Why I’m quitting LinkedIn
Broadcaster and publisher Matthew Tukaki no longer wants to read the posts of ‘influencers’ or ‘thought leaders’ on LinkedIn, and believes – despite adland’s obsession with the platform – it has a serious trust problem.
Over the past few years the professional networking platform, LinkedIn, has changed significantly from a loosely aligned and simplified collection of people wanting to connect, to what has become “the place to be” for those wanting to progress their careers, build business or just to sit by and read the content of how others have succeeded.
The shift to becoming a content-based platform makes sense as professionals find a new way to talk about work or business-related issues, or trends that would otherwise be out of place on other sites such as Facebook. But, herein lies the dilemma. As older forms of media come under pressure through drops in readership and the cost-versus-quality argument, many people are moving away from being simply content readers. Instead, they are using distribution channels to become content creators in a bid to build their own direct audiences and brands.
But the challenge for readers of content has always been to understand the angle being taken. For example, if you read an opinion piece you pretty much know where things are going. If it’s a general piece about the latest unemployment figures, your engagement with the content will be as expected – the data alongside pull quotes from generally respected economists or commentators who are familiar to us.
On LinkedIn, the question of “trusted content” is key to understanding why so many people, including me, are becoming frustrated and walking away. Several years ago, when LinkedIn released its new “Pulse” blogging feature things seemed to be heading in the right direction – but content for content’s sake doesn’t lead to quality. It leads to so-called experts talking about how to use things like search engine optimisation, while life coaches and career coaches ply their content on a regular basis. Then there’s those who try and convince you that they know how to build a LinkedIn audience and engage with it.
Nice piece. But you forget about ..
The obsession now with short sentences.
And white space/double lines.
To make people seem ..
Smart.
LinkedIn is worth nothing more today than a rolladex – it’s become another social brag and sell platform. It’s shit house.
It has jumped the shark
The cool kids are telling me that the phrase is now “nuked the fridge”
These are not cool kids…
If I could be paid a dollar for all the absolute morons who seem to post hourly on LinkedIn, all about themselves…. They regurgitate quotes from Billionaires. They are self titled, self absorbed and definitely self obsessed. Whilst many have moved away from writing about themselves in the third person, they have, as mentioned above, begun to write with spaces between sentences. (You only need to do this with the first couple of lines, which serves as click bait and people then click so they can finish reading the first or second sentence. NOT THE WHOLE ARTICLE!) The sad part is, these lunatics actually need help. They are addicted. They need to speak with psychologists AND learn about EQ. Sad.
Totally. And if I get one more DM from them saying: “Just reaching out…”
Oh yes. The beloved ‘reaching out’. In person, these people say ‘guys’ a lot too I bet. The posters of 24/7 tripe truly need to be coached about quality and not quantity and ‘less is more’.
Empty vessels make the most noise, that’s for sure.
Great comment Not a CEO… I also think that the level of “self-absorption” that you experience as a reader on LinkedIn is determined on what industry you work in. My theory is that if you work in marketing/advertising/media you are more likely to deal with “I’m awesome” content than if you were an accountant, a doctor or a tradesperson and following people in the same industry.
To combat this it would be great if the LinkedIn feed was similar to Twitter’s where it is based purely on time, rather than most popular. The most popular method (which can only be changed to “recent” on desktop) means those with the biggest voices fill up your feed. The biggest voices tend to be from the industry that loves nothing more than talk about itself, and that is market/advertising/media.
Great suggestion – that would change the feed for the better, for sure.
However, that said, and with due respect to Matt…
…LinkedIn has been a positive global revolution as a vehicle for staying connected to those you actually do want to stay connected to (I have 3,500 connections – I’ve met most of them face-to-face – and regularly sift them so it’s quality not just quantity)…
…and some of the LinkedIn Groups are excellent online communities (I’m a member of 50 Groups, I run 5, I’m active in about a dozen, and I’m currently trying to persuade two NFPs to build a network/community of supporters & donors via LinkedIn as it is an excellent vehicle for this, I find).
There is no doubt it has problems, and Matt has highlighted some, but the key question is ‘how did we improve it?’ or ‘how do we persuade LinkedIn to address the issues of fake profiles, superficial content, too much hard selling, poor soft selling, going too far down the route of trying to be a publishing platform rather than sticking to its core strength of being a connection & interaction platform?’.
After all, it’s in LinkedIn’s interests too, as well as its members/customers.
Of course, we are all free to leave any ‘club’ we have joined that we don’t like any more. However, ‘leaving’ probably isn’t going to change anything.
How can we best bring about the change(s) we would like to see?
Linked In is doing some hard selling.
While I glance at the content and read the odd story from time to time first and foremost I use LinkedIn as a connection tool and for that it’s invaluable. But as for their professional rates – they are a joke. No one pays that kind of money for a social media site! And on that point I keep getting ‘one month free’ options addressed to me. I click to take up the offer only to find I have had my free month, after which I wasn’t prepared to become a paid member. So if they are clever enough to know I’ve had my one free month – why are they not clever enough to stop inviting me to have another?
