The Return

When I first started using social media, I was slow out of the gate.

I reluctantly joined Facebook because a lot of friends were using it and I could connect with those with whom I hadn't kept in close contact, and it was nice to see what they were up to. But as more and more content from people I didn't know started filling my timeline, I used it less and less, until I stopped using it altogether, several years ago, and closed my account this year.

I joined Twitter in 2011 at DW's suggestion, as she was away for a couple of weeks, in Taiwan, for work, and she felt it would be the fastest way to keep in touch. And over the years, while I made some great friends with the social-media app, my feed once again became polluted, and when the biggest twit of them all bought the company, I dumped it.

Around the same time that I joined Twitter, I joined LinkedIn. And at that time, I was almost as active on this so-called platform for professionals as I was on Twitter. In the first couple of years, I made so many new connections and more new friends than I did on the other site.

I used to use Hootsuite to manage all of my announcements of my latest blog posts, so that I could get the word out to Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn in one shot. But when Hootsuite dropped Facebook as a supported platform, and later wanted to charge for the services I had been enjoying for about a decade, I dropped it; and, in doing so, I stopped sharing blog-post announcements on LinkedIn.

My use of LinkedIn dwindled to almost zero quite a few years ago. I removed it from the many tabs that I keep open on my Web browser. I would only go into it if I received a notification from one of my contacts. And when I finally retired, I told myself, I would close my account altogether.

But since I've been 'retired' from my company, I've returned to LinkedIn. I announced that I was no longer working at my company. I've changed my profile to reflect my current situation. And once again, I've started sharing my blog-post announcements.

I'm even playing a stupid little game, Zip, each day.

I've noticed that, like Facebook, my LinkedIn feed is full of posts from people to whom I'm not connected, and it's a bit of a pain to find my peeps. But because I don't intend to stay retired, I'm still hopeful that LinkedIn will be a useful tool when I'm ready to start looking again.

The LinkedIn tab has returned to my browser. We'll see how it stays.