How to Discern “Content Creators” Who Are Full of It

Lately I've been roaming the social media quite a bit, in an effort to work on my personal brand. Since my advisor on the matter recommend I expand my choice of SM (which at that time was mainly beBee), I took her advice and started working my networks in LI, Twitter, and even FB. Inevitably, I came across other people who were doing the same, though some of them were masquerading as content creators. It took me a few hours reading their posts (hours which I’m never going to get back), but eventually I saw through their nonsense. Here is the gist of my experience, which can be used to detect if someone is not a true content creator but more of a contributor to the noise that plagues SM.

First of all, these people rarely, if ever, engage with their audience. Even if someone posts a reply to them, they either ignore it, or (most likely) never become aware of it in the first place. These people are more concerned about getting their message across and are most likely unable to receive and act upon any feedback.

The second characteristic, which in a way stems from the first, is that these people never change their views, or their message. If they supported R once, when it was relevant to do so, they will continue promoting this tool, completely oblivious of the alternatives that have become more relevant over the years. If fact, they may even use the same articles they had published in the past, though they may change the titles.

Another characteristic, is that these people tend to gravitate towards a single (or a couple) of SM platforms. They may use different groups in those platforms (in the case of LI), but they rarely explore other alternatives, particularly when it comes to the means of delivering their message. Perhaps an infographic is better for promoting this message of theirs, but they’ll probably never find out because they never want to try out Instagram, for example.

Finally, these people have very weak arguments for convincing anyone about their message. The articles they write are full of holes (more than a Swiss cheese, even!) while their logic is mediocre at best. Perhaps, that’s why they rarely engage in discussions about their posts, since it would take superhuman efforts to defend their positions in a rational manner. For example, Hadoop has run its course in Data Science. Bashing about how it is an essential technology for a data scientist is both ignorant and an insult on the audience’s intelligence.

Personal branding is important, however times are changing and it’s best to delegate at least part of the strategy to professionals, and/or adapt the ways you go about it so that it suits the modern audience. Fortunately beBee lends itself for that, though it is very useful to make use of other SM channels too.