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Have you lost interest in LinkedIn? Do you believe it represents today’s version the “Silent Majority,” an expression Richard Nixon used in 1969? You post and nothing happens? You send out connection invites and people ignore you? The benefits of LinkedIn outweigh the disappointments it is delivering to you. Here are a few I have experienced and what you need to do.
1. Don’t take connection drops personally. Every morning, one of my first stops on LinkedIn is My Network.” I have a month at a glance calendar on my desk. I make a note of my total connection number. Sometimes it goes down. I wonder why! Who have I offended?
Instead: Assume people sometimes totally disengage with LinkedIn. Sometimes they die. I wonder if a person leaves a firm and they set up their profile through the firm, maybe the profile disappears. There could be many reasons the number dropped. With thousands of connections, I could probably never find out. Someone else will replace them.
2. You message someone and they don’t write back. I have often likened developing a connection on LinkedIn is like trying to befriend a cat. You send a birthday greeting. What could be a more innocent communication. You hear nothing back. You are offended.
Instead: Realize you hear back from quite a few others. Some get into exchanges of multiple messages. Some people don’t bother looking at their Linkedin messages. Others send you a birthday thank you three months later. The lack of response is likely tied to how often they visit LinkedIn..
3. You post and nothing happens. Someone told you that posting is the key to engagement. You give it a try. It gets few views. Sometimes my posts get 20 views and the Notifications tab tells me someone else’s post got 128 views. What am I doing wrong?
Instead: Like the cat analogy, consistency is key. You need to post regularly, even if you think no one is noticing. People will get comfortable after seeing your posts on a regular basis. They will wonder “what is she up to now?”
4. You obsess about your total number of impressions each week. Every Monday I get an e-mail letting me know how many impressions my posts got recently. Last week it was 7,559. The week before it was 9,540. What happened?
Instead: I can see which posts got the most traffic, which lets me know what readers find interesting. That makes sense. A better way of looking at this variance is we are in August. People are on vacation. The numbers will vary for all sorts of reasons.
5. Few people are commenting on my posts. This could be the “Silent Majority” effect. They see it, but are not compelled to engage. Their firm might have rules stating they might be able to “like” something put they cannot compose their own text.
Instead: Every time a person comments, thank them. Send them an invitation to connect. This might get them commenting on your posts on a regular basis.
6. People who start selling immediately. You receive a request to connect. You accept. A message immediately arrives pitching a product. You ignore it. Perhaps you write back and say “not interested.” Maybe they drop you. It gives you the feeling LinkedIn in the 21st century version of cold calling.
Instead: For starters, don’t be one of those people. Accept it as a fact of life. I try to send back a polite “not interested” message. Why? Because I cold called once too.
7. You send a message via LinkedIn and they respond three months later. Obviously they do not visit LinkedIn very often. They might include this in their reply. At least they made the effort. I think there was a period when everyone in the corporate world was sent to a LinkedIn training and told to setup as profile before they left the session. They never bothered afterwards.
Instead: At least they made the effort. Give them credit for that. It might get a dialog started.
8. My network grows very slowly. It seems 500 connections is the threshold determining if you are serious. Profiles show the number of connections you have up to 500. After that, it is 500+. Because LinkedIn only allows to to personalize five invitations a month on the free version, you add connections slowly.
Instead: I found a few workarounds that work for me. If you are inviting people you know well or there is name recognition, you don’t need to send a personalized invitation. If someone comments on your post, I simply send an invitation to connect. They likely already know my name. If you invite someone in a LinkedIn group to connect, each of your profiles should indicate you are in the same group. Save those five personalized invitations for people where you feel giving a reason to connect is important.
Years ago, an official at the local chamber of commerce remarked “You get out what you put in.” This applies to LinkedIn too.