Comments on: LinkedIn: Getting Far Less Useful These Days

By: Carrington Fisk

Carrington Fisk — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 20:05:41 +0000

It’s 2011 now and I just found this – it echoed a lot of the concerns I had in late 2008 when I posted a Question on LI on the topic. I’ve been more carefully managing my connections and group activity since. I blogged about it today.

By: Jan

Jan — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 00:06:58 +0000

Dee, great to hear that you’re having some success with LinkedIn in terms of finding a new position. Thanks for letting us know!

By: Dee

Dee — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 16:03:04 +0000

I used linkedin to network regionally and found a local contract position which is looking like it is going to lead to a full time senior position at a growing company. I connected with someone I wouldn’t have without it. So for now I am pro linkedin despite the annoyance of spam type connection requests.

By: Nick Moreno

Nick Moreno — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 22:56:59 +0000

I do get a lot of useless E-Mails from LinkedIn groups that I’ve joined. Just self promotion stuff of no value.

By: Miles Austin

Miles Austin — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 03:27:10 +0000

Many good points in the post and the comments. I have been on LinkedIn since 10/05/2004. There has been lots of growth since the “old days” some good and some not.

I have found that the value is best found in digging deeper into the tool via Groups, SubGroups and even the Applications, none of which were there in the early days. I have found groups to be more focused, more comfortable is size, and more interactive. Much depends on the Group Owner and how aggressively they manage the spam and self promotion.

Applications like Huddle and Box add tangible value for me as well.

By: Jon Williamson

Jon Williamson — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 21:17:48 +0000

I’m going to go against the stream here.

I am one of those “Notorious Open Networkers”. I’ve been so since 2004. However, I contact ALL of my new connections.

Why?

First, I was a recruiter. The more people in my network, the better. Even a recruiter from India gave me a larger 2nd and 3rd level network, as I did them. That was the benefit we expected, we got it. Even these I will send a short email thanking them and soliciting more connections from other employees.

Now, I’m promoting my company, Smart Barter USA. Since it is potentially useful across a broad spectrum of the business community, I benefit a couple of ways.

First, I find the occasional person who will actually join my exchange.

Second, I find people to build alliances with.

I did an analysis of people in my network who lived near me (Kalamazoo, MI). Out of the first 300 in my direct network (mostly 2nd level), over 50% were connected to me only through another Open Networker.

It does not work for everyone. For too many people, it’s a time consuming hobby, frankly.

By: Ted

Ted — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 23:26:25 +0000

Just this morning I connected with an old peer of mine through LinkedIn. He asked me to look at his contacts and determine who I thought would be a good prospect for my company to do business with. His openess shocked me, but I took him up on this and carefully browsed his contacts for a list of about 6-7 individuals that I thought might benefit by a relationship with my company. Within a few hours he had sent an e-mail to these individuals introducing my company.

If he asks, I will return the favor. In the 2 years I’ve been on the site, this is the first time that someone really showed me the value of LinkedIn as a business tool. I think that more of this should happen, but I don’t think it is. I think some folks believe that they’re in a contest to have the most contacts. LinkedIn is no FaceBook.

By: LEADSExplorer

LEADSExplorer — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 21:47:30 +0000

1) As people get fired, the data in LinkedIn might not be updated as those people keep it secret if they are no longer working for a company.

Thus when you contact them for a new job opportunity, they have the same problem as you.

2) Building and improving relationships on-line.

By: Carson McKee

Carson McKee — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 14:00:18 +0000

Tighten your linkedin network.

Operate by your own rules.

Be confident in what you build.

By: Brandon Hull

Brandon Hull — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 00:52:22 +0000

Much like Powerpoint, it’s not the tool that corrupts, it’s the use of the tool. So people are always to blame.

Jakob, The reason I see this tied to 2009 is, given the current economy, I believe sales professionals will be doing more and more to “connect” with prospects to get deals done faster, to build their own credibility, etc. But it’s a farce. The connections aren’t real. The connection you have to John Doe isn’t real, so I don’t come to you asking to connect the two of us, and/or John Doe doesn’t put stock into my cold-call-disguised-as-a-warm-call.

Dave, That’s where I’m at, too. I don’t accept invitations any longer from people I don’t know beforehand.

And Mike, nicely put. I agree completely.