Everyone has social media platforms they prefer or are the strongest one. For many, LinkedIn falls to the wayside, mostly as an afterthought to Facebook and Twitter.

Yes, I am one of the ‘many’. Like yourself, I am surrounded by posts and people telling me LinkedIn is a gold mine and that should be my #1 platform. There are only 24 hours in a day. Simply said, something has to give. We cannot try to do them all, all of the time. It’s unrealistic to do all platforms 100%.

So why LinkedIn?

Everyone is on Facebook, so we are there too. Twitter is my biggest traffic director, so I spend a lot of time there. Google Plus provides me with great content and more quality connections. Pinterest is my personal outlet. Same of Instagram. That leaves LinkedIn, sweet promising LinkedIn. I know I could prioritize and move this platform on up. I do really try but usually it just gets stuff piled on top of it.

So why do I not prioritize LinkedIn enough?

1. Time.

Time is a precious commodity. We have to fill each day to the fullest and not everything is going to get gone or used. For me, this is what happens with LinkedIn. When I do use it, it’s to publish a post or see who’s looked at my profile. Rarely do I ever spend time in my LinkedIn news feed.

2. LinkedIn News Feed

So the news feed. What do I see? Person A has a new job. Person B is now connected to 10 new people. Person C shares a bit.ly link with no description. Not to mention the posts that are obviously from Twitter because they include “@soandso”. There’s just nothing of value for me in the news feed when that is all I see. Occasionally I will see a great post from someone, but it’s not that often.

3. Groups

I’ve tried. I really have. Most LinkedIn groups I’ve attempted to take part in turn into a spam-fest. The owner of the group doing nothing but promoting themselves or people doing nothing but self-promotion all day long. Finding a quality group with quality discussion is rare. If you find one, please let me know.

4. Spam

Ugh. The inbox. What really grates me is when I accept a connection and within 12 hours I get a self-promotional message. I can’t find the disconnect button quick enough. Or even if we’ve been connections for a while, PLEASE don’t send me a sales pitch. Maybe it’s par for the social media/digital marketing industry, but getting multiple sales pitches a week just turns me off from the whole platform.

5. Very little interaction

With the exception of published posts (articles), most updates in the LinkedIn news feed go unnoticed. By unnoticed, I mean no likes, comments or shares. I will see some interaction and engagement on some posts, but mostly none. And I’m not alone. I see other peers I know post stuff with zero response or engagement.

What I can do to improve my LinkedIn experience?

1. Set aside time.

I know I could be more successful on LinkedIn if I actually used it like I was supposed to. I’m sure I can find 10 minutes each day (or every other) to really work this platform for my advantage.

2.  Find a few quality groups and get active.

If I ever found those rare quality groups with quality conversation, I would do my best to become active in that group and take part. Finding them is the key.

3. Really work my news feed.

Congratulate people. Like posts. Really take a look at what is being published and posted.

So there you go – true confessions of a LinkedIn slacker. I’m going to try hard to rework being that platform slacker. How about you? Are you a LinkedIn slacker as well?? Please do share why.