The price of going viral on LinkedIn
jasonleow • 14 Mar 2023 •
So I went viral on LinkedIn recently. The post was about a topic close to heart – inclusive design. It’s posted one week ago and it’s still going around. Some stats so far:
- 280k impressions
- +1943%↑ in impressions for past 28 days
- 4682 engagements (+1780%↑) for past 28 days
- 3.7k likes
- 174 comments
- 378 reposts
- ~500 new followers
- 842 profile views
This is my top viral post so far, beating out the past viral posts by 20x! I should be thrilled, right?
Yet, I’m hardly happy. In fact, the past two weeks had been stressful, paired with heightened anxiety and frustration.
Because there were a number of comments that were harsh and critical. They said they were offended. I admit, I made some honest mistakes in the way I framed it the wording of it that could have been interpreted in an unhelpful, ablelist way. I tried my best to take it on the chin, engage them politely and humbly, thank them for their feedback, made the necessary edits and footnotes so as not to mislead, and tried to adopt a growth mindset to learn.
The funny thing about the human mind is, in comparison, the positive comments outnumber the harsh ones by a huge margin. Most of the comments and reposts were kind and thankful. Someone even empathised about the harsh critique in another comment:
Hey, I appreciate you being brave enough to put it out there. You got some pretty harsh critique in the comments. Kudos to you for taking it as a learning opportunity.
Yet, new harsh comments kept coming and that’s all I remember. They made me feel like I had committed a grave, unforgiveable sin. I felt small and worthless after interacting with them. There’s one instance where I felt he was injecting ill intent and malice where there was sincerely none.
It’s exhausting and depressing. I was only trying to share about a topic and framework close to heart, and try to contribute some awareness to the topic of disability. I did some projects for it in the past, and wish to contribute more to it in the future. I was genuinely excited to learn more.
I’m not so sure now.
It’s just not worth it. I generally try to avoid drama. I have enough challenges as it is in daily life, like putting food on the table.
I’ll probably take a break from looking at LinkedIn for some days. Then review again.
The price of going viral on LinkedIn…
Comments
@therealbrandonwilson Thanks Brandon! I’ve rarely ever experienced this much harshness on Twitter, so gotta agree. It’s weird how people on LinkedIn, a professional platform with real names and company names associated with them, can feel so unrestrained in their speech, yet on Maker Twitter people are more polite and well mannered despite being pseudonymous
I’m in the business world, and I don’t use LinkedIn. It’s lower on the totem pole than the Church of Twitter. F those people and keep doing you.