The next “thud”
you hear coming from this quarter may be LinkedIn hitting bottom on my value
scale.
I’ll acknowledge
my own contribution to that; I allowed myself to get into discussions
(arguments, really) that had nothing to do with business, and were on subjects
and with people so polarized there was
never any chance discussion would change a mind on either side. Engaging in
that is, I’ll say it myself, stupid.
Now, however, I’ve seen something that may tell us more of what LinkedIn is really about.
People publish
tips for success on LinkedIn, success being defined most often as getting more
people to view your profile. Presumably the more people who look you up, the
more chances you will have to succeed in whatever it is you’re doing, usually
selling something. For some people, of course, being noticed is the goal in
itself.
But of three
tips I saw recently, only one involved anything constructive, like posting
information of value. The real keys to succeeding on Linked in appear to be (a)
to keep changing things in your profile (doesn’t matter what) because people
connected to you receive notice of those changes and, you hope, will want to
see what’s changed, upping your number of
profile views; and (b) to look at lots of other people’s profiles, on the
assumption that they will then look at yours -- upping
your number of profile views -- to see why you’re checking on them. This
one has the added benefit of also increasing the number of views for all those
people you’ve looked at -- a win-win situation if I’ve ever seen one. The
beauty of it is, it doesn’t require any intellectual effort. Your fingers do
the walking.
Somehow, that
doesn’t seem like what I remember as the reason for joining. I’d be happy to
debate the subject with anyone who cares to defend those techniques.
I’ve also posted
to a “LinkedIn Influencer,” the question “What qualifies you to be an
“Influencer”? The occasion was my
attention being called, via email announcement, to something he had
written. It was well enough written, and presented
nothing to offend, but Influential,
with a capital “I”? Didn’t seem that way. It sure didn’t have the heft of the
Communist Manifesto, or Martin Luther’s checklist, or something written by the
Thomases Paine or Jefferson. Fact is, it
didn’t rise to the level of a political speech by Mitch McConnell -- a very low
bar.
But then, there are people easily
influenced (take a look at the post just before this one, December 7, for an example). For me, though, old and set in my ways, a banal essay about happiness, money, and
success isn't going to influence anything.
All in all,
LinkedIn is a disappointment. If that puts me on the short end of a 300-million-against-one argument -- so be it.
