Confessions of a LinkedIn Slacker
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?
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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?
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
