While Gary Vaynerchuk has always spoken a lot of sense about social media I never really liked him.

This character, one of the early stars of the social media world, was brash, loud mouthed and uncouth and while the content was always good it was all about “the hustle” and roaring at you in a very attention seeking way.

Of course in this “attention media” (he uses this clever term by the way) world this worked so well for him and while I do read what he has to say, I always do my best to resist because of his crass manner.

Last week for Mother’s Day (in the US) he posted a beautiful thoughtful post on LinkedIn about his mum that was very personal and went into a lot of detail about why she was so special and why he credited her for the huge influence she had on him.

The surprising post on this B2B platform had nothing to do with social media or his hustle but it caught my attention and two minutes after reading it I changed how I viewed him. Maybe he is a nice guy afterall?

There is a simple lesson in this about social media use and in particular LinkedIn.

Even though it is a B2B platform, don’t be afraid to be human every now and then, people will love you for it.

Greg

Greg Canty is the Head of the Digital Department at Fuzion who provides Social Media Consultancy to clients in all sectors.