Thanks For Nothing LinkedIn

I posted something today at ArtsHacker pointing out a recent decision by LinkedIn to kill off their share counter API, which is what allows websites to show how many times site visitors share a page or post at Linkedin.

If you manage your organization’s social media channels, it’s worth pointing out that not only did LinkedIn kill the counter API for all shares going forward but it blitzed the underlying data for all previous share counts.

That means you’ll begin seeing previous counters dropping to zero (if they haven’t done so already).

If you know what negative social proof is, you know this change is going to make your job that much more difficult.

The only upside is it’s coming from LinkedIn and for most performing arts orgs, that’s not going to be one of their top social traffic referral sources. Even for something like this blog, LinkedIn accounted for only 1.61 percent of all social media referrals since Jan 1, 2018.

You can read more about LinkedIn’s rationale for killing off the share counter in the ArtsHacker post.

LinkedIn Kills Off Share Counters

About Drew McManus

"I hear that every time you show up to work with an orchestra, people get fired." Those were the first words out of an executive's mouth after her board chair introduced us. That executive is now a dear colleague and friend but the day that consulting contract began with her orchestra, she was convinced I was a hatchet-man brought in by the board to clean house.

I understand where the trepidation comes from as a great deal of my consulting and technology provider work for arts organizations involves due diligence, separating fact from fiction, interpreting spin, as well as performance review and oversight. So yes, sometimes that work results in one or two individuals "aggressively embracing career change" but far more often than not, it reinforces and clarifies exactly what works and why.

In short, it doesn't matter if you know where all the bodies are buried if you can't keep your own clients out of the ground, and I'm fortunate enough to say that for more than 15 years, I've done exactly that for groups of all budget size from Qatar to Kathmandu.

For fun, I write a daily blog about the orchestra business, provide a platform for arts insiders to speak their mind, keep track of what people in this business get paid, help write a satirical cartoon about orchestra life, hack the arts, and love a good coffee drink.

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