Every day I use LinkedIn. I use it as an address book, I use it to find people, I use it to check out what people are doing before I give them a ring. These days when I look at my LinkedIn alerts I don’t just get important updates about people changing jobs, or requests for help, I also get something else. I get crap. Some of this crap is coming from you, and I want it to STOP.
[Sorry for the bad language but lets call a spade a spade]
There are two forms of crap on LinkedIn – status updates and long form posts.
Status Updates
Go to www.linkedin.com and log in. This is where you see the status updates. Here are some examples – how many have you got?
- Motivational Quotes
- Murder Mystery Clues
- Videos of car crashes
- Quotes from designers about what ‘Good Design’ is
- Photographs of attractive ladies on horses
- Pictures of your new car (or one you want)
- PR about your latest product
- Pictures of your favourite graffitti
- Slideshares of Richard Bransons favourite quotations
- Photographs of Donald Trump and what you love/hate about him
- Photos of a blind expectant mother touching a 3d print of her unborn child’s face…
I get a couple of hundred of these every day. Somewhere amongst the hundreds of duds some of my network are asking for things I can help them with, or they are sharing useful pieces of advice, but I can’t see their updates because I am drowning in the crap.
Then there are the even more insidious long form blog posts.
Long Form Blog Posts
Long Form Blog posts also appear in your home feed, but you’ll probably see them in your notifications (see the flag in the top left hand corner). These are the sorts of Long Form Blog Posts I get:
- Why Norfolk Should Grow
- Is Collaboration Part of your Business Strategy?
- Sustainability Strategy Secrets of the Masterminds
- Get Bright LED Facts
- 3 Reasons why Blogging is Smart for Business
- The Accountants Alphabet: A
- [FINALLY] The biggest Social Networks get Personal
- Revisiting Completed blog posts: Underwood Road
- Building Better Buildings
- It’s a great big world out there – where is your cave?
… yada yada yada. I get half a dozen of these every day.
Why does this matter?
Why are people making status updates like this? Perhaps they are bored. Perhaps they are wound up about something – its understandable. Perhaps they don’t even realise that when they like a cat video they share it with all of us.
And what about the blog posts? Firstly of course these people are probably writing stuff because someone has told them it’s a good idea. Perhaps they are getting a lot of ‘eyeballs’. Perhaps they have stopped blogging on their website because they can get more eyeballs when they blog on LinkedIn. But there is a problem.
This crap is making us ANGRY.
Every time you post a status update on LinkedIn it goes in a stream, and people can choose to read it. They can see these in their home feed, or on their mobile device. Standing at a bus stop, waiting for a meeting to start, even on the loo, people can choose whether to look at your stuff. A bit like twitter…
If you post cat videos or motivational quotes here, I can hide your updates, and I don’t have to see any updates from you anymore, which is good for me, and bad for you, because you are now invisible to me. Serves you right for that motivational quote.
By the way, this also happens if you like the motivational quote or the comedy video someone else has shared. Sorry, but there it is. At least I can get rid of you. Social media is after all, opt in and opt out. Thank God.
But I’m not that bothered about the cat video posters; I can get rid of them. The people that make me really angry are the blog posters.
When you post a ‘long form’ or ‘pulse’ post on LinkedIn, you don’t just add it to the home stream of your entire network. You also send a notification to EVERYONE in your entire network. Your ex boss, your potential clients, your former colleagues, your current colleagues, the person you are trying to impress at work. Next time they visit LinkedIn they get your post. So do all the people who aren’t interested in LEDs, or collaboration, or your latest project. It is like you emailed them all. That is SPAM.
Its not as if it is very good spam either. After all, just because everyone can write articles, doesn’t mean we should. Think about it – I’m connected to 2000 interesting useful people on Linkedin. If every one of them blogs once a month the entire system would grind to a halt!
Crap will Kill Linkedin
When I told my friends on Twitter I was writing this blog post, several of them told me they had given up on Linkedin because of the crap. This is really sad, because as you know, LinkedIn is a fantastic business tool. In fact it’s the most used social media platform by construction professionals – over one million of them in the UK alone. I love LinkedIn and like my contacts here, I want it to remain a professional network, one where people behave professionally and ask each other for help.
How to save Linkedin
So here are my top tips for how to save LinkedIn from the deluge of crap.
1. Stop making crap.
Don’t post up crap and don’t interact with it. When you see a motivational quote or a cat video, don’t be tempted to comment ‘is this suitable for LinkedIn?’ you’re just spreading the disease.
