A new study published today by the Harvard Business Review has found that positive quotes posted to LinkedIn actually damages the productivity and work rate of those users who read them.
Many coaches, trainers and consultants regularly post motivational and inspiring quotes on their feeds as part of their social media marketing plans and also as an effort to remain recent in the minds of their potential clients.
Often, people can post these quotes 2-3 times a day. But now it has turned out, that the message of the quotes is not actually getting through and that posting the comments is doing more harm than good.
The study found that:
Quotes on LinkedIn actually add to the distractions faced by workers on a daily basis. Research has indicated that reading quotes on LinkedIn takes up to 3 hours a week. That is 3 hours that could be spent on projects or other in house activities. This pattern appears to be widespread and causing huge inefficiencies across the board.
The report went on to acknowledge that although the quotes are well intentioned, the impact is rather different. Hundreds of hours each year are now lost to people reading quotes from dead people that in no way relate to or help the completion of in house tasks.
Further insights showed that the quotes can often piss people off. Irish users of the professional social media platform appear to detest positive quotes and reading them can put them in such a negative mood that they are forced to leave their desks and go for tea.
Again this behavioural pattern because of the quotes, decreases an employee’s productivity rather than increasing it. Placing Irish people in a negative mood, also reduces their work rate and increases the amount of time spent complaining about the quote and the person who posted it.
Professionals in the self-help, personal and professional development area are being urged to stop posting these quotes as it is in fact damaging productivity and hindering a full scale economic recovery.
