A LinkedIn for - you and me

LinkedIn was the “In” circle ?? of linked professionals, when I joined on Nov 7, 2007. Then, it became the recruiting hub, graduating into a flexing zone, finally it became a truly social selling platform, and now, a knowledge hub too. (Wondering when you joined??Settings?>?Data privacy >?Manage your data and activity > Click on the last page and the first entry is your joining date)

During this journey, many people forgot that this is not Facebook or Twitter — this is a professional space with “help me help you” attitude. Of course, we love compelling and passionate stories, but the tone of presentation matters. Is there a lesson to be learned from the recent user fatigue of Facebook??Culture matters!?

When I was in the New York MTV studios, coming to office in shorts and flip-flops with a handycam as a hip animation director, was not only awesome but it positively inspired people to be creative (which was the call of the day). Imagine, I pull the same stunt today walking into my Fortune 500 customer’s prim-and-proper boardroom! The cultural shock alone would probably translate into disrespect toward the decorum and traditions. The intent of this oak-paneled boardroom setting was to inspire and command respect to make serious business decisions that would affect thousands of lives.?Hence, context and settings matter!?Now, why should this be any different for LinkedIn, what say you?Melissa Selcher? Any governance model to change back the culture?

We all indulge in memes, but is this the platform for frivolity? Humor is one of the best hooks of storytelling, but it doesn’t necessarily make things facetious.?One of the powerful presentations of recent times for me was the Stalla 2032 for Olympics. It’s arguably one of the best sustainability ad campaigns. Instead of trying to convince the audience and stakeholders to conserve and preserve, they simply used sarcastic humor to show the alternative.?Presentation matters!

Premises of social selling were – intent and?interest. Without an active intent of the buyer, pumping pitches is almost like a street?peddler trying to sell knock-off branded products to an immaculately dressed individual walking down Park Avenue! Perhaps, creating an?intrigue?is the first need of sales and not directly sending invitations.?Here’s a part of the header of an old email, we used to create curiosity to read the rest of the message:

During the ‘awareness’ phase,?empathy and?respect matter!?

Doing our homework - i.e. getting to know our customers’ needs - is the best way to show respect. We constantly have to remind ourselves that one-shoe-doesn’t-fit-all for the sake of sales conversion and showing genuine empathy toward our buyers.?Contextualization matters!?

I’m sure almost all of us are exposed to young (experience, not age) and eager sellers; and in a good mood, we simply smile and ignore them. Imagine, one such novice seller approaches a Head of Sustainability for an Energy conglomerate to sponsor an annual event meant for Small and Medium Chocolatiers! Surely, a creative mind could find a way to assist that audience too, but for base human beings like me, it’s a mismatch of interest. This happens regularly to all of us in different shades and forms. Sure, LinkedIn has that button “I don’t know <name>”, but we feel a little bit guilty using that button. Knowing that we are within our rights to do so, but soon this young professional will get barred from sending invitations. Some people take kindness for weakness, they’ll always be there - no point pondering about the spammers. But if we don’t want to be a ‘butt’ ??, empathy is the way to go. Let’s save our customers from spam, and rather talk about their pain points or the solutions. I’m very interested to hear from the advertisers, sales-marketing folks and the recipients - what might be some creative suggestions to improve pitching to prospects.

Now, let’s switch gears a bit toward talent scouting. We love what LinkedIn has to offer - job postings, amplification tools, recruitment solutions, the whole nine yards for people who pay. LinkedIn, perhaps it’s time to?re-focus on your original product? Members.?We are grateful that you protect members’ privacy when it comes to advertisers, but what happens when members want to showcase and sell themselves??Teuila Hanson, I’m outlining few suggestions that company HR, recruiters, and candidates - all might love (and looking forward to your take on this topic):

1. Provide a place to host CVs that can be automatically accessed by recruiters (based on the preferences of the candidates). Not all ideal matches are actively looking for a job … why lose out on amazing talent just cuz they weren’t aware of the opportunity?
2. Make a power play that mandate ‘Easy Apply’ - corporates and headhunters will adjust their systems to intake applications more efficiently. This cuts down redundancy and makes life much easier for applicants (especially, for those who are already in a difficult place and need to apply to various openings for a faster closure)
3. Provide options to candidates on who they want to work for viz., size of the organization by revenue, employee count, B2B/B2C, Enterprise/Entreprenuer, badges won – Best Place to Work/Top Employer, etc.
4. Provide a translate button for job posts
5. Perhaps, a default mechanism to ask questions privately about the role, should be provided for job posts – where hiring manager/recruiter information is absent.

News and learnings have become big components of LinkedIn. How would you like to know of competencies that should/could be of interest? Hey LinkedIn, here’s an idea – auto-suggest, in a profile section, about courses available from LinkedIn Learning, sponsoring Academia, certification boards, etc. Colleges were created to produce better employable talents, why not?LinkedIn University? I’m calling dibs ?? on this revenue stream idea?Dan Shapero. Just kidding, does LinkedIn have any plans to expand in that direction?

Similarly, instead of flooding the timeline … could there be an alternative to?consuming relevant news?(not updates) pertaining to the member’s industry, interest, domain, etc.? This will increase LinkedIn’s screen time in customers’ consumption lifecycle. In turn, we the average Joes, will be better informed to do our jobs and appreciate LinkedIn for filtering out fake news from the Web. Feasible?Tomer Cohen?

By now, this article is looking awfully close to a Christmas wishlist. Then again, Christmas in July would be such a customer delight! I’m sure, most folks on LinkedIn would love to have some or all of these features. If pandemic has taught us anything … better be ahead of the curve. I’m sure, product improvement is a continuous process at?605 W Maude Av, hence, these are the musings of a Linked-explorer??!

#UserExperience #Strategy #Communication #Marketing