LinkedIn Automation? No Thanks!
John Marrett
Helping mid-sized organizations increase sales and improve customer service since 1993 | #LinkedInLocal
About 10 days ago, I received a message requesting a connection from a woman in Paris, and has 500 connections (including 8 mutual ones).
Her profile has no About section, all she has is Experience (3 jobs from 2017 to now) and Education (a Master's degree, from 2012 to 2016). She also has 1 endorsement for each of three skills! With a profile like that, I would never accept her as a connection! After all, how can I help her? How can she help me? No idea at all from that profile! More interesting to me was how she could get 500 connections with an essentially empty profile?
I checked her photo using Google reverse image search and it is an original... So she may be real after all!
Her message asked me if I did prospecting on LinkedIn. I replied no I didn't, CRM is too competitive a field and I don't have the hours required to do prospecting on LI! I also told her (in case she was angling to to do prospecting for me) that I buy leads from a company that provides information to people who are looking for CRM.
She replied back the next day, asking me if I used an automation tool to do prospecting on LinkedIn, and gave me a link to the app that she uses. Of course, this is one of the problems with automation: it will send the wrong response!
I reminded her (rather testily, I must admit) in my reply that I told her I didn't prospect using LinkedIn! I also said that using automation was against the ToS of LI, and that I would never put my LI account at risk by using an automation tool!
In the image above, linkiboski is her affiliate code, Down at the bottom of the website is a link to a page that declares that their affiliate program offers a 50% commission for all new sales! So this is a business for her!
If, over the next several months, she gets 100 people to sign up for the Advanced Plan at 19.99 Euros per month, she can pocket $1,175 USD per month! Not bad if you can automate your work!
So how does ProspectIn work? It has an Ambassador Program (aka their Affiliate Program):
And they claim to have figured out how to avoid being caught by LinkedIn! How? By imitating human behaviour!
What does LinkedIn say? In the LinkedIn User Agreement, section 8 (LinkedIn “Dos and Don’ts”) says thou shalt not use bots or other automation:
So, returning to my question above "More interesting to me was how she could get 500 connections with an essentially empty profile?", there are two answers:
- She uses an automation tool
- Many people just accept connections from anyone who asks
I don't do either!
? John Marrett 2020
About me
I’ve been in sales, marketing and CRM consulting for over 20 years. I write occasional articles and posts about issues I have found on LinkedIn.
Thanks very much for reading this article. I welcome your comments. If you find this article very useful, please share it with other members of your LinkedIn network.
You may be interested in reading some of my other articles on LinkedIn:
Another Reason to Avoid Using Free Public Wi-Fi!
YouTube, a Source of Disturbing Cartoon Videos for Young Children?
Why I Refuse to Use Free Public Wi-Fi
8 Suggestion to Improve LinkedIn
A LinkedIn Suggestion: User Feedback (aka Using User Suggestions to Improve LinkedIn!)
A LinkedIn Suggestion: Fake Profiles on LinkedIn
A LinkedIn Suggestion: Notifications
LinkedIn Spam? How do You Handle It?
And here's a link to my LinkedIn Author Page
All articles ? John Marrett 2015 to 2020
Transform Your LinkedIn? Success: AI Pragmatist. Elevate Your Brand, Unlock Opportunity, Build Authority and Drive Growth. LinkedIn? Trainer, Speaker, Mentor and Consultant for 12 years. Chair of CFFC
2 年Well-articulated John Marrett ???? There are just SO many of these now it's hard to keep track. I take a very close look at all my incoming connection requests and find that so many times people who should know better are already connected to them! It seems to me people are not helping themselves! A further nuance of this problem is that LinkedIn cannot do much about the companies that provide this service. All they can do is terminate the users as THEY are the ones contravening the Terms of Service. With this challenge in mind, I'm not sure what the outlook is, other than for the likes of you and me and many others contributing here to get the message out there as far and wide as possible. ??
Simple AI Transformation Expert | AI Black Belt Training | More Efficient, Engaged & Effective Teams
3 年Clear and compelling reasons for staying well away from automation and people who promote this type of tool. I had a similar experience this week.
CLICK HERE for a Free LinkedIn Checklist mellermarketing.com/list | Offering 1:1 Coaching, Online Programs & Team Training | Follow for LinkedIn & Marketing Tips | LinkedIn Coach & Speaker ????
4 年Brilliant blog, John. I wonder if anyone from LinkedIn has been notified about this service yet. Hopefully their process explanation will help the LinkedIn programmers to do FURTHER programming to catch these spammers in the net.
Sales and Business at Shiva Industries
4 年Thanks John Marrett for sharing this. I have received few connection request from similar profile people. I always ask the purpose of connection and I remember, have not received any response from them. I have accepted few and asked few questions but have not received any response so removed them.