To LinkedIn or Not? It’s becoming the Question!

It’s become apparent to me that our society is one of “use it” until we “abuse it”.

What am I talking about? Truth is a hundred things, but today I’m going to focus on just one, LinkedIn.

When I first joined LI, it was a reputable site. I spent time surfing through potential contacts and connected with those I either shared an industry with or those in positions of power whose company were a good fit for our services.

I never haphazardly just tried to connect with everyone for no good reason. It’s a business site, not a social site like FB, so I treated it with more respect and those who were listed on it. Once a connection was made, we each would send the other a response. Typically, a “thank you for connecting” or other nice greeting, might possibly ask a simple question and the banter would be returned like a volley on the tennis court, trying to get to know the other person.

Unfortunately, that was then, and this is now.

Now, I receive connection requests from everyone and anyone, which is still ok, but if I dare to connect, before I can even remove my hand from my mouse, a sales pitch the length of my arm pops us, blocks my screen and a calendar to set an appointment is sure to be included in the content of the message.

There is no courtship, no dinner, no first date. Just wham bam, let’s get it on! And the fact that I have to set an appointment on your calendar when I don’t even understand exactly what you and your company does has about as much of a chance happening as me walking across the Atlantic!

But maybe the saddest part of the entire thing is nearly 50% of those who send me a salesy greeting right out of the gate obviously have no idea what I do for a living and what services may or may not be relevant to my company. They’re my absolute favorite!

To add insult to injury I got so tired of this constantly happening, that I actually did a video on this exact topic. It was viewed quite a bit. So, do you know what happened? This annoying tactic increased! It’s become a W—- house for a bunch of hustlers! I can only assume they’re playing the percentages game because they certainly aren’t playing the targeted relationship game.

Seriously, do these people understand business? Do they have any concept of how important relationship building is? Better yet, do they understand the round peg, round hole theory?

Listen LI is a helpful tool, exactly how much business comes from it, I don’t know, but it’s still a good place for professionals to connect, share ideas, opinions, and even sometimes find answers to problems they face. Unfortunately, now everything is loaded on it, from pictures of Pups to Pimps and Politicians!

Sorry, that was redundant!

LinkedIn can be a good tool but the exploitation of it has become ridiculous and has truly weakened the product, at least in my mind. Maybe the staff of LI needs to take more proactive precautions to manage their site and the civility and professionalism on it before it goes the way of MySpace!

MySpace! Who the hell uses MySpace these days? My point exactly!