The thing I didn’t mention in the post Brian was the push for some people to people a significant amount per month to be listed as “influencers” and then there is the paid post creep thats occurring as well – I see the point of monetisation but what i can’t escape is the lost production time of having to deal constantly with fake profiles and connection requests and the endless amount of spam that you get. You make some very good points.
Hi Matthew,
Good point and reasons why you have decided to leave LinkedIn.
LinkedIn has changed tremendously over the years and this is due to the younger generation and older gen. using this Professional platform like a a Facebook page. I in fact has reduced my post because readers wants to read what they want!…. it is like ordering a bacon and cheese breakfast from the restuarant and the patron refuses to enjoy the food because the eggs is not properly fried. This is how the gen. behaves on LinkedIn today. I am sure there are thousands of professionals like us, and note I am using the word ‘professional’ because this was how LinkedIn was initially brought to the market. It was a professional Online connection where professionals can discuss concrete IT matters. Now it is opposite of it and any nilly and willy can publish what ever they wish. I know we are living in freedom of expression and we are free to publish what ever we may but use LinkedIn only for professionals!
Please save this kind of confused and meaningless babble for channels like LinkedIn.
I wish to presant you Errol with an opp that will change ur lyfe!
Sadly Linked In is nothing more than a means for cold callers and spam marketers to acquire your name and position within your company to bombard you with crap you don’t care about.
I don’t get the need to “walk away” – it seems a bit dramatic. Just use it less actively if the listicles and inspiration-bollox are getting to you (I believe you can mute people on there?)
You don’t have to accept connections you don’t know. You can probably mute/ignore these invitations too.
It’s still a fantastic (free) address book for everyone you’ve ever worked with or met in the business world.
In my recent experience LinkedIn might as well be called BitCoin News (or CryptoCurrency News) at the moment. And this goes with what Matt is saying…people are just trying to build their own equity to get more people in on it to help increase the value. Pretty much like any investment I guess but I dont have all those investments rammed down my throat.
Agree with this post. It has become far too much about artificially and aimlessly improving personal profiles through endless “thought leadership” pieces and opinions that in most cases are at worst common beliefs and at best neutral to both sides of the very argument being posed.
Its all mostly useless information unless increased back-patting or trolling numbers are your KPI’s
As for the spam from a seemingly endless supply of SEO or Lead Generation experts… arrrg
Yes, Linkedin is far from perfect. But I still find really good information and links to reports and news items I would not otherwise have seen. It is certainly getting harder to sift through the endless self promotion and superficial rubbish from people who call themselves gurus and thoughtleaders and post pictures of their course graduation certificates.(yuck) However I have identified a few people who regularly post great content and have established valuable off-line relationships with them. That’s what makes it worthwhile to persevere.
Not forgetting the ubiquitous faux Meryl Streep / Keanu Reeves aphorisms, the sub-Hallmark card platitudes ‘I was REPRIMANDED for hiring someone who was over fifty. I was TOLD I could never…’ gumpf, and the excruciating Adrian Mole type musings of once quite interesting people who have lost the ability to determine what is appropriate for a professional networking site versus what is appropriate for a best forgotten teenage journal.
I agree it is painful to scroll through these days, but am yet to abandon as within the dross there are still some professionally useful links to articles, ideas and people.
I do feel LinkedIn is at an inflection point though – interesting to see where it goes next.
Agreed. There is definitely value for sales reps, recruiters and job seekers. Avoiding the swill of self promotion is hard at the moment and Linkedin could perhaps set up a ranking system, enabling evident self advertorials as exactly that and banish them away perhaps?
I like the idea, but algorithm wise some of the ‘worst’ offenders have a vast number of followers and high engagement metrics.
I’m not sure how one can use AI as a license against inanity and self absorbed sanctimony – but that’s a start-up I’d invest in….
Hearing you. They need to do something. Still very handy for connecting with business folk all the same.
+1
I thought that details of my current role were private, and only able to be seen by my connections.
That’s not the case, I recently realised.
Having had a stalker at one point in time (long story) I was furious to discover that details of my role and workplace might be publicly available to those I hadn’t connected with.
I too am thinking of deleting my profile.
could not agree more … I hate it. It is literally a useful source of position updates of SOME people in my network. The mindless crap that gets published is worse than the tabloids used to be and the content, no matter how inaccurate or misleading still gets circulated.
Like any channel we have to make our own decisions. I have a global network that I couldn’t easily have without LinkedIn’s platform. There are horses for courses.
As far as click-bait goes – isn’t it just the same to write inflammatory articles as PR and release them on Trade Press for the sake of improving your profile? Just saying… with respect of course.
