How long should my LinkedIn article be in order to provide optimal viewership? According to LinkedIn, just under 500 words. PRDaily suggests 3,000-10,000 word long-form articles will encourage the greatest amount of shares. OKDork advises titles between 40 and 49 characters, and insists on long-form articles of 1,900 to 2,000 words to maximize viewership—just make sure your articles are at the readership level of an eleven-year-old. Hubspot encourages writers to keep their titles >70 characters and descriptions under 250 characters. I need to know all this, because Kasanoff is telling me all the reasons why I must publish on LinkedIn.
Huffington Post can tell me the fifteen career milestones I should have made before turning thirty last October, and LifeHacker has the most important money milestones I should have made by then, too. LearnVest has the thirty smart career moves I should have made by now, of which I can only claim about half. Big Think is here to remind me that thirty is not, in fact, the new twenty, but just in case, there’s Mark Manson with the ten life lessons that I need in order to excel in my thirties. Forbes can tell me what the three career stages are, tell me where I really should be, and in finding I’m not there, Marc and Dangel has the seven reasons why I’m not successful. In need a pick-me-up, Forbes is back again with the seven reasons why I’ll never be successful.
But not all is lost. Forbes can also tell me how to fast-track my career up the corporate ladder; The Ladders has seven ways I can move up by moving over; and LifeHack has an article on everything I should do and not do to ensure career progression. As a lady, I have to Lean In, but carefully, carefully, because it can easily be taken as bossy (God forbid) and backfire. Inc tells me success can’t be achieved in a forty-hour workweek, but Forbes and LifeHack are back again demonstrating the need for work-life balance, and tips for finding it.
Most of my peers have a graduate degree of some sort, and those who don’t have vague or definitive plans of getting their own in futures both concrete and ever-elusive. We’re all coaching each other on both writing at least 500 words and posting a picture a day. We’re having a hard time following our own instructions.
Welcome to the Millennial Generation: inundated with lists and descriptions and criteria of what to do, how to do, and when to do, exactly, everything that we should be doing.
Because as these conversations about career and ambition are taking place, my peers are also stuck in conversations and arguments about how long is the right amount of time to be in a relationship before moving in together, and how long is the right amount of time to get engaged after that. We are sure that some are moving much, much too fast, and others far too slow. Everyone has the answer, or, if they don’t, at least the internet does: Bustle says there’s just one answer to when is the right time to move in, while Psychology Today has the eight steps that must be made before taking the step.
My Facebook feed is telling me that we’re all getting engaged, or married, or having kids. Meanwhile, Twitter is clearly demonstrating just how much wittier my network is than I could ever dream to be, and kindly telling me how many more followers my followers have than I do. My newsfeeds are flooded with smiling family faces and travel photos of friends near and far, living blissful lives full of rainforests, medieval villages, and Balinese sunsets. The NYTimes is tantalizing me with the 52 places I must travel to in 2015, while Elite Daily has the list of the 50 unpredictable and non-clichéd places to travel to while in your twenties.
With all this ubiquitous advice, I’d hate to be cliché.
I had a moment a few years ago, breaking down in confidence to a trusted mentor. I was in a situation where I had several influencers (colleagues, friends, and digital alike) advising me on what to do next. I was looking at everything, trying to do what was right, trying to take everything into accord, trying to move forward in the best direction with everything in consideration, but I couldn’t. I was stuck. In the piles of guidance was a web of contradictions, and within the contradictions and counsel was me, tangled like a fly, unable to move, not even knowing where to go should I break out.
For all my luck, my mentor put it plainly: “You just take it all in, you think about, and you choose. You make the decision. You do what your mind and your gut says. Of all the right choices out there, you pick the one that seems rightest to you, and go with that.”
My generation came of age into our careers with this pervasive technology and content; with the lists, and how-to’s, and best practices pervasively surrounding us. Imagine the possibilities if we started to break out of what we’re told we should be doing, and do what we think we should do—or, better yet—what we want to do. Unleash ourselves from the bounds of omnipresent and incongruous norms and see just what we’re made of, being guided from the inside out, rather than bending under the outside, in.
I’ll do my part, at least, by posting a 900+ word LinkedIn article on a weekend. We’ll see where it goes from here.
Originally posted on LinkedIn.