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Content landfills vs. Conscious Communication


My newfound curiosity for LinkedIn as a business networking platform has started to get me thinking about mass-market consumption vs. high-quality manufacturing.

Mella standing in a park in winter checking her mobile phone for messages on LinkedIn
Image by Karina Homilius

Why?


LinkedIn is often referred to as the platform that still offers you visibility and reach without having to constantly post, succumb to the pressure of creating video content, or spend hours on Canva to create visually pleasing designs.


This may be true to some degree, but there is still the inevitable mush of “same, same” content in my feed.


I managed to leave the Corporate LinkedIn bubble behind me, focused on hyping each other's promotions or impressing your peers with new achievements or newly won insights at the latest trade fair. I feel nauseous thinking about it now.


It feels like a fresh breeze to be connected to new contacts from the creative industry.

However, now my feed consists of selfies, combined with fairly extensive text passages about insights, best practices, and learnings that may even be totally unrelated to the image shown.


And whilst I see that it is - indeed - working, my mind still doesn’t really know what to do with it. I can’t help but feel reminded of the 50+ images we all used to post on Facebook after a night out. And it’s not the format that I feel disconnected to. It’s the fact that again everyone seems to jump on the same bandwagon in order to be in the algorithm’s good books.


It’s like the seasonal aisles at H&M, Zara & co. copying the runway and social trendsetters to secure their part of the bargain, leaving landfills full of trendy crop tops and culottes along the way. Don’t get me wrong - I don’t shop at Zara anymore, but I LOVE their AD campaigns and imagery, just as much as I appreciate the expertise and information that is brought across on my flashy new LI feed.


But what leaves me gobsmacked is the fact that content (or fashion) is being pushed out there for the sake of frequency, visibility, and ultimately success.


Apart from the sheer vastness of it, what is missing is true originality and inspiration. Something that makes you stop in your tracks, not worrying about resources like money or time, but honestly intrigued to explore at whatever cost.


I also have not found the Nudie Jeans or Patagonias of content creation yet. People who repurpose their creative work in a respected, conscious yet original way that is yet again designed to last. The essence of conscious communication.


It may all be too much to ask from a business networking platform, but I’ll keep digging and testing to challenge the algorithm madness.


In the meantime, I just posted my first selfie.

It was my best-performing post of the week.


Mella standing in a park checking her mobile phone for messages
Image by Karina Homilius

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