I have been an avid supporter of Linkedin and have used in extensively in my professional work in the tourism industry globally.
However, after being targeted by scammers the last three months, the site has lost all integrity. I have now made it a rule to not accept any invitations from people who I don’t know and if I need to connect to somebody, the old fashioned way of sending an email or picking up the phone to one of their connections who I may know has worked just fine for me. For any ladies out there, be careful.
The less than age old mantra comes into play. “Trust no one” …. and that is a singular piece of logic that you and everyone else should apply across all social media.
It works like this…. you need to be visible and you need an audience…. social media provides that, just like the 19th century soap box. The fact is that by walking away from LinkedIn you are walking away from that audience. Never mind the fact that if you look at proportions of fake to genuine, the genuine spoundly wins out!
Yes there are fake profiles and yes I wouldn’t trust the “advisors” and the “influenecers”, but the largesat proportion of your audience are people you have chosen to follow or as your followers… so why abandon them?
The bottom line is that you have something to say, you have an audience….. sure you have “hecklers” …. as does every great thespian…. but you also have a sound network….
Of followers you are about to disappoint.
It’s another good concept taken too far.
Funnily enough even with all that information on ones profile people still do not read it, I’m a senior level executive and still get recruiters approaching me for jobs which I did 10 years ago.
Not to mention people requesting to do business with me for stuff that is completely left of field to what we do.
Very similar to the transparency issues in the industry it’s a people and common sense problem. Strip out humans and technology can be amazing.
I am not exactly sure what the point is here. Are we saying the LinkedIn ecosystem is not perfect like the other ways of publishing content? or that the medium that has allowed the author to share valuable content and make thousands of connections is morally bankrupt and should be avoided? “Strip out humans and technology can be amazing?? Am I stupidly missing the sarcasm?
Yeah i’d call it missing the point or it could be your comment is just sarcasm on a slow day in the office
I made a huge mistake.
And failed.
Maybe I should just give up?
As a highly experienced leader, I used my courage.
Why would I just quit?
After all, I’m a mentor.
Not long after these thoughts, I made the move.
Keen to finish watching the Gary Vanyerchuck video, I returned to Youtube.
Even though I had Bitcoin trades to complete.
Remember, COURAGE IS EVERYTHING.
This is beautiful. Thank you, Clem. I’d like to invest immediately.
So many Ninjas and Rockstars on LinkedIn.
Yes, I can hear you Clem Fandango
I made a huge mistake. – no you didn’t
LinkedIn is great only for recruiting and checking out if someone is still in a role, it’s fairly cheap in comparison and you can check out the candidate quickly. However, I have a criticism that despite saying no recruiters, recrutiment agents APPLY for the job, replacing their resume with a case study document and then that results in my getting charged for their application. I cannot see how that tactic will ever end well for recruitment agencies.
Otherwise it’s boring.
Now I wonder if all of Oleg’s posts, re-posted by his avid followers and followers of their followers and those who are just seeing it for the first time who thinks it’s the best inspiration ever, are all fake. Or is Oleg fake? #oleggate
No offense to Oleg. 🙂 But yes, LinkedIn is a tabloid for the “professionals” with the only difference being that it’s less entertaining and full of “pat me on the back please” moments. On that note, these people should be renamed “Pat”.
Was a LinkedIn fan until last week, when they decided to take over my feed by constantly serving “Trending in (insert city/company/industry)” articles. This is what my feed has become, basically clickbait. LinkedIn purportedly allows you to ‘unfollow trending articles’, however doing so never unfollows them, in fact my unscientific observations tell me I get served MORE of them by trying to stop them. LinkedIn help forums either ignore or slow-roll the discussion threads and requests to stop this practice. Or state they’re working on algorithms to tailor them to you. I work in Automotive and live in Indianapolis, that doesn’t mean I care that people locally read up on the I.T. world. Or that folks in my industry want to know about the “10 worst things you can ask in an interview”. Why no option to NOT see those trending/recommended posts?
It’s a tabloid/gossip site at this point. Or a mechanism for someone you don’t know to try and get you to InMail connect them with “top decision-makers in your company” to sell their fly-by-night products. No thanks.
Worst aspect of linked in that it is “gated in”. Even if you try to have a “public profile”, it is not public at all. Someone who finds you through a search engine only sees a “register now” nagscreen. So you are writing content for a gated community. I refuse to do that. I want to have a saying in how sees my stuff, not LinkedIn.
What is truly amazing to me is that LinkedIn is paying people to scour the Internet for negative postings and to comment on those sites saying that it is the best thing that ever happened to them and that they got 150 job offers from it, etc. etc. MicroSquish is serious about protecting their $26 BILLION dollar investment.
while i agree with your points i feel you may be one of the self absorbed. as of 04/10/19 you still have a linkedin profile:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewtukaki/?originalSubdomain=au
whats that about, say one thing, do another?
Thanks,
Chris