An old friend recently sent me a question about the meaning of one’s Contact Settings on LinkedIn. I should say it is more of a frustration and a LinkedIn complaint than a question, but here it is: “Why do people bother writing that they are open to “business opportunities” on LinkedIn – if they never return or even look at InMail, etc? As a tool, LinkedIn seems to only be useful if the people you’re trying to reach are willing to be reached (despite what their profiles might say). It’s getting a tad frustrating trying to use to help our …
read more
If you received an introduction request or an Inmail on LinkedIn and you were not allowed to act upon it, wouldn’t you be angry? The picture to the right is from the actual screen that a LinkedIn user saw the other day. Does it surprise you that your LinkedIn account could potentially be restricted? Let’s take a different perspective. The other day, I received an interesting email forwarded to me from a friend: “I am relatively new to Linkedin and I did not know they put a ceiling on it [= number of connections]. At what point do they cut …
read moreYou may have missed it, but there has been a recent uproar in the freelance translator community regarding a request that they saw from LinkedIn asking them, in essence, to work for LinkedIn for free. In some ways, LinkedIn has always been asking its users to volunteer their time, asking its users to report spam, flag profile pictures, report on “Questions” that should not be on the Answers board, flag groups, etc. It makes one wonder how much the average LinkedIn user should work for free on behalf of a for-profit company. Let’s take a closer look at the …
read moreWe wake up and visit LinkedIn after booting up our computers. And before we turn them off at night we are again checking in with LinkedIn. For the many of us who consider ourselves “Power Users” of LinkedIn, the social networking site for professionals is an integral part of our professional lives. And because of that, there are particular things about LinkedIn that may annoy us in a peculiar way more than others. I thought that I would write about this as it came up for discussion the other day at a networking group meeting. These particular attendees pointed out …
read moreI hope the title of this blog post did not shock you. No, I am not trying to sell you anything. But this is the question I have been asked twice now in the last month from a gentleman who is apparently living in Bulgaria. I was first contacted on May 22 and offered a database of 50,000 LinkedIn members willing to connect, and I was promised that “all 50K members are open for invitations and business offers.” The email went on to say that, with these connections, I could save “hundreds of dollars” by avoiding costly InMails. Furthermore, with …
read more
On an average day, I receive an invite or two to join a LinkedIn Group. It is only natural since I have so many connections as a LinkedIn Open Networker (= LION). Since you can easily send out invites to join a group when you create it, it’s obvious that I am a common target to be the recipient of so many new group invites. I don’t mind receiving so many, especially because every once in awhile there is one (like the We are Orange County group I blogged about yesterday) that causes me to cancel a different group membership …
read more
Are you happy with how the city you live in is displayed on your LinkedIn profile? I’m not. Let me explain further. When you enter your zip code into your profile, LinkedIn will display your city based on its own algorithm and database of metropolitan areas. Let’s take a look at how these locations are defined. If you go to your “Connections” screen on LinkedIn and choose the “Advanced Options” to “Filter by Location”, it is interesting what geographies of your connections show up on LinkedIn and which do not. These are the same locations that will appear when viewing …
read more
Today when I went to the LinkedIn Homepage I mentioned a little message at the top promising me “a smoother experience”. This was a pleasant surprise. After all, LinkedIn is known to be notoriously slow by all who use it. If ”a smoother experience” means that it will be faster it is a welcome feature. So what are extended logins? Here is the way it is described straight from the source:
read more
LinkedIn in 2009 continues to upgrade their service with minor tweaks and additional functionality, but I am starting to find a gap between what features some people can see and some cannot. I have never heard of this on Facebook or Twitter, but this is definitely happening on LinkedIn, and it is troubling. And these are all people using the free service, not a free vs. paid account argument. Let me explain what I have experienced in three distinct examples. Do we have all access to the same LinkedIn features?
read more
This question may sound confusing, but since there are now more than 260,000 (!) LinkedIn Groups, maybe there is one that is actually officially affiliated with the site that could be an interesting one to join to learn more about LinkedIn? I am happy to report that there is at least one official LinkedIn Group that exists. The catch is that you may (read below for more details) have to be a Group Manager to join, but if you are, I highly recommend that you join the LinkedIn Groups Product Forum. This is an amazing Group where both internal employees …
read more
