Will LinkedIn Become A Social Media Ghost Town?

What exactly is the value of having a LinkedIn premium account? As a premium user for the past two years, I was challenged with this question, and downgrade to a free one. And even then, I’m struggling more and more with the idea of even using LinkedIn generally.

Each day, LinkedIn removes more of its commonplace features. Those that were once commonplace to consumers, which showed value in using LinkedIn to begin with. Every day, LinkedIn proves that as a social media platform for the c-suite/executive class, it is less relevant, giving less reason for anyone who otherwise might utilize it.

Four years ago, I told people that I thought LinkedIn could become the social media version of the white pages – a platform that sales professionals were required to use in order to reach decision-makers. Not just a company’s contact information, but also a line to the decision-makers within the company, as well as a hierarchy in terms of who ran which department. To me, LinkedIn was a way to move beyond the hype of traditional methods of sales, including cold calling.

That was four years ago. In each year, I have become less impressed with LinkedIn, especially after their recent merger with Microsoft.

Where Have You Gone, LinkedIn Users?

Sales Navigator and the Social Selling Index (SSI) are bogus. Neither has lived up to any direct standard of even the worst CRM tool. Sales Navigator doesn’t directly connect with Salesforce or any CRM, in order to be utilized better. The new redesign appears to also be ignoring its focus on targeting the c-suite/executive class, trying to attract more Millennial users who are still in the early stages of their careers. These are not who sales professionals want to reach. They want to reach those in the c-suite/executive class level who still haven’t been forced by LinkedIn to put up a headshot, or haven’t logged onto the system in 2 years.

LinkedIn has had a lot of time, and been full of a lot of potential. However, potential is often another word for under-achiever.

What we are collectively witnessing is a social media “platformicide” – it is slow, painful and happening in real time.

This typically occurs with smaller social media platforms, often chasing young users who leap from platform to platform without much interest in the old as much as the new. But LinkedIn was different from the start, and with the Microsoft acquisition, is killing itself slowly. This is how the ghost towns of Google-Plus and Myspace occurred, except with a different class of users. There’s an important lesson here for every platform that loses their users’ interest – Once it’s gone, it’s never coming back again.

LinkedIn has an exclusive group of users, people who are not going to venture onto other platforms as readily, and yet they are likely losing them in droves. And losing them will be more attuned to users having long gaps of not logging into the platform, much like an old Wild West ghost town. Sure, the structures are still there, but does anyone actually live inside?

Enter The LinkedIn Spam Engine

No other social media platform can lay as much of a claim to a “spam engine” title as LinkedIn. They are the kings of allowing more spam through than anyone, including Facebook or Twitter.

While I do accept connections with people who reach out to me, or those that I may not know directly, it’s the spam sent by people who don’t even try to connect with me that I have the issue with. It’s the shotgun version of “social selling,” another type of cold calling, which is highlighted by LinkedIn’s corrupt InMail system that encourages spamming of people you don’t know.

Think of the negative nature of cold calls. People are forced to answer the phone if it rings. But they don’t have to log onto a social media platform such as LinkedIn if they see nothing but spam sent to them. It discourages people from wanting to be a part of LinkedIn, and in fact, makes it less likely that they will participate, especially if they are of the c-suite/executive class because they will receive more InMail spam messages than their colleagues who are not at that high of status.

It’s A Buggy Platform

The user interface of LinkedIn has never been ready for prime-time. The newest application of UI, which appears Facebook-lite, proves that. Not only is it a horribly-coded platform, but the SSI rating is silly and irrelevant. In one month, my SSI swung from the 90s down to the 70s, back up the 90s again. None of these statistics hold any water, nor reflect anything that I’ve done either.

Half the time, I get a failure message from LinkedIn as it tries to work when accessing certain areas, and the search bar itself is a joke. I’ve searched for people, who I’ve known are on the platform, and come up with zero leads, even though discovery should be the easiest component of any social media platform. Now, LinkedIn is declaring that most of the common features – such as tags, sorting, search – are “premium” offerings. If your only value proposition is the common stuff you have to pay for, people will go elsewhere to other platforms, where it is free, to seek out those options.

And this isn’t just about paying for something once free. LinkedIn even moved some former features above premium subscription levels to Navigator and Recruiter. When has ever jumping up two pay grades ever been a good idea for any product line?

Analytics are bogus as well on LinkedIn. It was crap to begin with in terms of Sales Navigator, but now that those features have been fully removed without a premium account, there is little to no point. None of this helps me understand how to better utilize LinkedIn (even Twitter offers some analytics to reach, engagement, etc).

I can only assume that this blogging tool on LinkedIn will be the next to vanish to non-premium users. That will offer one less reason to jump on the site in general. Between all of these issues, and the toggling back between old and new UI based on which sections that I venture into, there is less reason to be on LinkedIn overall.

Sad how four years on a platform, has come to this.

The Instagram Of Bad

LinkedIn has also become the Instagram of females posing provocatively for the seeking of “likes” and shares. I know this because I’ve found several photos of the same woman, with over 17k likes and 20k comments, with different messages on it. Follow that with the political nonsense of the 2016 presidential race, etc. LinkedIn has the worst analytical features to protect against this, and seemingly promotes more of a Facebook image than it should. Every picture is a ballooned, narcissistic version of Facebook-lite’s feed, where there is little text available despite the share being a blog post. 

Is this essentially a salvo of LinkedIn leaving the c-suite/executive user class behind in order to attract the young Millennial in tech? If so, that group isn’t of the buying caliber that most sales professionals are trying to reach, therefore it negates the entire reasoning for purchasing a premium account.

The picture-heavy LinkedIn feels like an app. It doesn’t feel like a desktop. This is where the majority of LinkedIn users still access their account from. Why? Because the app is buggy, especially the Sales Navigator one. I had a Sales Navigator account for over 2 years, paid $19.99 religiously, and decided to cancel at the end of this month. Why? Because there’s nothing of value here.

When The Value Is Gone

I’ve proven that I would pay for what I considered valuable features. But what LinkedIn is offering isn't valuable at all. It’s just common and boring.

I think LinkedIn knows this, and feels a user exodus coming. Already, they’ve creating barriers for exporting your contacts from the system – now you have to wait 24 hours to receive one batch, and another 24 hours to receive another. Prior to this new LinkedIn UI, withdrawing your contacts was one of the easiest things possible.

The more that LinkedIn pushes up its commonplace free features into premium categories that you have to pay for, the less the platform is likely to succeed. We’re essentially seeing yet another social media ghost town where users once gathered. 

Enjoy it while it lasted, but LinkedIn may be gone before you know it.

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Troy Kirby has helped generate revenue for three college athletic departments and professional teams. Owner of The Tao of Sports, which focuses on Sports Sales & Revenue Analytics, Kirby has interviewed over 600 sports executives for a three-times per week podcast and writes daily about sports business, including the secondary market. Founder/President of NAATSO, the only college ticket association, as well as the creator of The Sport Sales Boot Camp. Kirby is also a frequent contributor to The Association of Luxury Suite Director's quarterly publication, SEAT Magazine, and Ticketing Today.