Strain of keeping up professional appearances

Networking platforms like LinkedIn can be vital for ambitious businesses or workers, but moderation is key for both mental health and success

Picture: iStock 

THERE’S a new pressure on people who aspire to professional success. 

To be taken seriously, not only should they be making progress in their careers, but they should also be making that progress visible online by posting about it on social media platforms like LinkedIn, which has approximately 1.2bn global users, including 3.5m in Ireland.

Ciara Garvan: LinkedIn helped build my business, but it is hard to switch off from.

Ciara Garvan from Dublin knows this pressure. She runs the learning and recruitment company workjuggle.com and jokes that she has “a love/hate relationship with LinkedIn”.

“It has helped me build my business by making people aware of the services we provide and connecting me with others,” she says. “But I find it hard to switch off from. When I go on holidays, I have to delete the app from my phone. Otherwise, I’d be logging on and feeling bad for missing out on potential work opportunities.”

Henry Ellis-Paul, who runs a design studio called Precinct Creative, has also had ups and downs with LinkedIn. In September last year, he took up a challenge issued by the podcaster and entrepreneur Steven Bartlett to post on LinkedIn every day for 90 days.

Henry Ellis-Paul runs a design studio Precinct Creative. 

Prior to that, he was aware of “the importance of posting regularly to establish a community around you and your business” and posted whenever he had the time.

However, he had recently relocated to Britain from Australia and thought the 90-day challenge would be a great way of “getting local eyeballs on our website”.

He expected it would help him secure work and position him as an expert in his industry, but it didn’t quite work out that way.

Even though his website experienced increased traffic, “none of it resulted in new business enquiries”. Ellis-Paul succeeded in growing his network to include fellow designers and industry professionals, but most of his new connections were those “who wanted to help with marketing campaigns”.

What most surprised him was the psychological impact of such regular posting. He felt the pressure to post as “a constant weight on my shoulders. It was relentless. As soon as I finished one post, I’d have to start thinking about the next”.

He also became fixated on the level of engagement his posts received and found it “really hard” when that level decreased.

“The more I posted, the fewer reactions I got, I think because I became less of a novelty,” he says. “That was so disheartening.”

Comparison at scale

Natalia Inés Putrino is a psychologist and chartered member of the Psychological Society of Ireland. She cites two 2024 research papers to explain why constant social media posting can have a negative impact.

One is a study of undergraduate university students, and the other is of 823 professionals on LinkedIn.

“Both show that the more we are exposed to idealised, self-promotional content on these platforms, the more emotional stress and exhaustion we feel,” she says. “The intense comparison that can result from viewing social media can leave us feeling as if we don’t measure up, which can reinforce perfectionism and trigger imposter syndrome.”

Michal Folwarczny, a marketing lecturer at the University of Galway who trained as a psychologist and whose research includes status signalling, recognises that social media platforms like LinkedIn have advantages. They “offer job seekers opportunities to hear about and apply for roles all over the world” and have allowed people, such as fitness enthusiast Joe Wicks and makeup artist Huda Kattan, to grow successful brands and businesses.

Psychologist Natalia Putrino: ‘Visibility is not the same as competence’.

But he believes the level of comparison these platforms encourage can be psychologically destabilising.

“Decades ago, we compared ourselves to those in our immediate circle at work,” he says. “But now we compare ourselves to hundreds, if not thousands, of other professionals. As humans, we’ve evolved to become hyper-vigilant to social cues that demonstrate our place in the hierarchy. If we feel we don’t compare well and are near the bottom of that hierarchy, our body releases the stress hormone cortisol, which impacts our physical and psychological wellbeing over time.”

The opposite is also true.

“If we feel we come out on top in social comparisons, our body releases endorphins which make us feel great,” says Folwarczny.

‘Less is more’

Is it possible to reap the professional rewards of platforms like LinkedIn while protecting ourselves from possible ill effects? Our experts believe it is.

Putrino says it starts with “being clear about our purpose for using particular platforms and then using one or two rather than trying to be everywhere”.

She also urges people to realise, like Ellis-Paul belatedly did, that “maintaining a frequent presence on social media is demanding work and additional emotional and cognitive labour on top of what you’re already expected to do in your paid job. Set clear boundaries over how often you post online and how often you check socials. Otherwise, it can become overwhelming”.

Folwarczny believes that “less is more”. Posting too much can result in people losing interest, so “identify three or four strengths that make you unique and build your brand and story around those, rather than trying to post something different every day”.

Putrino warns that feeling under pressure to post on social media can also result in “posting something that isn’t well thought out or well received, which can affect your reputation. So don’t post impulsively. Be careful how you present yourself online”.

Be honest when doing so, too.

“Competitiveness can make people adopt two faces: The real one and the one they show online,” says Folwarczny. “While a certain amount of polish is to be expected, don’t pretend to be something you’re not. It can backfire on you if you’re found out.”

Also, try not to measure professional worth by the number of likes and followers.

“Remind yourself that these platforms are based and monetised on our natural tendencies to compare, seek external validation, and look for ways of belonging,” says Putrino.

“The fact someone is gaining attention online doesn’t necessarily mean they are the best at doing their job. Visibility is not the same as competence, and frequency of posting doesn’t equate to success.

“It’s all just a game, and the extent to which you play it is up to you. Being online is beneficial for most professionals these days but you have to strike a sustainable and psychologically healthy balance.”

Garvan now posts on LinkedIn about three times a week on behalf of her business and once a week professionally.

“It’s a marketing and networking tool, and I try to connect with people and encourage them to connect with me,” she says.

“But I don’t focus on selling my services. Instead, I post things I find interesting, as I think others might find them interesting too.”

Ellis-Paul has arrived at a similar conclusion.

“I remind myself that there are plenty of people who aren’t using LinkedIn regularly and who are still running successful businesses.”

With that in mind, he has adopted a more relaxed approach and now posts two or three times a week on LinkedIn: “Or when I genuinely feel I have something to say. One of the biggest lessons I learned during my 90 days of daily posting was that the best ideas usually came when I didn’t force them.”