LinkedIn is losing its credibility - here's how to fix it (or at least a start)

The LinkedIn as we know it (with public profiles etc), started to take shape in 2006. But since the then, the site grew exponentially but nothing has been done to build its credibility.

When I say credibility, I mean there is no verification process in place for the profiles. Anyone can create a totally fake profile.

There are countless posts here on Pulse about it. The purpose of these 'fake profiles' vary from scams about money to just trolling people, and there is always someone falling for it.

Since Pulse featured some of my blog posts, I've reached nearly 100,000 followers - luckily, I've only been targeted by fake scams a couple of times, and I blocked and reported these suspicious profiles.

Another thing that surprises me it's the number of empty profiles. I mean just a name and nothing else. No location, no job title, nothing. Maybe they haven't had time to fill the profile out or they simply don't know how to use LinkedIn yet. But why are they following me? I'd never know.

LinkedIn has to realize the network purpose is different from, let's say, Facebook or Twitter. People take seriously what's said on LinkedIn, explained brilliantly in this post.

Here is a suggestion: the first step would be to implement some sort of verification process, that would go like this:

- When creating a profile the basic information would be mandatory eg. name, location, latest job title. If the person is unemployed and looking for opportunities, it could introduce a special profile badge for it.

- Introduce a 24 hours holding time: In this 24 hours after creating a profile, the new user can complete and/or modify their profile, and only after the 24 hr passed the profile would go live on the site.

- Photo: I'd like that LinkedIn would make a profile photo compulsory. Maybe within the 24 hours time the new user would have time to upload one.

- Profile verification: After connecting with someone, LinkedIn would send out a message to them asking for a verification, or the user could send the message manually to old connections. Something simple and easy like this:

"Please verify Ana Paula Picasso (Job title / Location), let's keep LinkedIn credible"

A simple 'tick' on the message reply would do,  more or less like the "Endorsements" session that LinkedIn already has. If I had 10 connections verified me I would get something like a 'bronze badge', 25 people 'silver badge' and 50 or more people 'gold badge'.

I know it won't solve the all the problems, and there would be ways around it for fake profiles / scammers. However, I think it would be much harder for people to misuse LinkedIn.

If you have any other suggestion, please do so on the comments.

Follow my posts and my blog The Emerging Markets Hub.

Twitter @a_picasso.