Bring Your Whole Self to Work?
May 27th — Grow on LinkedIn in 5 minutes per week with case studies from real people, meme templates, great hooks for social posts, plus tips and tricks.
News and Rumours
LinkedIn executive predicts the collapse of entry-level job market (New York Times)
And while normies increasingly roast LinkedIn cringe (Boing Boing)
AND the execs further push verification to combat deepfake profiles (Wired)
Bring Your Whole Self to Work
“Bring your whole self to work” has, on the face of it, always seemed like terrible advice. For one, there is a huge pressure to conform to workplace norms, to appear like a competent serious adult even in ‘office casual.’ Millennials regularly make jokes about this, whether in sketch comedy or girlboss memes, the idea being that you can LARP your way into success by hiding your ‘real’ self.
And yet the fact that this humour exists goes to show that this isn’t the meta for career growth we think it is. It’s not possible to be something you’re not, after all. Acting a certain way, oftentimes against your real short-term interests in favour of (im)possible long-term gain, is exhausting. While many may lean into this learned ‘professionalism’ at first, most will abandon it at some point in their lives. The humour, then, comes from personal experience: many have experienced this transition in their own careers.
So what about LinkedIn? I feel as a social network its users are undergoing the same transition en masse. Naive seriousness is increasingly mocked by people who have learned from experience that it’s a dead-end; self-deprecation and honesty are increasingly praised.
But there’s a balance which I definitely haven’t struck. For every absurdist weirdo like Ken Cheng there are people who own both their professional competence AND realize that there’s a lot of bullshit in the workplace. These people are a level above us… and it shows.
They are the self-actualized professional—or in the immortal words of Miranda Priestly, they “can see beyond what people want, and what they need, and can choose.”
We showcase one of these professional masters this week… and to be honest I’m a little bit in awe.
Profile of the Week
Brittney Aston
Who are they? Community @ Spektrix
Post Frequency: Bi-Weekly
Follower count: 4000
Main Goal: ICP Audience | B2B
Shitpost tolerance: 🌶️
Brittney is a Senior Community Manager at Spektrix, a London-based CRM built specifically for the arts industries. Brittney’s posts aren’t generic. Far from it, whether they’re memes, nostalgia-bait or even career/industry advice, they relate to their profession and wider business interests.
This could easily be done poorly, and lack that spark which makes the posts relatable. We’ve all seen countless examples of this, especially on company pages ruined by too much stakeholder intervention. But Brittney does it well because you can tell they really think about what will work for their audience before posting (which is something we don’t always do, let’s be honest).
They think, plan, and post accordingly. I feel there’s a few core principles they follow—known only to them—and it just works.
What to learn from Brittney:
Quality over quantity: The meta on LinkedIn for a while has been to post daily, but is this true? Brittney gets high engagement with infrequent though consistent posting. Maybe this works better for you?
Shitpost less: Something I can learn from for sure. A mix of genuine competence in your field intermingled with relevant and less frequent shitposting.
Be smart: Why are you posting? Does this work for your followers? I mean, do you even know who your followers are? I don’t!
Post(s) of the Week
Relatable, relevant to their role, and timed perfectly (on a Friday when most of their audience would be experiencing this very feeling). Credit: Adam Karpiak.
And Heather Barnett makes us ask: why the hell do we even write some of this bullshit?
Hook of The Week
I think this is pretty self-explanatory: Black cabs are everywhere in London and fade into the background. Ben Bailey used weird contrast to draw attention and make them stick out. Simple—but then again the best hooks usually are.
How professional should my posts be today?
No change this week. You can still be a weirdo, but there is plenty to learn from weaponizing your competence while remaining a weirdo.
Meme Template
Feel free to use the below meme template for your own posts.
Stay cringe,
Your Chief LinkedIn Loser,
Cory Johnson
Connect with me on LinkedIn here. 👋