Last week I shut my LinkedIn account down.
My first attempt resulted in a warning web page saying I couldn’t shut it down because I had over 250 contacts. With that hint, I just deleted contacts until I had fewer than 250. Then I could close my account through their web form.
Please Don’t Go!
The first close attempt resulted in an e-mail from LinkedIn to their “customer support” group, cc-ed to me, asking them to close my account because I was unable to, citing the reason:
The member has a large network of connections to close. Please close during non-peak hours.
LinkedIn seems to be suggesting their site is so fragile it can’t be trusted to delete during peak hours.
A week later (as in today), I got the predicted response from “customer support”, namely a plea to stay. Today’s e-mail started with:
I’m sorry it’s taken so long to get back to you.
The apology seems rather disengenuous given the rest of the e-mail, which continued with:
I noticed that you have put a lot of effort into growing your LinkedIn network. Because of this, I wanted to confirm that you want to close an account with such a large number of connections.
Only after this did the e-mail start outlining further steps I’d have to take to close the account I’d already closed last week.
Why did I close my LinkedIn account? On the “con” side, it was a hassle to go through invitations to connect from people I didn’t know or had met once. I felt bad if I said “no” or “yes”. On the “pro” side, I couldn’t come up with anything. It’s not like I’m going to use LinkedIn to find a job.
November 29, 2011 at 3:23 am |
have a look at this flowchart ;-)
http://www.marismith.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Social-Network-Flow-Chart.jpg
November 29, 2011 at 6:08 am |
“On the “con” side, it was a hassle to go through invitations to connect from people I didn’t know or had met once.”
Sorry if I sound a bit too dickish but it reminds me of the people that hide behind fake “offline” status at IMs and Skype.
To me it looks more like a flaw of the individual rather than the program. Overconnectivity is here to stay and I think it makes sense learning to handle it.
November 29, 2011 at 6:49 pm |
I don’t like to be interrupted.
I only turn on Skype when I’ve pre-arranged a call.
My wife and I share a cell phone and only use it when one of us is traveling.
I didn’t mean to imply there’s anything wrong with LinkedIn in particular or social networking in general. I’m a live-and-let-live kind of guy. I just found LinkedIn more of a bother than it was worth. Sort of like owning a boat or a dog.
January 18, 2012 at 7:55 pm |
Bob,
I’m not a Linkedin guru or anything, but I will share an example of how Linkedin connections helped me in the past. To be fair, I am more of an online / offline guy than an offline / offline guy, but nonetheless.
I had never planned to be an author, but while I was working with Lon Safko and the SocialMediaBible.com, we received a call from a market researcher in Atlanta who wanted us to provide some input on a tactic they were considering. We took the call and talked a bit and afterwards I looked up the caller on Linkedin. Turns out he had already published a book previously on marketing ROI and social media in 2009 was still looking for an ROI. We talked more and agreed to collaborate on a book called ‘ROI of Social Media’ – while not on the best seller list, it is widely read by marketers all around the world.
Fast forward to late 2010 and another contact referred me to a listing on LinkedIn that led me to a project which covered all my moving expense to Colorado from Arizona, something again I wanted.
The bottom line is that Linkedin might be about finding a job for some, but for most of us on LinkedIn it is about the contacts and networking for business – not leisure / personal like Facebook. for me it led me to my first internationally published book with a named publisher (John Wiley & Sons) and to a move that I wished for.
Almost daily I find uses for my professional network in Linkedin that is mutually beneficial to myself and my network.
Well, that’s my story – yours certainly could be different, but I’ve found online social networks will pay you back what you put in.
Socially Yours,
Steven Groves
http://www.linkedin.com/in/StevenGroves
January 23, 2012 at 2:58 pm |
Thanks for sharing.
I know it can be useful for the kind of thing you mention. But I’m not looking for any of that.
I didn’t find it helped our business at all. It could’ve helped me find a non-academic job.
I don’t find getting academic/technical books published that hard.
January 25, 2012 at 10:22 am |
I derive three things from LinkedIn: 1) be able to keep in touch with folks as they change jobs and email addresses 2) I get notifications when people change jobs & positions (saving the boring conversations about “what are you doing?”) 3) an occasional introduction
January 26, 2012 at 3:12 pm |
@Aleks: 1. I’ve never had a problem keeping in touch with people I want to keep in touch with. 2. It was exactly all this notification stuff I was tired of seeing (though Aleks just told me in person you could turn it off, though somehow opting out altogether hasn’t even turned it off; yes I could fiddle with my own mail to do that, but that’s too much like work). 3. Ditto.
I also don’t have a Myspace or Myspace-clone account. I don’t even have a cell phone other than when I’m traveling. But I really like people in one-on-one or party/conference settings. And I’m pretty responsive to e-mail.
I just really really hate being interrupted. And I luckily have a personal and work life set up to make it possible (i.e., no kids, long-term project work, no production system maintenance, etc.)
I do understand this is a matter of preference.