This week has been an inter­est­ing one in the world of social media. What it does flag is the ego driven world in which we live in and how lovely it is to be popular.

Firstly, LinkedIn updates were bom­barded on Tues­day (12^th Feb­ru­ary) with oth­ers shar­ing that ‘you have one of the most viewed linkedIn pro­files’ for 2012.

On Wed­nes­day (13^th Feb­ru­ary) the world of Face­book was awash with thou­sands of people who could name a film with the let­ter ‘S’ in the title. The mes­sages that were shared were titled ‘name a movie which does not have the let­ter “S” in it.’

These are both great examples of a topic ‘going viral’ and people’s ego feed­ing off it to share with every­one else (namely there are many films without the let­ter ‘S’ in it). What it does show is that if you make some­thing so amaz­ing, you feel that you have to tell the world about it.

It’s not an easy thing to do, but when you get it right it spreads. The key here is to share with oth­ers things that are mean­ing­ful, but on the other side of the coin what value does this have with every­one else to know that you are revered on LinkedIn?

The major­ity of con­tent expressed on social media sites is ‘all about me,’ when in real­ity to build trust, it’s all about your audi­ence. We all want val­id­a­tion of who we are in this world, but to share con­tent with oth­ers, the key is to be mean­ing­ful and have a purpose.

If we want to build busi­nesses where people are banging at our doors to work with us, we need to pos­i­tion ourselves to the bene­fit of oth­ers. Not as an exer­cise to prove how pop­u­lar we are, but the oppor­tun­ity that we provide the com­munit­ies and fields we have expert­ise in.

The world of LinkedIn became a ‘me too’ place on Tues­day after­noon. If you build a busi­ness aimed at being pop­u­lar, you’re going to fail every time, based on the fact that the path you fol­low is the same as the majority.

If you’re look­ing for suc­cess, put the ego to one side and think, cre­ate and keep away from the herd.

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