Do you want to give up? I know I sometimes do 😬

G’day, I’m Trevor - welcome to Reputation OnRamp, thanks for being a valued subscriber! If you know someone who’d be interested in this newsletter, please do forward it to them. They can subscribe here. Thanks in advance :)

In an online world increasingly inhabited by grandstanders, wannabes and hucksters, it’s only natural for credible operators - solopreneurs, founders and professional experts - to shy away from putting themselves out there, creating content, putting forth an opinion, and building a presence in the marketplace.

I mean, who wants to compete with noisy, self-serving braggarts? It’s tiring, and if we push harder just to be heard, does that mean we start looking and sounding like them?

I hear you!

The braggarts, wannabes and bro’ marketers are everywhere!

They’ve infected Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter … even LinkedIn, which for a long time was pretty much devoid of hucksterism, but now is full of people who are just trying to game the system in order to steal our attention and generate more likes, comments and shares for their posts.

Throw AI into the equation, which enables people to spread mediocre content at scale, and it really does feel like the media and marketing landscape is going to hell in a hand basket.

But are things really that bad?

It certainly does feel like it some times.

Attract the right people

Now, we all want attention for our business and personal brands so we can attract the right people, those who might be interested in our products and services, or who genuinely like us for who we are and what we do and thus are happy to recommend us to their friends and peers (never forget the people who influence our prospective clients!).

But if the only way to get this attention in the first place is to throw away our dignity and personal integrity, to grit our teeth and get down into the marketing gutter with the showoffs and spotlight seekers, is this something we want to do?

Of course not.

But we have to compete if we want to grow our businesses.

If we can’t gain people’s attention, if we can’t cut through with our story and our message, we may as well save ourselves the effort and divert our time into other areas of our business.

That’s one strategy, but it also means you’ll likely become ‘invisible’, and that’s not a great place to be.

Stand up and be counted for all the right reasons

Being your industry’s ‘best kept secret’ helps no-one. Think of all the potential clients out there who could benefit from your skills and expertise, your knowledge and wisdom!

Remember, as professional experts and owners of service-based businesses, we’ve got so much more to offer than just out products and services.

There’s a bigger game at play here, one that we - as expert entrepreneurs - should be key participants in.

It’s time to draw a line in the sand!

Being good at what you do is table stakes today. Simply relying on your track record to bring in new leads, clients and customers is, for the large majority of businesses, unsustainable.

As the marketplace becomes more saturated and the noise levels rise, the people we serve - our audience - become ever more confused and frustrated.

If we stay silent, how can we help them?

If we remain invisible, how is that going to benefit the people who could do with our assistance, our expertise and our guidance?

Put another way, is it not selfish of us to not be out there and active online, helping people with our insights, ideas and experience? Bringing them into our orbit, so people better understand who we are, what we do, what our strengths are, and how we can help them overcome any issues, problems or challenges, relevant to our skills and expertise?

So where to from here?

It's time to draw a line in the sand, and start standing out for all the right reasons.

Let’s be bold.

Let’s take a stand.

Let’s not worry about the noise, the hucksters, the exaggerators and grandstanders.

Let’s run our own race.

Make our own mark.

Let’s make 2025 the year in which we - the good guys - change the game.

But, let’s do it with intention, with an open heart, a spirit of generosity, and genuine respect for our audience and the people we serve.

Are you in?

* This is a theme I will be continuing to explore this year: being thoughtful, passionate and purposeful in how we can create strong content that delivers value to our audience, participate in the conversations that are relevant to our industries and communities, and connect more deeply with the people who matter most to the success of our business.

Some observations after 20 years on LinkedIn

Wow, 20 years on LinkedIn! In the early years, if you invited someone to connect, you were definitely seen as a stalker! Today, not so much :)

You'd have to say a bit's changed over two decades; here are some broad observations, with a bit of spice 🌶️ thrown in for good measure!

🟢 It took a while, but LinkedIn finally went from being a stodgy 'buttoned-up suit' to ditching the jacket and tie; people loosened up on the platform, not just in the comments, but also with the content they produced. Covid, of course, changed everything - that's when LinkedIn, for better or worse, became more social and Facebook-like.

🟢 LinkedIn has evolved more slowly than the other social platforms; it took forever to get video and other things like live-streaming & audio events. Heck, a short-form vertical video feed has only just been introduced recently. LinkedIn will probably say this slow-to-evolve philosophy is because its audience is older and more conservative than other networks. Maybe, or is it because the company itself isn't forward-thinking enough? Thoughts?

🟢 In the early days, there wasn't the competition for attention there is now. While much of the content was pretty boring and polished, it was at least reasonably authentic. People weren't trying to game the system because frankly, there was no need to. Just being active on the platform was enough to get you noticed, and start conversations and relationships accordingly.

🟢 We've seen in recent years the rise of LinkedIn 'Influencers' and 'Creators'. As an aside, can we stop calling these individuals by such lofty titles? Anyone who produces content on LinkedIn is a creator. A lot of people are publishing posts that are way better than the sop put out by 'Creators', many of whom are trying to game the system, producing content that is derivative, repetitive, and manipulative, as well as engaging in frowned-upon behaviour (engagement pods anyone?). Can we stop lionising these people - they're (mostly) nothing special.

🟢 'Trauma dumpers' largely came and went. These were people who dumped their personal problems into the feed; they got engagement early, and many of these types of posts went viral. So, of course, the look-at-me crowd jumped on the bandwagon. Whether their 'dumping' was legit (maybe a call to help?), or simply produced for comments and likes (and reach), who knows. I'm tipping more of the latter. That's why LinkedIn cracked down on them. The occasional trauma dumper still sneaks through, but I feel the feed is pretty free of these types of posts today.

🟢 For all the negatives, I still like LinkedIn and I'm on the daily (come say hi - I don’t bite!). Granted, the algorithm is a bit 💩 at the moment and continues to adversely affect people's reach and their content feeds, which is a bit frustrating. Hopefully LinkedIn will swing back and start giving some love again to the 'real' creators, the people of substance with something to say, whose perspectives we need to hear! 🥂 to the next 20 years!

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

The audience is the new algorithm" -@JayBaer

(Jay says the only question that really matters now is: How can I make content that my audience will talk about?)

WHAT I’M LISTENING TO:

Twisters: The Album (various artists) - listen on Spotify

In case we haven’t met yet …

Hi, I’m Trevor. I help purpose-led business owners become clear and confident in how they leverage PR, content and digital communications for profit, impact and legacy.

Would you like to discuss how I can help you in a coaching capacity to build your profile and reputation as a trusted and credible expert or thought leader in your industry? CLICK HERE TO BOOK A NO-OBLIGATION 30-MINUTE ZOOM CALL