It’s designed to keep you on each platform as long as possible.
These days LinkedIn is no exception.
It encourages everyone to generate content and keep scrolling. It's become a content mill.
Here’s a few tips to keep your feed clean, focused, and centred around the people and content that you care about most.
- Got a valued connection who thinks LinkedIn is a place for cat videos, but you still want to say connected? MUTE them.
- Got an aspiring influencer who posts several times a day in a way that doesn't enrich your life and is flooding your feed? MUTE, UNFOLLOW or DISCONNECT.
- Want to check occasionally on people you muted to make sure you haven’t missed anything important? Click on NETWORK and the CATCH UP tab.
- Got a thought leader or legend who you want to learn more from? FOLLOW them. Unfollow them later if they don’t meet your high standards.
- Got someone you are interested in but don’t know? If they’re high profile, FOLLOW them.
- Got a genuine reason to connect? INTRODUCE YOURSELF. If you ask for a connection without a cover note, assume it will be ignored or deleted. If they want followers, they’ll have this option enabled.
- ONLY CONNECT with people you know, like and trust. You are who you associate with. This keeps your network clean and.
- Got someone in your network who you don’t know and don’t know why they’re there? INTRODUCE YOURSELF or DISCONNECT. This helps you get back to the people you know and care about most.
- See something you like. Hit LIKE. Do it sparingly though, this gets shared to your entire network. Be generous, but don’t flood your contacts. Use this when it counts and use it sparingly.
- The same goes for COMMENTS. If you’re got something useful to share that adds a lot to your network and the conversation then do so. If unsure, take a breath or go for a walk before hitting send.
- Got someone who is so good that you never ever want to miss an update? HIT THE BELL on their profile and you’ll get notified via your preferred notification settings. Keep this list to 5 people or less. The rest stay in your feed.
- Got shrill commentator who uses outrage to generate attention? MUTE/BLOCK them and you they will never appear in your feed again. This is one of my favourites.
- Still seeing strangers and influencers instead of friends and colleagues? Toggle the TOP/RECENT setting on the top of your feed.
Users don’t get notified when you unfollow, disconnect, mute, block, disconnect or ring the bell, so you can play with this as much as you like.
Play with it when you are next scrolling through and check in with this regularly.
Doing so means your feed is tailored and focused on what’s most important to you.
It means that your connection count may go down. Trust me, this is a good thing it gets you back to your most valued connections.
Not everyone wants to be an influencer. Most of us just value quality interactions, great content and staying in touch with people we care about.?
If you’re an influencer then maybe this isn’t for you. Or maybe it’s even more important. You decide.
For the rest of us, a bit of LinkedIn hygiene can go a very long way.
And if you haven't heard from me for a while, my LinkedIn hygiene has been off. I look forward to catching up soon.
Postscript: This is all manual and won't necessarily defeat the algos, but it helps. If anyone has any great tips that I've missed please add them below.
