Your Attention Is My Life’s Purpose
A satirical look at the day in the life of a LinkedIn Influencer.
There is a new phenomenon that is destroying careers all over the planet. It’s worse than an asteroid wiping out humanity.
They will ruin your life — and your career. (Two for the price of one on Taco Tuesday, without the hot sauce.)
They have created a modern-day social media Ponzi Scheme. It looks like this:
“I added 1000 followers in 1 week. I want to return the favor. You deserve more followers. If you are:
1. Looking for a job 2. Recruiting 3. Starting or Growing your business 4. Building your personal brand
It’s simple -
1. Put a like & comment on this post. 2. Follow anyone who also puts a like or comment.
We are in this together. Let the connecting begin! Who’s in?”
The promise is a new career or a job if you’re unemployed by simply liking or commenting on their LinkedIn post. You can even get some of that precious attention all for yourself. But first, you must bleed and then die on the cross in the name of attention.
These people who ask for your attention are a new breed of business folk. They are known as LinkedIn Influencers.
They are smarter than the previous beta version known as “The Instagram Influencer.” (Their ideas were substandard because they didn’t understand business.) They have shinier shoes than Jeff Bezos after he attends another ceremony in his name and checks his bank balance with yet another “Billie” worth of cash to his name.
If your goal is to make your life purpose about attention too, the good news is you can. First you must pretend to be kind and then block anybody that asks for your help. The nobler their cause, the harder you should slam that block button. Block like it’s your day job. Block like its never been done before and you’re achieving the impossible.
The next step is to accuse everyone of copying your awesome, incredibly original copy (aka words you typed that were similar to the influencers who came before you). Really own how unique and original your content is.
Act like an angel who spits out wisdom quotes better than Mark Twain. Make Einstein look stupid with your “value bombs.”
You are awesome and everyone wants to be you. As your engagement rises, it’s time to go global baby!
Package up this attention game you learned and sell it back to the suckers who like and comment on your work in the form of a $9.95 PDF titled “How to Growth Hack LinkedIn Like A Pro.” Then upgrade those attention suckers to a $99 course. Your course is better than a Harvard Education, remember that.
This next part is where it gets hard. You have to look relatable. And relatable people attend job interviews and get rejected. Even though you’ve never attended a job interview, that’s okay. You know people who have, right?
Great LinkedIn Influencers network a lot too.
“Your network equals your net-worth” and don’t you ever forget that Jordan Belfort Jnr (Wolf of Wall Street). LinkedIn is all about networking. Networking is how you get more attention. You sell the promise of networking and then tell people the networking should happen on your content.
As they network, your fame rises.
Now there’s one problem: as people network, they want to be around more of your awesomeness and connectedness. Their natural tendency is to want to send you a connection request. They can’t. LinkedIn only allows you a maximum of 30,000 connections. So it is now your job to remind everybody that they can’t connect with you anymore because you have hit the limit due to your overwhelming popularity.
You need to mention the 30,000 limit in your profile, in every post, and in your LinkedIn headline.
People can’t survive if they can’t be around you. This is urgent. Now thank god there is a solution to this problem. ***Wipes sweat from his face***
You must ask people to “follow” you instead.
An easy way is to create a hashtag of your name. This allows people to find your amazing, life-changing work. Inspirational people hang around other jaw-dropping experts too.
Take a Denzel Washington speech off Youtube.
Post it as your own video. Really make us believe it. Share that video like you were in the front row of Denzel’s speech and you happen to film the whole thing. Credit nobody for this video. You found the video and now you own it. Share Denzel’s lessons like he is your next-door neighbor and you had coffee with him this morning.
God, you’re awesome.
All this content is exploding your following. You just hit 100K followers. Pretend you know everybody without knowing anybody.
It’s now time to have a follower party. What’s that? It’s a ceremony in your name. It’s where you hold up your 2014 iPhone from your first job and give a speech. You thank everybody like you’re accepting the Nobel Prize. You remind us all of how important gratitude is. Your life has been hard as an influencer. It’s hard to be so…ummm…well-liked?
Geez that’s a content idea for tomorrow. Everything is content. You’re a content, attention-loving drug feen. Post that content and hashtag the heck out of everything.
#Careers #MondayAwesomeness #LovingLife #CareerSuccess
Saturday Morning: wake up with an attention hangover. Realize that social media views do not equal money. Check your phone and see twenty-one missed calls from your boss at your real day job who is wondering where the heck you’ve been.
You have bills to pay and now you’ve been fired for clogging up people’s newsfeeds rather than doing work that pays you real money with dead people’s faces on it.
You’re hungry.
You’re no longer starving for attention because your life’s purpose has nothing to do with attention. Your stomach is hungry because you need money so you can eat.
