Blaggers, Ostriches & Birthday Reminders
Kate Hamer
Marketing & Digital Consultant | AxisStars Co-Founder | FA Registered Football Agent | Climate Reality Leader | Philosophy MA
Is it me or is LinkedIn getting worse? What used to be a valuable and professional networking tool seems to have become extremely spammy and not very worthwhile at all!
Here are some of the common characters I am seeing at the moment:
People with extremely poor ‘lead gen’ tools!
I genuinely can’t imagine that the sort of lead gen emails I receive actually work on anyone! ‘Hey! I see you work at Kate Hamer Ltd! How cool…’ – yes, you will notice that my name is also Kate Hamer. It would be pretty bad if I worked here and hated it!
People who try to get to you with flattery
‘Kate Hamer Ltd has been voted in the top 10 Digital Transformation Agencies and if you pay us just £2500 you can have a profile page in our magazine!’ I mean, I’ve definitely done some great work with companies on Digital Transformation but as a one-woman band, top 10 is unlikely! And I certainly wouldn’t want to pay my way into the list!
People who can help you become better at business
Yes, I’m a cynic but if their LinkedIn shows no strong brands and no successful businesses then I’m certainly not inclined to pay them to teach me!
People who add you with no reason
This isn’t Pokemon – you can’t just collect connections! Why do you want to connect???
People who add you with a generic reason
You came up in my feed and thought it would be good to connect…. Why????
But the worst one for me at the moment is…
The Ostrich
You invite someone to connect and write a message with a reason as to why. They accept but don’t reply to the message.
A couple of days later you follow up, thank them for connecting and re-iterate why you added them. Their little avatar appears so you know they read it. But nothing! Are these people reverse Pokemoners who let the Pokemon come to them or what?
The best thing about LinkedIn at the moment is the birthday reminders – frequently when one comes up, I have no clue who the person is, so it at least is helping me streamline my connections by removing them. Not the best birthday gift I realise!
If you want to connect to work together or discuss digital transformation, marketing strategy, social media, influencers, our AxisStars Community, Climate Change or anything else of interest then feel free to get intouch. Would be great to actually speak to people on common ground!
Global Head of Alliances
4yI could hear your voice in my head while reading this. Love it! Although I would like to make a small request that when my birthday pops up in your feed next year; don’t delete, just send me a gift!
Strategic Comms & Marketing | Brand & Digital Transformation
4ySpot on and also amusing Kate. I think we all get a lot of those messages....waste of time for everyone involved!
Sport | Tech | Sustainability | Circular Solutions | Comms & Events
4yCompletely agree. I get a lot of lazy, random approaches, offering me services and products that are completely irrelevant to the business I work for and my role.