Kicking the Hornets' Nest for Fame and Profit

LINKEDIN REPOST: Let me start right off by saying, I don't look good as a platinum blonde. Mind you, I'll take any hair I can get these days.

Unless you've been living under a rock the last few weeks, you've heard about Candice Galek. In that time, Candice stirred up a firestorm of engagement. 

She did it with a simple status update.

Yes, a status update. She didn't even need a sponsored one.

Candice didn't go nuts with this thing. She just asked a simple question, "Is this appropriate for LinkedIn?" The update had an image of Natalie Roser wearing a bikini. It was a rear view.

Let's just say that Ms. Roser has a "healthy" physique, as well she should. She's in the running for Miss Universe. 

I should mention that Candice Balek is CEO and founder of Bikini Luxe.com. It's an online retailer of - you guessed it - bikinis. 

I think it's acceptable to post such an image when it's representative of your product. 

If you're a lawyer, not so much.

I guess it's not appropriate for a ghostwriter either. I'm hoping you take it in the comedic way it I intended it. 

As I was sitting back watching Candice as she laughed her way to the bank, two other posts caught my attention.

One was from Eda Utku, "How to Tell if Your Content Stinks." In the comments section, there was quite some discussion about how to generate engagement.  

I immediately thought of Candice. But, I wasn't moved to write this.

Then came the Forbes article Cheryl Snapp Conner wrote about Candice and her update. Cheryl's piece has 164,641 views so far. It has generated  308 comments.

That's a lot of views and comments, but not the whole story. Candice's update has had 6000 views and over 600 comments on its own. 

Impressive stats, but I was still not moved to write this.

Candice followed up with a long-form post "Is This Appropriate For Linkedin? - UPDATED." That post saw 43,235 views, 551 Likes, and 368 comments.

Checking it on BuzzSumo shows a total of 4,990 LinkedIn interactions and 340 Facebook interactions. I guess Candice doesn't do much on Twitter. There were only 42 interactions there. (Candice, tsk, tsk, tsk)

That kind of an engagement percentage from a post with that many views is unheard of.

Still, though, that's not what got me writing.

Cheryl mentions in her article that Candice received 1500 connection requests from that update. Gee, and I thought I was doing well with 1387 connections in the year I've been on LinkedIn.

Still, I didn't feel the need to write this.

What about ROI? Glad you asked.

Candice reports sales jumped 20%. Given that the "I" in her ROI was the time it took to write five words of text. That's some serious "R". 

No, that wasn't it either. Still nothing pushed me to write this.

I was content sitting back and watching this beautiful woman wrangle and hog-tie LinkedIn. I was happy she was pulling it off. I was cheering her on every step of the way.

Did you catch it? 

Did you catch what finally dragged me over to my laptop on a gloomy, rainy, Montreal Saturday morning?

No?

It was shame.

It wasn't that she was skyrocketing her exposure with little effort. Nope, I loved watching her do it.

It wasn't shame that she did in a week more than I managed to do in a year. No, I don't measure myself against others' successes.

It wasn't that she managed to keep her composure through a lot of crap. That speaks volumes for her intelligence and emotional maturity. It's certainly nothing for me to be ashamed about.

I was ashamed that I actually said, out loud, "It's amazing that such a beautiful woman could pull this off!"

What kind of horseshit is that???

If Candice was butt-ugly would her accomplishments be any less impressive? 

No. 

Our culture often allows the beautiful to coast along. We allow them to ride on their looks for as long as those looks last. 

It isn't right, but we do.

You know we do.

We're surprised when beautiful women refuse to coast. We stand up and take notice when they decide to kick ass instead.

Why?

Why do we consider beauty and intelligence to be mutually exclusive? They aren't. We know that. But, our knee-jerk reaction is always to be surprised.

Why?

I wish I knew. I don't.

So this post is my apology to all the beautiful women that I know. I won't list you all, but you know who you are. 

This post is also a celebration of a CEO's use of a social media platform to further a company's goals. It was done effectively, quickly, and cheaply.

The fact that the CEO is a she, and a good-looking one at that, is irrelevant.

At least, it should be.

Further apologies go out to bikini model Amy Lee for putting my ugly mug on her body.  

I wonder how many people will notice.

Let's do an impromptu Twitter poll.

Better yet, let's do two. 

Choose from one of these links: 

I caught what Paul is saying right away.
I missed what Paul is saying the first time.

Now choose from one of these

I noticed the face right away.
I did a double-take.
I still don't see Paul's face.

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