I’m sure on LinkedIn you have regularly come across posts that invite you to ‘follow’ the post author.
You may also have something turn up in your messages with the heading ‘promoted’, or you may have noticed a section under your ‘My Network’ tab that lists ‘Recommended people for you’ each of which invite you to ‘follow’.
The question is… what credentials merit that you follow them?
That they are an eminent person in their profession – perhaps, or that they have a huge following already – maybe… But LinkedIn is a community, and in any community, engaging with others should be a key component.
More importantly, engagement is about listening as much as speaking. One of the things that should concern you about the human qualities of those you follow, should be their willingness to listen and participate outside the closed space of their own posts and articles.
It is easy to find out if members are sufficiently reciprocating, if they are ‘listening’ as much as ‘speaking’
Scroll down to the section in their profile called ‘Activity’ and in the right top corner of the section click ‘See All’. Scroll through their participation history as far as you have patience, and check how often they respond to or contribute to content that isn’t their own or that of a co-worker.
If you can’t find anything, then they are preaching but not listening. They are failing to engage on equal terms with their community.
What to do next ? Well if you don’t like their sense of self obsession, you can just decide to ‘unfollow’ them. Open their profile, at the top near their picture, move to the extreme right to find the ‘more’ button, click on it and select ‘unfollow’ from the drop down menu.
If they won’t listen to others, you don’t need to listen to them!
The BEST INFUENCERS are those open to being INFLUENCED by others for the BETTER.
Already in the Board but sharing here for those yet to get to the Board. This is our Tekedia Live schedule for this week. I begin it later today. Then Comfort Aruosa-Osemwegie ACSI,CFC of DealRoom Nigeria will follow tomorrow. On Saturday, market makers and rainmakers duo of Azeez Lawal of TrustBanc Capital and Babalola of Muster will lead one on Capital Market and Startup Fundraising.
Thurs, 12noon | Raising Capital for SMEs | Comfort Aruosa-Osemwegie, CEO DealRoom Nigeria
Sat, 7pm | Capital Market Operations & Startup Funding | Azeez Lawal, Trustbanc Capital & Ibraheem Babalola, Muster
Innovators co-learn at Tekedia Mini-MBA. Register for the next edition.
The quality of our programs at the Tekedia Institute is anchored on the excellence of our Faculty. I am happy that we have a new Faculty member. Ibraheem Babalola is a business leader who speaks on important market issues in CNBC, Channels TV, etc. Our entrepreneurship and investment tracks just got better. Mr. Babalola, welcome to Tekedia Institute.
Communicating with the public during crises has always been embedded with accusations and counter-accusations from the actors and concerned stakeholders. In recent times, the emergence of new media occasioned by the Internet has indicated public relations officers do not need to defend what is not hidden because Facebook, Twitter, Instagram among others have strengthened consumer callout culture, which was the exclusive right of journalists, especially investigative journalists in Nigeria and other countries before the advent of the Internet and social networking sites.
Both the journalists and citizens with the access to the social networking sites can now deplore the strategy for socioeconomic and political changes. Some days ago, Fisayo Soyombo, Nigeria’s global award-winning investigative journalist, called out the University College Hospital on his social media accounts [Facebook and Twitter]. According to him, the management needs to work on the poor water supply and toilet facilities in the hospital. His post attracted public condemnation of poor handling of the facilities.
On November 17, 2020, Soyombo reported on his social media handles that the Public Relations Officer of the hospital described his video as fake. “My attention has been drawn to claims by Toyin Akinrinlola, PRO of UCH, on TVC’s ‘Your View’ that the video I released last week is fake and not from UCH. Mr. PRO sir, I posted just the abridged version of that video. Do you want me to release the full length?” As at the time of writing this analysis, the post has been liked 467 times and shared 36 times with 122 comments. Examining the post on his Twitter handle, our analyst found that more than 2000 of his followers have retweeted the post. The post has been liked more than 4,500 times.
Based on the trending of the post, our analyst notes that the Public Relations Officer has made a strategic mistake, denying the poor condition of the facilities seems to be more honourable than describing a video released by an experienced investigative journalist. In our experience, we have learnt that when a PRO committed a mistake like this in the age of the Internet, he or she has set paths for net-citizens and heavy Internet users to explore the past of the brand being protected.
The University College Hospital has a trajectory that shows that water supply and toilet facilities are not in good condition. On January 7, 2017 report has it that over 600 members of the Association of Resident Doctors protested against poor working conditions, unpaid salaries and absence of basic facilities. In the same year [November 17, 2017], it was reported that “the UCH has upgraded its facilities and expanded its services to foster quality healthcare delivery in the country.” More than two months later, Professor Alonge, former Chief Medical Director, discussed the good, the bad and the ugly sides of the hospital in an interview with a national newspaper.
