It has been more than 3 years that I am active on Linkedin.
First time when my contemporary manager Tushar introduced me to Linkedin, I was excited. Suddenly my world has grown from a small cubicle of an unknown writer penning some technical stuff to a limitless world where I could see what was going in the minds of entrepreneurs, C-Level Executives, and top level professionals. My mind was linked with the greatest geniuses of the world, all in Free. Who says there is no free lunch?
Aha! It was mind-boggling, literally.
Soon, I was promoted as a Business Analyst >> Marketing manager and I started realizing the potential of Social Networks. I got connected to more important people day on day. I started feeling important. My confidence levels in the business meetings shot up. Now I could talk the language of managers and of business leaders. Both, my thought process & communication skills improved significantly.
Today I have around 21 CEOs as my first level Linkedin Connections, and a much larger number of CEOs as second level connections. To name a few, I am proudly connected to G. P. Singh, ZenFinancial, Dr. Janice Presser, The Gabriel Institute, Jessie Paul, PaulWriter, Sumeet Kapur, CEO, EmployWise, Bella Karakis, Core Element Ventures LLC, Krishna De, CEO BizGrowthMedia, Pradeep Chopra, Digital Vidya and many others.
The knowledge gained at Linkedin helped me to do many innovative activities for my contemporary employer like starting their blog, marketing their products and services at global level etc. It was all motivating and filled great momentum in me, everyday while @ work. Until here Linkedin proved to be an asset. Thanks Tushar.
But all that glitter is not gold. Yesterday, I missed a very important opportunity because of Linkedin. I inadvertently deleted one of my important emails and credit goes to Linkedin. Although, the sender called me up to why have I not shown any interest; I quickly ransacked my Gmail Trash, responded back and not much harm was done. It is by grace of Google that my day was saved.
It happened that, one of my important mails was deleted because I have got 12 emails from different Linkedin Groups (making my Inbox a big mess) and, usually my first act in the morning it to sack all spams from my mail box. Though, I am also guilty for not un-Checking the option in Linkedin Groups to send me those subscriptions.
And then I realized that while being an important source of information, Linkedin has been flooded by overzealous professionals who (knowingly or unknowingly) are shamefully “SpLinkedinG” (spell Splink^Ding). A term that comes to my mind (Sp – am + Linkedin + inG), count me too ( as I was also SpLinkeding at one point of time). Today I say sorry to whole Linkedin Community. I am sorry guys!
A large number (May be 30%-40%) of News and Discussions in Linkedin Groups are no more but a shameless advertisement of the products and services, without caring whether they add any value to the group members or not. Advertisements are good – if they are creatively written, and add some value to the reader. unfortunately, not all advertisements are so. Look at the following example from NASSCOM’s group. NASSCOM is India’s largest software organizations’ association.
So, today I left about 25 Linked groups out of 50 maximum possible groups I can join. All the groups that have no activity or have huge advertising got a kick @ $$. May be I have kicked a few important ones too, but I am ready to sacrifice a few good things for clearing the mess in my Social Capital Balance Sheet.
At this point, Linkedin becomes liability.
How can Linkedin Group be an asset and not a liability?
This problem can only be solved if Group Moderator keeps an eye on the group activities and keep warning the spamming members and if they don’t understand, give a kick @ $$.
If you don’t have time to moderate your group, better surrender it.
And Linkedin, keep a check on such Splinkedin-ers. @linkedin, are you listening
Posted in
A great point about going back to review the LinkedIn Groups you are a member of and whether they are still of relevance to you and your business goals.
[...] – Key leadership or Top management (the Grey Matter): I won’t comment anything here, as 21 people in my Linkedin connections will punch me, but unfortunately there is no one else left (apart from indifferent investors) to [...]