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Don’t Spam Your LinkedIn Connections

Party On LinkedIn - The Anti-Social MediaI’m pretty open to connecting with people on LinkedIn because connecting on LinkedIn is the best way to stalk someone. In fact, I typically will connect with anyone who requests to connect with me, so long as they don’t seem like a complete sociopath.

But people have begun to abuse my willingness to connect.

These people who I’ve been connected with for months and years have suddenly decided that it’s OK to use LinkedIn to send me weird pitches. Instead of using it to cultivate a relationship, they just decide to  send me a demo of weird tool I’ll never use. I also get messages that assume I know everything about my connection’s lives, because I’m stalking every single moment of their existence.

Seriously people. Stop abusing your power.

You already have all the information you need to contact me appropriately. LinkedIn is the best tool for stalking people because they tell you everything you need to know about contacting them professionally.

Just because we’re connected on LinkedIn doesn’t mean we’re bosom buddies. I know, I shared a link you posted, but that was really just coincidence, not affinity. Stop reading so deeply into the relationship you’ve imagined between us.

Use LinkedIn to build relationships, not stomp all over them like Godzilla. Slow, careful development of a relationship will yield better results.

Besides, no one was going to read your half-assed pitch regardless of where you sent it.

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10 Responses to Don’t Spam Your LinkedIn Connections

  1. Camilo Olea January 24, 2012 at 10:49 am #

    Oh, I hear you loud and clear. I hate LinkedIn SPAM. :(

    Maybe I’ll stop unfriending/blocking people that SPAM me in LinkedIn.

    • Jay January 24, 2012 at 2:14 pm #

      Disconnecting on LinkedIn is so formal. It makes me sad.

  2. Rand January 24, 2012 at 12:07 pm #

    …and I hate spam in discussion groups as well. So much so I began my own group. It’s just me and one other guy. And he is a bricklayer in Peru who doesn’t speak English. *total bliss*

    • Jay January 24, 2012 at 2:15 pm #

      That’s why I avoid groups and just have cats.

  3. Jan Minihane (@JanMinihane) January 24, 2012 at 1:48 pm #

    This made me smile wryly - likewise I and many people I know are getting more of these annoying spam messages. I don’t think it’s just from connections though, it’s from premium users also abusing their premium rights and it’s something LinkedIn needs to clamp down on sharpish before people fall out of love (if that’s possible on LinkedIn - powerful it is, exciting it is not) with it. It would be great to know when you flag this rubbish that LinkedIn actually do something….

    I’m with Rand also, hating the amount of abuse within discussion of random blog posts and automated drivel/self-promotion masquerading as discussions from people outside of who the group is intended for - the problem I find is some moderators, as we all get more and more busy and more stretched online, don’t have as much time to moderate the groups effectively. I’m clamping down in the group I contribute to most and flagging merrily away, I’ve had enough!

    Great post, as always, loving your style :-)

  4. Russell Davison January 25, 2012 at 1:40 pm #

    Hello Jay,

    I too dislike the spammers on LinkedIn. Apart from the distraction of receiving messages about reading someone’s blog about renewable climate Wall St eurozoning, these bedroom-based CEOs of unheard-of corporations seem to offer one hell of a lot of silly and unwanted advice. I feel a great release of tension when I press that disconnect button on these time wasters. Just that simple click of a mouse and I know that my screen will never be filled with unwanted pixels from a two-bit wanabee from somewhere else.

  5. Holly @ Carousel January 31, 2012 at 4:23 am #

    Great post, thanks!!

    A lot of people are still getting their heads around social networking and its business possibilities, and a lot of people still haven’t realised there’s a difference between outbound marketing and inbound marketing. It takes a lot more time to build relationships online and it’s a lot easier to just blast out sales messages. Unfortunately, it’s getting easier every day to do the latter. It may take a couple of years for people to catch on that actually building relationships online is worth investing time in.

  6. Lorraine Duncan February 9, 2012 at 1:14 am #

    I agree, don’t spam your connections but see how you can help them.

  7. Kathy Bernhardt February 15, 2012 at 8:49 am #

    Great posts and comments!

    I only pitched my services to companies that I truly feel need my services. One company’s Facebook page and Twitter messages were so bad that I had to write to the Marketing Chief. There is nothing wrong with helping companies that are lost on social media. They may thank you later for it. I don’t offer my clients any services that they don’t want or need.

    If you see someone doing something wrong, wouldn’t you want to help? After all, isn’t that what LinkedIn is for? To help each other with our businesses.

    You can say that it all about the relationship but really we build relationship to grow our businesses. Why pretend otherwise?

  8. websa100 August 3, 2012 at 4:46 pm #

    I love Linkedin but I have people that instead of starting a nice conversation they just send you messages with links or services that I do not care about. I believe it is a misuse of Linkedin, and people should be coucious of the messages they send. Great post, we RT it!