I'm Melting!

Sometimes you have to make sacrifices to get to 85K followers and if melting is one of them, so be it.

[Aside: I believe this was addressed in the novel 'Wicked', but I'd be a little horrified to stand next to someone who was allergic to water for any extended period of time.  Soap requires water for proper use, so someone who's allergic to water must be extremely, um, ripe.]

I'm finally coming to the crux of my original point - what are you willing to do in order to gain thousands of followers on your chosen platform or platforms? 

The platforms themselves, in theory, champion original, organic content, so this question really should be rhetorical.  If you provide enough original content that people are interested in consuming, impressions and followers will logically follow. 

But the reality of their actions belie their declarations.  According to a recent Forbes article, 57% of the internet is now AI-generated or AI-filtered content.  

If platforms really wanted original content, they'd incentivize people to create it, rather than incentivize people to create content so they can train their own AI models against it.  It's almost as though they're paying lip service to original content in a far more cynical bid to upsell their users or position themselves well in front of advertisers by touting the number of users on their platforms.

Therefore, people feel a much greater sense of freedom to post AI-generated content (or even respond to content with AI-generated comments) and know that they won't suffer a penalty.

Why bother with this literary astroturfing at all, as result is pointless, drab, or both?  For followers, silly.  Using LinkedIn as an example, the mechanism that increases the number of impressions, and, therefore, increases the chances of a greater following is controlled by a process or processes unimaginatively deemed The Algorithm.

LinkedIn itself suggests writing a post, commenting on another post, and contributing to a collaborative article every week in order to maintain a reasonable presence on the site.  But it's fairly obvious that more engagement boosts the number of impressions even more.

As with most things of this ilk, The Algorithm (I'll just refer to it as 'Algo' from this point forward) is a trade secret to keep people from gaming the numbers (nevermind that flooding the platform with half-baked shit via GenAI is gaming the system from a different and likely more harmful angle).

[Note: In my infinite wisdom, I originally wanted to the give The Algorithm the simple nickname of 'Al' as in A-L.  However, this gets very confusing when a central topic of your post is also AI.  I considered this, ignored it, and then changed to Algo once I confused myself on a subsequent edit of this post.]

This leads people to speculate what penalizes or rewards their posts.  Here are some of the speculations:

• Algo rewards people for posting more frequently (obviously).
• Algo rewards people for posting on certain days (makes sense - it's business-oriented, so weekends are less busy).
• Algo punishes people for linking off the site (can't have people utilize the internet.  Gotta stay on the platform and make sure your content is captured exclusively for LinkedIn's benefit).
• People get around this by posting links in the comment section of their posts.  I guess people are less likely to read comments, so it's a backdoor workaround, but doesn't really guard against making content non-exclusive and having people *gasp* go to other sites.
• Algo punishes people for disparaging LinkedIn (gotta keep the brand protected).
• Algo punishes people for discussing Algo (What algorithm?  We only care about rich, original content.)

I've read conflicting accounts about some of these points, but there's definitely an algorithm (or several) that doles out impressions based on a secret formula.

I understand the need to keep this type of information secret in order to reduce the dreck produced simply to win over Algo.  However, in doing so, it creates unintended consequences.

First, as I mentioned above, Algo isn't smart enough to punish AI-generated content (or the sites themselves don't care about quality content, which is even more worrying).  So, flooding the site with a bunch of pseudo-humans beats Algo's ability to keep up by overwhelming it.

Second, a cottage industry pops up to follow the cargo cult of beating Algo.  There are several people on LinkedIn who proffer paid services to increase impressions or followers.  The best of them hopefully supply statistical analysis about the black box's output.  The worst of them probably rely on a Ponzi scheme formulation of "be like me."  Their numbers are inflated simply because they're hawking a product that sells inflating numbers for others, thus increasing their numbers even more without any particular insight.

Third, superstitions arise - you must post every day at the same time; you can't mention 'Bloody Mary' in your posts or your numbers will tank; you must turn your head to the right and spit three times before hitting 'Like' on a comment - that exhaust people and likely won't lead to discernable gains in their viewership.

I won't say that I don't take advantage of LinkedIn's suggestions to increase my impressions, but I question whether or not getting to a 5-digit following via anything other than an organic following is worth it.

I suppose if the only concern is income - and it usually is - it's worth it.  But that requires constant posting and commenting simply to boost your presence.  

If the stated goal by LinkedIn, or any other provider, is to boost visibility by promoting quality content, this is hardly the way to achieve it.  Even the most talented, prolific content creators need time to edit, and the push to post constantly works against that aim.  Quantity will naturally trump quality.

This leaves people with some dubious options for increasing impressions to stave off exhaustion.  

The first is the aforementioned use of AI-generation for content generation.  In theory, using it as a brainstorming idea generator isn't a bad idea, but people usually use its output verbatim, thus robbing the platform of unique voices.  If used for its intended purpose, it can certainly increase productivity, but still not likely to levels needed to reach peak impressions and feed the social networking beast.

The second is simply to post the same comment while tweaking it slightly to generate more impressions.  While there is some merit to repetition (Lord knows this blog is already full of it in its still young life) especially in a marketing environment (which LinkedIn certainly is), repetition for repetion's sake is simply, well, repetitive.  It's like the content in my Google feed that echoes daily (or more frequently) headlines like '10 signs of highly intelligent individuals.'  Well, it's not like it.  It is it.  Even if it's compelling the first time, it wears thin by the fifth variation.

The third is to work towards being an Influencer.  I'm not opposed to individuals who utilize their expertise, or, hell, even their passion, to provide opinions to others.  But, in today's world, there's a strong inclination to simply be an influencer for money's sake or for fame than to become a subject matter expert first and use that to build influence.

If your goal is money or fame, then it's easy to compromise your principles and peddle influence on behalf of a product or idea you haven't bothered researching.  And, once again, this poisons the platform against the rich, organic content it nominally craves, because it's all built on a house of cards, or a pack of lies, or quicksand, or Florida.

So, would I like to have 85K followers?  Yes, absolutely.  And there are things I know I could be doing that help me move toward that goal that I'm not doing and that don't compromise my own personal code of ethics.

But I also think it's worth working toward that goal without needing to do more than dabble in those gray areas (hey, we're all human and we all need to eat, so I'm not going to advocate for some perfect moral position, because someday it'll come back to bite me in the ass).

I think the best way to frame the discussion around the nuances is to look at it from the perspective from the 90s idea of "selling out."  I remember Pearl Jam in particular was maligned (possibly by me) for increasing their fanbase and looking to make money off their music.  

But what's wrong with that?  A big part of music for most people is to communicate artistically with other folks.  And everyone will need to decide what an appropriate net worth is that allows them to sleep comfortably at night.

But if you're selling Eddie Vedder-os Now with More Grunge Berries!  you've probably crossed the line.

Don't sell out!  You, yes you, can make a living and sleep at night.  Interested in how to do this? Sign up for my limited availability course "Who needs morals when you can be a drop shipper?" and find out how.

Until next time, my human and robot friends.