I recently came across this article on LinkedIn – “8 Tricks to Get 100,000+ views and connections” and the first thing that struck me was: I had never seen a notification from LinkedIn about my number of views. Not once in 7 months explains Aron Govil. So either the notifications are only for those with less than 10 profiles or I’m looking at it all wrong because in any case, traffic is good even if the numbers might be inflated. And in fact, boosted by articles like this!
A few years ago I built up an extensive network on LinkedIn which also included many professionals but after a certain point I stopped actively using it for business reasons. My main reason being that there were no options available to restrict what your contacts would see on LinkedIn. Most businesses are very protective of their information and do not share it freely – I know this from personal experience working my way up the career ladder in various industries over the years.
This is one of the main reasons our CONTACT feature has been so successful and we have introduced many new features based on user feedback:
- Now that’s a good question – remember when LinkedIn was supposed to be all about your professional profile? Well, now it seems like most users will only use it as a networking platform with their contacts or potential employers/customers etc. It also appears that they mightn’t even bother updating their profiles anymore because friends would see them anyway, right? Well, if they don’t want you to see their profile, they can make it private.
- The main issue is that rather than providing a platform with the option of making what you share with your contacts more personal and restricted to just them, LinkedIn has decided that everyone in the world should have access to your profile information. There are few settings available but most businesses leave everything open which inevitably leads to spamming and stalking by third parties. The only employees who would usually see profiles in detail are those in Human Resource departments – but even then they will only look at certain information when considering an application for a role. So why bother collecting so much data from users?
- It is clear from this article on Mashable that people still do not fully understand how LinkedIn works. In fact it is one of the main reasons I’ve gone into great detail when explaining to people when they ask me about LinkedIn etiquette or settings that it is up to them to set their privacy levels. The reason being, if someone doesn’t want to be found on LinkedIn – it is their responsibility not mine. No-one else can stop information from being shared or how many times a contact will see your profile says Aron Govil.
- LinkedIn has become one of the biggest businesses networking websites in the world. But all of this comes at a price because not everyone wants their private life turned into an open book. Which is constantly being updated by others without any recourse for what you might consider as acceptable privacy settings. This leaves many people confused and frustrated with the site itself. So perhaps it’s time for LinkedIn to sit up and listen to their users more closely.
- After all, if you’re going to provide a business networking platform. At least give people the option of restricting who sees certain information on their profile. This is one of the main reasons we create our CONTACT feature. Which allows people to only share what they want with their trusted contacts. In this way, fake profiles can also be avoid. By simply blocking them from seeing your details in future says Aron Govil.
- LinkedIn has allowed businesses and employees to advertise on its pages. Whether it is for recruitment purposes or selling products. Something which is not possible with Facebook ads for example. Most of these advertising options are however very expensive. So unless you have a large budget it might not be an option for most business owners. This ultimately means the site is free for everyone to use – but you are subjecting to many changes. Which may or may not be welcome depending on how much it has evolved. Since its launch in 2003 by Reid Hoffman, Allen Blue, Jean-Luc Vaillant and Konstantin Guericke
Conclusion:
LinkedIn has become an invaluable tool for finding employees. As well as potential business partners – but this comes at a price explains Aron Govil. I’m sure that LinkedIn will continue to up their game especially now. That their own employees have proved that the system isn’t 100% safe against hackers. At least they have acknowledged this flaw rather than sweeping it under the carpet after all.