Collections of Connections aren’t the business driver, actions are.
It seems like for a while that collecting connections was a sport. I suppose everyone was trying like hell to get as horizontal as they can, anticipating some way to make money later on would materialize. The way for most people to make money involves some kind of action. How do you do that on LinkedIn?
There is no way.
In networking circles, you have to have your “Ask”. What do you want? It is really hard on LinkedIn to even do that level of basic networking functionality. But, networking is even more than the “Ask”. It’s buying and selling. LinkedIn has taken this attitude that selling something is bad. They have failed to model the real world networking interactions of its participants.
So, it’s like we’re all in this big room, with nametags and resumes in hand…sipping punch. We keep updating the resumes in our hands and making bigger name tags. Some of us get poster boards and make big signs to tell people what we do. We can all text each other, as long as we know each other. But we’re not allowed to talk to the person next to us. The fire marshall is here, now.
The API is the key to action. Need to foster an army of developers.
The iPhone is great. iPhone apps are even greater. There are a couple of iPhone apps that by themselves are worth the purchase of an iPhone. The cost of one of those apps is under $10. The point isn’t that Apple or the developer of the app are making fortunes off of it, it’s that the functionality of the iPhone is extended to the point that it makes me want to drop hundreds of dollars on it. And I can justify the ROI to myself.
The Microsoft Developer community is an ARMY of programmers who sell apps to customers which require those customers to buy Microsoft products, such as servers. Microsoft is brilliant in its support of its developer community. Without it, who would really sell SharePoint, BizTalk, Windows Server and Exchange?
LinkedIn can’t even be bothered to send a rejection notice to those of us who try to get a developer API key. There is literally zero support or respect for 3rd party app developers, who would be extending the value of LinkedIn to the point that business might pay for it.
It’s too personal-centric. Which is fine for Facebook, but not for business.
If you want businesses to pay for something, besides having some sort of ROI, they require that they own what they are paying for. Facebook is a personal network or personal things for personal people. Cool. That is what it is for (Facebook for business is another post). LinkedIn follows that model that allows individual people to network with business people, but it doesn’t allow businesses to network with other businesses via its network of people.
This is a critical failure.
It’s great for people who are looking for a job, but what business wants to subsidize and finance that? The model only holds up for solo-prenuers which isn’t enough for a viable LinkedIn business model.
Giving the same tools that everyone else has, but trying to charge the individual.
So LinkedIn is left with trying to charge individuals for the same services that Facebook and a hundred other networking sites already offer. They throttle network expansion, in the name of quality control, unless you are willing to pay money to not have to subject yourself to that quality control.
Some people call it spam. Recruiters love it, which brings us back to the original point that it’s great for people looking for a job. But is it great for business? I think not. It would have been more beneficial for LinkedIn to have branded itself as a job site ala The Ladders or something. But then again, they wouldn’t have millions of people signed up waiting for something of value to happen.
Yeah…great party.
There are some interesting points here but this article is based on a misunderstanding of how business practices are developing in this day and age.
I will deal with each point as follows;
1) “Collections of Connections aren’t the business driver, actions are” and “there is no way”
What ‘actions’ are we referring to here? Nothing specific is mentioned but I assume you are referring to direct sales actions i.e. direct communication that seeks to ‘push’ a product or service onto the customer (including spam). This is an outdated and ineffective method in a B2B environment and often has deception and manipulation at its core. It is more effective to build trust and respect with potential customers, understand their needs and then deliver effective solutions. Cold calling, spamming and mail shots rarely result in a relationship built on trust and respect but allowing the customer to see who you are and understand what expertise you offer as well as seeing real evidence of who you know and who recommends you in indirect way IS effective. LinkedIn is a powerful tool in this respect especially if you have ‘collected’ a large number of connections. Yes it means you have less control but the reality is that control = manipulation = lack of trust = less business.
2) “The API is the key to action. Need to foster an army of developers”.
LinkedIn have taken forever to release their API and it is pretty restrictive but LinkedIn are a very cautious company. They are keen to protect their users from armies of developers hell bent on offering useless gadgets which are often thinly disguised cons. This is very different from iPhone, Google Wave and Facebook’s approach but they do need to protect the integrity of the site as a place where professionals can network without getting ‘hit on’ by pushy sellers every 5 mins. Only time will tell whether they have the balance right. I personally believe they need to be more open minded but I understand their concerns.
I agree they are poor at communicating – this has improved recently under the new CEO but the ‘old core’ still seem to believe that it is fine to ignore their customers!
3) “It’s too personal-centric. Which is fine for Facebook, but not for business”.