2. Turn off the crap.
If you see one of these status updates, hover over it and click ‘Unfollow Tom Smith’ or whoever to unfollow the person who posted it. Then you won’t have to see them anymore. You can also unfollow people who comment – you have been warned!
With blog posts you find unhelpful you can also visit the blog post and unfollow the person. Again, you won’t get any of their updates anymore, even their requests for help with a problem, or news when they move jobs. Their loss.
3. Tell people how you feel about the crap.
Instead of spreading the disease by interacting with these updates, when you see an inappropriate message, send the person a private message, asking them not to post these kinds of updates, and tell them why – because ‘Crap will Kill Linkedin’. You can even show them this post if you like.
4. Use LinkedIn Responsibly.
If you have something useful or valuable to share, post a status update, but stop and think first. Remember that anyone can see it. Will it wind someone up? If so, think twice.
If you have something to share that everyone in your network needs to know, like that you’re moving job, or something that is really important for your industry, by all means write a blog post. But make sure you do it once a month or less, because otherwise we’ll all drown and you’ll be responsible.
That’s it. Please don’t join in with this pernicious infection. Keep the faith. Stop the crap.
Great post Su I am sure many people feel the same. I think it’s time for those who know how to use LinkedIn to take it back, basically from spammers.
Thanks Gordon, I agree
Best article I’ve read in a long time.
Fantastic Su; keep up the good work.
Thanks Melanie, the steam is no longer gushing out of my ears…
Just curious – what is the significance of the Leaning Tower Image on your header?
Hi Paul, it came about out of the name of the blog (which is now the name of the business), Just Practising. The blog was originally about architects and how bad they are at running their businesses, and the leaning tower, as a well known failed building, acts as an architectural metaphor for a failed but nevertheless loved practice.
You can see an example of the types of blog post I used to write on this topic here:
https://drvza2n4g1.wpdns.site/architects/whatgoodarchitectsdo/architects-aren%E2%80%99t-paid-enough-because-1-they-don%E2%80%99t-make-enough-money/
Unfortunately that’s the way of social media is, and unless LinkedIn do something about it then it’s never going to change. Reading this post was just as much a waste of my time as reading the crap, sorry! As was writing this response but I felt compelled to do so.
Hi Lee – your comment made me laugh!
But I disagree, I think LinkedIn has made it possible for us to change it.
I know that my title and tone of voice were clearly the result of being angry – I am angry that people do this. But the article is also a useful piece of information. It explains how when people share (or interact with, and therefore share on) useless stuff, it is really easy for people to unfollow/hide them. You can unfollow someone you’re connected with and still be connected to them. So like twitter, people can choose what and whom they look at. If you’re seeing useless stuff, just unfollow it. If you’re sharing useless stuff, pretty soon no-one except “your mum” will see it. LinkedIn has given us this facility though as usual hasn’t made it very visible! All we have to do is use it.
Great post, very helpful and timely.
Makers me wonder about what I’m doing on LinkedIn.
What would be examples of good updates and good posts?
Hi Matt,
Good question. Here are a couple I’ve seen recently:
Here’s a status update from David Miller asking for people’s recommendations for time tracking software. It is a good use of a status update because it enables him to ask for help from a wide audience, and for people to use the LinkedIn interface to recommend products, give their experience, mention other people who might help, and in doing so share his question more widely.
http://www.linkedin.com/hp/update/6118421486450589696
Here’s Rob Garvey’s recent post on the Government Construction Strategy (the new one that’s just come out). This works for me because it tells us about something that a lot of people in our industry should know, and adds value by giving Rob’s expert summary and opinion on the content. A lot of people won’t read the GCS but they should know what it says. Rob is doing this, whilst simultaneously demonstrating his expertise.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/government-construction-strategy-2016-20-rob-garvey
As someone quoted for producing trash… firstly an apology because trash is the last thing I would ever want to create, and I suspect you know that of me… Hope to have a chat with you to better understand it from both sides – the receiver and the producer. Finally to quote an old english saying – one mans trash is another mans treasure 🙂 However in general I agree that Linked in can be used very poorly by some – again I try and avoid that one.
Yes lets have a chat Jay. I’m sorry if you felt individually singled out – that wasn’t my intention. We are all guilty of this once in a while, I’ve just had enough!
I think I must be missing the point. Is this a blog post, complaining about people posting too many blog posts? Could it be time to write a blog post about too many people complaining about people posting too many blog posts… 😉
Hi Su
Fully agree with you. Well done for posting this.
I have taken some ribbing though as someone spotted that your screen shot above includes a post from me. They suggested you were accusing me of creating cr*p which I would doubt as I’m as anti-it as you are.
