…no one really likes LinkedIn anymore.
Complaints, moans, grumbles came from around the table at a lunch I attended earlier this week. It’s what I expected to hear.
Yes, I can take it. And I don’t completely disagree…
- Yes, it’s hard to use. Still, even after the new user interface came about, ironically designed to simplify things for us, it still makes you scratch your head to decide where to find things. Like what’s up with putting access to groups behind 9 dots?
- Yes, it now charges you for the same advanced search functions (multi-variable) you used to get for free. Although that aspect is changing slowly, as they quietly add more and more criteria to the search we freeloaders can use.
- Yes, it took away popular sections and never told us. In some cases they did tell us and I tried to warn you but still we procrastinate and the sections went away, and not necessarily on the scheduled termination date that LinkedIn warned us about–something like the social media that cried “wolf.”
- Yes, subgroups became groups and groups all became closed (admission by managers only). Who knew? They forgot to publicize this, to me (as an evangelist), to you, and to the general public.
- And egad! the bugs on LinkedIn! Those missing sections that vanish one day and reappear the next day: as if you don’t have enough angst about LinkedIn, it adds more anguish of having a project to do using LinkedIn and you can’t finish when you want to! (Yes, tolerating glitches is difficult. I know, as I can teach the same LinkedIn session one day after another, and some piece of the message I am demonstrating for the audience on day 1 is gone and reappears on day 2.)
OK, all complaining aside, it’s still the only game in town. I keep hearing about wanna-bes that think there’s a large enough contingent who hate LinkedIn enough to move away to a smaller new business social media platform.
Perhaps I am myopic, but my best bang for the buck is on LinkedIn because I learned to use it. Humans, being creatures of habit, may flee to another platform and still never learn to use it well. So, ask yourself as you explore changing to another service, what’s to be gained? Will you invest the time to learn the new platform well?
I say embrace LinkedIn, warts and all.
It’s the biggest and best game in town. So learn to use it well. Not just a little. Its techniques can offer opportunities that you need to learn well, and take advantage of, respectively.
It’s a power tool, a complex machine, a necessity in our life. Did you learn to use a car a little? No, you learned it and still gained experience and now are a good driver (I hope!).
Good things come to those who do not wait on social media, LinkedIn in particular. Start now to make it a well-oiled valued tool in your toolbox.