This is nonsense, you couldn’t be more wrong! B2B sales have been and always will be about the individual. Brands are not insignificant but the contact within any company is the key to winning and retaining business. Corporations would like us to believe otherwise (especially publicly listed ones) because they appear vulnerable if they are too reliant on individuals who could leave and go elsewhere but they are beginning to wake up to the reality of personal branding and the concept of a personal brand within a corporate brand is becoming more accepted by some forward thinking corporations. It may be a bitter pill to swallow but the reality these days is that when a potential customer wants to check your company out they will go to the LinkedIn profiles of your employees BEFORE going to your website. They want to know what your personal credentials are, who they know who knows you and who recommends you.
4) “This is a critical failure”.
I think the growth of LinkedIn and the amount of business people are doing through it proves the point – corporations may be slower to accept this because the whole ‘personal branding’ issue is difficult for them to accept but it is inevitable that they will. LinkedIn is great for recruiting but it is so much more than that – they haven’t helped themselves in this respect as prior to 2009 they very much promoted the site on this basis but these days they are keen to demonstrate its power as a networking and business development tool.
5)”Giving the same tools that everyone else has, but trying to charge the individual”
I tend to agree with this point but I can see that LinkedIn need to be able to monetize their site and this is one way they can achieve this. In my view corporate accounts (access to the whole network without the need to connect) and advertising should provide the majority of their revenue and all apps and features should be free to the normal user.
In summary I find that the people who get most frustrated with LinkedIn are those that want to sell directly to people but if the site allowed this then less people would be using it. LinkedIn’s greatest asset is the quality and quantity of its user base, if you are on LinkedIn and active every day and you have a powerful and compelling profile – you WILL get noticed and in time you WILL build relationships which DOES lead to business but if you are too impatient to put in the effort then you might be better sending out thousands of emails to outdated lists on the basis that 2% might respond if you are lucky!
Great comments, Mark.
The “actions” I’m referring to are the same actions that you referring to: Doing the things that building a relationship require. As it stands right now, too much of what is happening is spam. Or thinly disquised spam-like techniques.
When I say “personal-centric” I’m talking about the tools, or lack of tools, to function together as a business unit. I agree wholeheartedly that building our relationships with each other is the key. But without these tools, it devolves into hucksterism and comment spam, among other things.
I certainly don’t think that we need to direct market people via social platforms though. I couldn’t possibly think any more the opposite. In short, LinkedIn has provided a platform that allows the 98% of direct marketers to drown out the rest and attempts to combat spam by a rudimentary connection limitation system that only helps the majority spam crowd. It’s fundamentally broken.
Wow; Both sides are compelling; There is the “random collision” approach and the “spammer be damned approach”. To make the process of trust faster and more effective will accomplish both objectives stated above.
What is missing from linkedin – and indeed any inefficient market – is the proper vetting mechanism. By contrast we see that markets where the vetting mechanism fail come crashing down; recent examples; SEC, TSA, CIA, etc. Notable successes include the FAA, Ebay (feedback system), Yelp, etc.
Social vetting, I believe is the next great opportunity for social media in general. This requires people to organize themselves in a different way – yet not unlike the way that society has organized itself before technology took over. In other words, nothing happens until the rubber meets the road.
It will require that people leave their computers and visit their neighbors. It will require that communities organize around common and diverse interests. It will require that people meet face to face. It will strongly favor close geographic proximity before it can extend across the world.
Linkedin largely has these things backwards – they favor long distance over close proximity. I did a search by zip code and was deeply disappointed in the outcome. In all fairness Facebook was equally abysmal.
At the end of the day, if your neighbor likes you, so will I. Likewise, if you want to do business with me, go talk to your neighbor. We call that “The Last Mile of Social Media”
Again, thanks a lot for the great comments.
“The point isn’t that Apple or the developer of the app are making fortunes off of it” – well ya okay, maybe not the point of why user experience ultimately rules, but they’re making good money nonetheless..but to your point, yes, a major social networking channel should be more proactive in welcoming and supporting developers as a way to enhance functionalities and overall user experience.
good post – nice to see more thoughts around the somewhat ’silent corporate veil’ of LinkedIn
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by AronStevenson: How Linkedin Blew it http://bit.ly/7QljWv
#socialmedia…
Some good points here. But, I like the conservative and controlled approach that LinkedIn has taken. They can always open up as much as they want to later.
Very interesting read. I think where LinkdIn missed it big was on developing an interface with features that would allow for more interactivity amongst members. The value in being part of such a site is the potential to build long-term relationships and business connections, NOT necessarily a transactional relationship. With the right “Re-Branding” and focus I think LinkdIn could turn things around but they need to develop a clear focus on what they want to be and what value they want to deliver to users.
Linkedin is a me too FaceBook for the well off.
It fails because it is based on an idea borrowed from somewhere else, which targeted to “better people”, who cannot or do not have the time to create their own ideas or concepts because they’re busy doing something else.
My daughter got her first computer a few months ago and she’s been doing FaceBook until 5:00am every day since. At least for these first few months.
That’s what makes FaceBook thrive.
Do you know any professional people who has that kind of time to waste in trivia?
Linkedin is just an attempt from professionals to be part of the “new economy”.