Will LinkedIn’s Public Offering Change Its “Worthless” Perception?
According to a May 16, 2011 article in the Wall Street Journal, LinkedIn (LNKD) is scheduled to begin trading on the NYSE this Thursday. It’s interesting to see the contrast of those who place such value in LinkedIn (previously referenced WSJ article states they hope to raise up to $274 million) especially when our Google Analytics reports a number of “LinkedIn is worthless” keyword searches every week. These searches ultimately lead visitors to a “Is LinkedIn Worthless” article we published last year. We would guess that those searching for such articles have already put a gross amount of time into trying to add value to their business or personal professional development on LinkedIn to no avail. Out of frustration, those poor souls probably type in “LinkedIn is worthless” to find out whether others are feeling the same way. Unfortunately our “Is LinkedIn Worthless” article probably didn’t bash LinkedIn like they were hoping, since we have for the most part had a positive experience using LinkedIn. But we still have some reservations.
LinkedIn Service / Feature Failures
Like the “LinkedIn is down” screenshot (above) suggests, LinkedIn service is not perfect. In fact, that screenshot was taken today, only a few days before their planned IPO. We also experienced a LinkedIn connections feature failure that lasted through months (and several help requests) before it was resolved. We were unable to access any of our connections, which if you know LinkedIn, you know the entire system value is based on connections.
We recently launched an advertising campaign on LinkedIn, but weren’t impressed with the results. Of course, there is the Wannamaker maxim that says: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” But, the fact that LinkedIn was the half that was wasted doesn’t bode well.
LinkedIn Groups/Connections Worthless
Much of our traffic comes from our blogs, which we post to LinkedIn groups and other social platforms, so we know the groups have value. But, when we go through ecommerce groups requesting permission from group members to connect, we often get no response, or something months later like “Sorry for the delay, I never really log into LinkedIn.” This really makes us wonder how active LinkedIn users are. Are they really going in to check their mail, connections’ status updates, etc. Based on hundreds of hours of experimentation, our guess is probably not.
Stock Options?
While we’re not ready to buy LinkedIn stock, we’re definitely no where close to neglecting our presence on LinkedIn. In fact, we don’t want readers here to think LinkedIn has totally failed us. What’s a more likely scenario is that LinkedIn is working just as its architects intended; less as a promotional tool and more as a place to have genuine, social media, discussions and meet relevant connections. We’ve learned that by turning down the promotional noise, and slowing down to listen and REALLY engage is the way to go.
Nicely written article Jonathan. I too have had issues with Linkedin’s service, mainly just bugs when trying to send a message, system crashes, etc. They are hiring some of the same software development talent Facebook and Google are fighting over so I expect these issues will be addressed.
As a professional software engineering recruiter I’ve found Linkedin to be the most valuable tool to come along in the 11 years I have been in business. Beyond being a nice way to connect with people it yields vast amounts of useful intelligence for me, like showing me a vast network of secondary connections who I can network with based on who we know in common.
Based on Facebook’s valuations I think Linkedin will return much profit for investors. Facebook is a little better at the technical underpinnings and feature improvement but Linkedin captured an important niche early on and I have’t seen anything else remotely competitive.
Our Social Media Directors LinkedIn Group is one that Jonathan uses to drive folk to his blog…
I get how hard it is to encourage engagement, one of our websites started back in 2001 generates around 4m page views every year, mostly through Google searches and people bumping into pages for 3m reasons ;) It took lots of hard work to generate the momentum to get it rocking…
LinkedIn is not Facebook… it’s not the hustle a bustle of lightweight chatter, “OOO, suits you mrs, best buy it” “gr8 pic of your butt last night on the town” “look at me, me, me”
It’s more relaxed, more thoughtful, of more real value… just look at the professional data you can navigate through on Linkedin, it’s massive… the shares will go through the roof.
We’ve been working in the web world for 10 years and 18 months ago started offering social media training. Within a very short time span LinkedIn shone through as our most popular training course.
You can view some videos of the training course we ran today in Windsor, UK at
http://www.socialmediadirectors.co.uk/using-linkedin-for-business-windsor-17th-may-2011/
Service blips and bugs are all part of growth both as humans and in the world of technology. How long has it taken Google to index in real time?
I tried the advertising last year for a few weeks… must try it again to promote our workshops…
Groups are run by people who have with their own set of values.
On our Business in Berkshire LinkedIn Group I tend to be more controlling, since BinB was my online community “baby” I look to this LinkedIn Group to drive members of the main site. Knowing that our technology is old but has serious seo power, it will only capture the attention of those who appreciate they have to add content for the power to reveal itself… it’s not a speed dial solution.
The flip side is over on the Social Media Directors LinkedIn Group I am far more open… this group is growing nicely.
The architects have done a brilliant job with LinkedIn and I hope it keeps its integrity… time will tell… buy some shares if you can ;)
Thank you.
Jon Davey
Thanks for weighing in, Dave!
Hi Jonathan:
I agree that Linkedin can be a lot of “hot air.” When I subscribed a few years ago as a result of a suggestion by a recruiter, I was hoping that it would be a good networking tool. However, I have found the group discussions in my field (medical devices) not interesting. It seems that the same small group of people who use it consistently mainly use it to make themselves feel important. When it comes right down to it, nothing beats face to face, in-person networking!
David