“So, now that there are decent toilets here, some of them will rather come over to use them than defacing the environment,” this was the statement of Professor Jesse Otegbayo, the new CMD, in a report published on July 18, 2019. In another report, the new CMD says “When I went round the theatre at the inception of my administration, I saw the poor state of the facility, including the toilets and the changing rooms,” While referring to the new CMD, a national newspaper reported on October 14, 2020 that the hospital would need nothing less than N50billion intervention fund to reclaim its glory as a leading tertiary health institution in the country.
Looking at the past, it is clear that the PRO has forgotten the past before responding to the call-out. Our analyst notes that as a strategic personnel and communicator, the PRO should have gone through all the trends of conversations of the former and the new CMDs on the state of the facilities before responding to the investigative journalist. This is imperative because consumers are not only ones shaping perception about brands, journalists do too.
Calling the video fake when it is clear that the journalist has more than what he released to the public is a strategic public relations mistake, which would continue to hunt the hospital in the next few days. In the current crisis, the PRO needs to be proactive by moving quickly and listen closely. Being vocal without deep understanding of the public and their expectations regarding the issue would be more damaging than what the management of the hospital expected from the denial strategy and tactic.
Exhibit 2: Select Public Attitudinal Dispositions to the Actors
You might have read that the Governor of Ebonyi State, David Umahi, has left PDP for APC. I smile because many people are surprised.
The Ebonyi State Governor, David Umahi, has finally confirmed his defection to the ruling All Progressive Congress(APC) from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
He told journalists in Abakaliki on Tuesday that he had no regrets leaving the PDP.
The governor said he moved to the APC because of “injustice” meted out to the South-east by the PDP.
He said that he had no deal with the APC or any member of the party with regards to the zoning of the presidential position to the region.
He said: “I want to clear the air that I never sought (for) PDP presidential ticket and I will not. So whoever that said that I moved to APC because they refused to zone the ticket to me is being very mischievous.
Ipredicted this move and wrote thus in October 2018, shortly after the coronation of Buhari and Osinbajo:
By this time in 2022, APC will select Bola Tinubu as the presidential flagbearer of the party for Election 2023. Mr. Tinubu will select a retiring governor from the southeast as his running mate. The main goal is to quench any agitation that 2023 will be the turn for southeast.
The present governor of Ebonyi state will likely be his running mate. Engr David Umahi will win with PDP in 2019 but will decamp to APC shortly. His “friendship” comment on President Buhari was not a lapse.
Largely, the best time to decamp as a governor is during the second term as you may not have to face any regional election. Decamping will be very popular because in my model, I expect Buhari to win in 2019 if he continues to show physical energy as he has recently demonstrated.
We will wait for 2022 for the other parts of the prediction to come to pass. Engr Umahi will run for the presidency on the APC platform. He will lose. Then Tinubu will select him as his running mate. As I wrote in 2018, “Tinubu/Umahi will be formidable”. And from all indications, APC will move power to the southwest.
This one seems like a hail mary pass in America football by the Central Bank of Nigeria:banning transfer of forex (foreign exchange) from one bank customer to another, and the prohibition of forex cash lodgings into domiciliary accounts, by another person, who is not the account owner. As Sun noted, the motivation of this new mandate is to ascertain the utilisation of inflows into customers domiciliary accounts.
The circular states: “Forex inflows cannot be credited to customers until the legitimacy of funds is established.
“They can have unfettered access by telegraphic transfers up to a limit of $40,000 monthly for payment of medical bills, school fees, subscription to professional bodies subject to existing CBN guidelines.
“Transfers from one customer to another is prohibited. Transfer within related companies is allowed subject to a limit of $50,000 per month.”
It recommended that proceeds from non-oil exports should be sold to banks, used for repayment of dollar term loans, and self-utilisation for trade transactions for LC, bills and Form A. Also oil export proceeds from E&P companies are to be used to pay contractors and service providers employed by the oil companies in addition to the recommended uses for non-oil FX proceeds.
Largely, the apex bank has now understood what is happening: one of the best investments in Nigeria, since the beginning of 2020, was simply buying foreign currency and leaving it in your domiciliary account to gain value over the naira. We discussed this the other day in Tekedia Live.
Possibly, the apex bank has seen piles of value in domiciliary accounts of rich Nigerians even as those accounts are on HODL position as in the bitcoin world. Yes, you buy the US dollars, put them in the dorm account, with no intention to do any business with them, but wait for them to gain value on the naira.
As this passes, I hope one day we do not wake up with a CBN mandate that all monies in dorm accounts be converted into naira. Do not bet against that call!
Yet, it is all hail mary pass until Nigeria starts producing things. We are just building financial models but those have to be based on productive systems. By January, the U.S. government will send me another cheque for the rights to my patent which it licensed. Until we can get to that level of creating innovation, the central bank is simply doing dem go dey pose!
