Good networking practices in LinkedIn.

Dear readers of mine:

today I want to comment something that happend to me recently in LinkedIn. I write blog posts when I can and try always the content to be of interest. Then I share it in my groups trying to develop a good conversation. Lately I wrote two posts publishing interesting Houzz tours with my comment, and posted in my groups. I've always had a positive groupal behaviour, I think: I've been respectful and have tried to make my contribution to others...

Isabel de Yzaguirre, IdY.
La Colorista.

It happens that I publish my content from Bloggers directly to LinkedIn, and I've stated that slide presentations don't show when linked. Instead of that, my photo and Bloggers profile was shown, though I linked to the post. I usually had been posting my content in Color related groups, but since I belong to many Interior Design groups, I thought my posts on Color could be of  interest. And I must state that I had a great and very welcoming response, and a great contribution of fellow Interior Designers on developing conversations on Color. If you scroll down in my blog, you will see that I wrote two of this posts with Houzz content lately. I had a great feedback in general, but had a bad surprise as well. Having had a comment in a group, and wanting to thank it, I came to discover that I had been blocked there! I was shocked, I admit!!!

Then I discovered that my latest posts showed my photo and Bloggers' profile instead of the post content. Could this be the cause why someone flagged my contribution? Could be, of course. But it happened only two times before I realized my mistake, and nobody warned me through any kind of comment or private message, which is the procedure I think should have been followed. Simply put, someone flagged me once and I was blocked! I wrote to the group owner to explain myself and ask him his reconsidering my  being blocked in this Interiors group, but I haven't had any response. I understand group owners are busy, and I understand that spamming is annoying. But I didn't mean to spam the group at all. In fact there were many people interested in what I posted and that engaged in a very interesting conversation, where everybody shared his/her thoughts on the subject. And I wasn't given a single chance when flagged by someone. 

So here go my thoughts: I revised what could have happened and detected the possible cause of the blocking. And the lesson I've learnt: if you post a link from your blog, be careful to do it with an interesting introducing question on the subject, that can begin an interesting conversation. Be careful not to be too showy of yourself or not to seem to be too showy. Even if you think you are behaving correctly, make sure nobody can think on the contrary, for we never know enough about others' level of sensibility.

For me it has been a very unpleasant experience, since I've always tried to be kind to everybody and never post negative criticism on  other people works, posts and blogs. But this happened to me and I've tried to learn from this experience. I'd love to know your thoughts on this question and I hope that this can help others as well. Let me finish with  my best wishes for a wonderful Year 2013 to everybody, which I didn't before for personal reasons.

See you soon with more posts on Color and Interior Design!

Isabel de Yzaguirre,

La  Colorista.