Is Microsoft Anti-'Social'?: The Lament of a Die-hard LinkedIn Fan

I am a LinkedIn user since 2007.

I have loved LinkedIn more than any other software, software platform or social platform. I have spent significant number of years trying to understand the platform and evangelize it. The efforts have been truly enriching. I will always remain a LinkedIn fan. I hope to eternally benefit from it.

The creators of LinkedIn were imaginative enough to architect a social platform that was just perfect for professional networking needs. They were generous and magnanimous in endowing LinkedIn with its rich features, pampered its users to a fault.

They were truly 'Social'. They cared for the customer.

Social does not only translate into truly caring, but an enhanced social media presence ensures that a social media user, gets found for his or her needs. Social in no uncertain terms helps an individual to build a powerful brand, making the flat world even more flatter.

LinkedIn allowed you to construct a profile that could help you articulate, in the best possible manner, about who you are and your objectives of wanting to be on LinkedIn.,

It then allowed you to search information on Organizations, Universities, Contacts, Connections as you wished in the most generous fashion. Constructing a qualitative and quantitative network for your needs was a pleasurable and simple process. The Filters were copious. You could first zoom in on to the industry, and then to the company and then to the individual in a specific company. You could navigate easily. And then you could use keywords in conjunctions with Boolean Operators to zoom in and find relevant search results.

LinkedIn then came up with those wonderful university pages. A most important component of the professional connect. The proper leveraging of the university page opens up limitless possibilities.

The LinkedIn publishing platform Pulse filled an important gap and made LinkedIn truly social, by addressing and equipping its users to meaningfully ENGAGE with its audience. Whenever a post was published, every connection of the person whose post was published was notified about the post/publication.

LinkedIn's philosophy that it truly cared for its users, was reflected in allowing the user to organize himself or herself. It was possible to organize the connections through tags, 200 different types of tags were permitted. Bulk mail of up to fifty candidates, was allowed. It was possible to store their contact details , record details of where you met the person, write notes and also set reminders. Imagine how empowered a small business enterprise or an individual small business man would be, if he were given such small mercies in life.

All of this changed, with US $ 26 billion acquisition of LinkedIn by Microsoft.

One of the first things that happened after the acquisition was that features pertaining to tagging, notes, capability to capture contact details, capability to send mails and set reminders, were all removed. A single stroke, rendered a huge community of LinkedIn users, especially small businesses with low bandwidth, noncompetitive. A clear signal of things to come.

Every conceivable search was stricken down, and it slowly has now culminated to a restriction on the number of search results until you pay for the LinkedIn premium services.

I can understand the need to monetize an initiative. Would it be natural for the paying customer, to expect definite value additions?

We need to then ask ourselves, a fundamental question, if by becoming a Premium member, does it automatically enhance visibility on the platform. Would you appear on the top of your search results for your needs, if you pay up for the premium subscription? Unlikely.

In my interactions with several job seekers, who have availed of premium LinkedIn membership, I notice that many of these job seekers do not have a proper LinkedIn profile. Neither do they have a qualitative and quantitative network for their needs. Many of them are unaware of the need to have an engagement strategy.

When are you likely to be found on the top of the search results for your needs?

When and if you have

a) A proper LinkedIn profile, complete in all respects with all the right kind of key words reflecting your needs

b) A qualitative and quantitative network for your needs

c) An effective engagement strategy: you are able to cater to your audience/network/fans with relevant and engaging content.

d) Consumers of your brand, advocate you.

One of the biggest challenges in being able to leverage all social platforms, is the ability to distinguish the signal from the noise.

I would like to observe and I suspect, that in recent times, LinkedIn, has been encouraging widespread networking, by encouraging and throwing up a large number of invites. I have been receiving invites from irrelevant people. This takes precious minutes away. Should I accept the irrelevant invites, it is bound to dilute the quality of my network. On top of it, LinkedIn does not give me a provision to organize any of my connections.

In not a very disconnected development, one can see LinkedIn spending big bucks on advertisement in the ongoing IPL championship.

LinkedIn's aspiration to monetize LinkedIn's premium subscriptions is unmistakable, and rightfully so.

Monetizing is a business imperative. My difference of opinion is with the myopic vision and probably a lack of imagination of the kind of power Social can unleash. I am concerned that the power of LinkedIn is not being imagined to include a transformation that can happen at a Societal, Business and an Individual level.

An ardent fan in me is dismayed, that LinkedIn in order to monetize it's initiatives, has downgraded from being a Social Media platform to a model which is closer to a Job Portal's subscription model.

Let us take a cursory glance at another source of major income, the Sponsored Updates to the followers of a company page. This could also probably do with some imagination. After the acquisition, the followers of a brand are no longer visible either to the member view or to the administrator view. One really hopes that LinkedIn is able to imagine exciting solutions around this significant community. A sponsored update may be a very primitive option.

In today's world, with the power of computing available at our disposal, is it very difficult to understand a customer need's and help a member to construct a qualitative and quantitative network for his needs. The need of the hour is comprehensive solutions, that really solve the pain points of its members. The crying need of the hour is reduction of a lot of wasted efforts on LinkedIn(Social) and to really help understand what is the ROI on LinkedIn(Social).

There is a great platform with abundant data and customers. When you truly care for your customers , take efforts to understand the pain points, and address them holistically, there can be great solutions.

To be able to do that, Microsoft may have to do away with its Sales culture and reinvent itself.