Hi Mark, thanks for commenting.
No I’m not suggesting that you personally are posting “crap”.
I’m also not suggesting that everyone who posts on LinkedIn is making crap, but I am suggesting that posting should be done with care and with the intention of _always_ being useful.
As you can see from the screenshot and my post I get several notifications every day about new long form posts by my network on LinkedIn. It takes longer for people to produce the long form (or ‘pulse’) posts than to post a status update, so I get fewer, but every time one of my network posts one, I get a notification.
Now I can turn notifications off, I can change my mobile phone settings, and I can unfollow people who post (as I’ve shown in my description above) but my intention is to encourage people who are going to post to just think twice before they do it, so that they do it very sparingly, and always with useful intentions. Not everyone will unfollow you, many people won’t know how, and if you overdo it, they will be resentful.
I notice that you post a long form post about every month, which is ok by me. If you think what you are posting is of use to your audience, then those people won’t unfollow, but will interact. Because they can choose, it is important to take the time to consider this. If you were going to post a letter of the alphabet once a week, I’ve got a feeling I would do what I’d do with an email blog subscription, and turn it off.
I hope that clarifies the situation!
Linkedin, like other so called \”social\” media, is just another global surveillance network.
That is the point.
Like in the DDR, the Stasi managed to have people spying upon people, nobody could be trusted , everybody was monitoring everybody.
This is the case with linkedin, facebook and other surveillance tools.
Let people think they\’re free, give them free rein to spread their lives, ideas, wash their dirty laundry online and you\’ll control them.
Stalin and Hitler, would have killed for a tool like that ! Our modern fascists (SUCKERberg, POOHgle, linke-Bin and so on) are making the dictators of old look pale.
For linkeBin, You think you\’re the client but you\’re the product being sold.
– How much money to you get paid to spread all your life online ?
– How much do you get for revealing all your data ?
– How much do you make by selling, sharing your personal data on Linkedin ?
Let me guess, nothing.
Some parrot told them that they needed to brand yourself as a soup can and advertise as a commodity.
When shown the moon, the idiot looks at the finger…
linked in should ideally be used to post professional information only
YES,
This is timely, Linkedin should be a place to showcase valuable brands, and important information, not a spam zone
A nice advice people should follow.
I manage social media and have a client in a construction related industry. I saw potential with LinkedIn, and tried so hard to avoid posting stuff that wasn’t useful. Most people with careers in social media are schooled on the importance of posting valuable content. But being new to construction I wasn’t always sure which topics were most interesting to the audience, in this case Architects. I would look at what Architects were posting and wasn’t impressed. So I took what my client was willing to share with me and sort of winged it.
Anyway, I felt like I just got a handle on what worked and didn’t work on LinkedIn Pulse, and now it looked like LinkedIn may have gotten rid of Pulse? Or is it only available to Premium account holders?
I thought my client was a Premium account holder, but maybe his premium account accidentally expired. I follow Social Media Examiner, and other Social Media news outlets, and haven’t heard any news about LinkedIn canceling their Pulse blogging platform.
Maybe too many LinkedIn users feel the way you do and, in response to user complaints, LinkedIn decided to get rid of it
I’m responsible for Social Media for a company in the construction industry also. I’m in the same boat as you. I haven’t been impressed with what most companies have been posting. I’m still doing my competitor analysis, so I’m sure there are some companies doing it right. Personally, I feel you should go with your gut. Just because no one else is doing it, doesn’t mean it won’t work. Let us be the innovators.
With an attitude like that you will never be a ‘Thought Leader’! ?
Who thinks of this self aggrandising drivel?!
Couldn’t have put it any better myself. I despair going through my feed every day. If its not business related then put it on Facebook.
Every fucking status update on LinkedIn nowadays is either philosophical, or an exaggerated real-life experience, is self-congratulatory, and many times is plagiarized and passed on as one’s own.
Hi Prashant,
I can see your point, but I’d recommend unfollowing those who post those types of updates and pare back your network to the people you know and trust. That way it will become much more useful to you and you’ll be able to see beyond the dross…
Click “I don’t want to see this content in my feed”. Job done. You’ll never see another bit of what you consider to be crap from the person concerned ever again. They won’t care. If you find you have to do that too often, then you’re connecting with idiots, ergo it’s your own fault. Stop connecting with people you barely know and/or don’t actually like. People aren’t going to stop talking because you don’t want to listen. You need to move your ears to where the ambient noise matches what you want to hear. It has always been so. Deal with it.