For a long time, Linkedin, as a professional social network, was a rather polished, qualitative space that stood out from many other platforms, but times are changing and Linkedin is gradually following the path that most social networks have embarked upon: a slow and perhaps inexorable mediocrity.
In a word, Linkedin is becoming Facebookized. Others would say that it’s enshitting (The enshittification of Twitter and platforms in general (it’s in French but worth asking an AI to translate it)).
It’s a bit like a restaurant that used to serve homemade food made with fresh ingredients, but now serves industrial dishes or food of questionable freshness: you have to sort through the menu, and you can’t order with your eyes closed.
Or a clean, safe and pleasant city that is gradually falling prey to filth and crime. You can still go there, but you know there are areas you shouldn’t go.
For Linkedin to remain a place of value, and in the absence of an alternative, and since the platform doesn’t moderate itself when it comes to the professional side of things, it’s up to me, the user, to maintain my own hygiene when I set foot on it.
What do you expect from a professional social network?
For that, you need to know what to expect from such a platform. I find it hard to understand people who complain about the way they’re treated on low-cost airlines – after all, they get what they pay for, or rather, don’t pay for.
No use or behavior is condemnable in itself, everything depends on its context. Rightly or wrongly, we accept things on Facebook or X, but that doesn’t mean we should tolerate them on Linkedin.
In my opinion, we expect several things from Linkedin.
– Information and thoughts that enrich, stimulate reflection and help you learn new things. Note that I refuse to use the term “content” deliberately, as it detracts from the underlying intention of the publication. Someone who thinks content wants to occupy space, someone who thinks information wants to share value with others.
– A certain form, a certain quality of writing and, in any case, something that enhances the content rather than trying to grab attention at all costs. If it’s interesting, it’ll eventually get to me.
– Speaking of attention, an interesting time/value ratio. I can scroll through other platforms simply to pass the time, putting my brain to rest by consulting content with no other value than that of occupying dead time without any intellectual effort on my part. On Linkedin, it’s the other way around.
– Qualified relationships and courteous, polite dealings. I want to understand why someone wants to connect with me, either because I can potentially be useful or the other way round, through a discussion or simply by sharing our networks or the things we can talk about. And, of course, I expect messages to be relevant and polite.
So there’s an issue of content and form, which ultimately come together to define a certain population that I’d describe asattention squatters and low-level hucksters, to which I’d add those who were looking for Facebook and got the wrong address. After all, they’re both blue and white, so it’s okay to be distracted, color-blind or short-sighted.
And since nothing has improved since 2021 (Hey LinkedIn, didn’t you get lost along the way?), we had to take matters into our own hands and do a bit of housekeeping to ensure that certain populations no longer crossed paths.
Stupid job titles
Just as software seeks affordance, a title must be self-supporting. When we read it, we need to know what you do, what you can bring to the table. But after the bullshit jobs, we saw the most fanciful job titles flourish (“I’m an energy agitator…” the disturbing truth behind these unlikely jobs on LinkedIn [FR]).
So, in no particular order, we come across growth ninjas, strategic futurists, talent acquisition wizards, I don’t know what explorers, rainmakers (sic) and the list goes on.
It doesn’t sound serious, and in my experience, it isn’t, often reflecting a less glowing reality. When things are unclear, something’s fishy, so I go my own way and refuse connection requests. What’s more, the “content” published is often just like the job titles.
Eye-catching content
Linkedin was originally a space dedicated to recruitment, but over time it has become a place for sales (which is normal, since marketing budgets are higher than those for recruitment and employer branding). As a result, it has not withstood the ravages of “web writing ” (How the web impoverishes its authors and readers).
Three things trigger a “quality alarm” for me: racy titles, catchy hooks and content so full of emojis that it looks like a Christmas tree garland.
Quality revels in sobriety, and anything that speaks too much to my eye or wants to seduce me in one line generally doesn’t have much to say to my brain.
Phishers
“Like this post and put a comment to receive my training for free”. Well yeah, and you pay me to do your marketing too?
Two things.
First, what’s free has no value.
Second, the goal isn’t to give you a high-value document but to move up Linkedin’s algorithm and eventually make more paid sales by gaining better exposure.
So I know that a click doesn’t cost much and that there’s surely something to be gained from the PDF you’re going to receive (although…) but on principle I don’t like being taken for a fool.
On the other hand, if someone, out of honesty, said “I need your likes to exist”, I might do it.
The wheeler-dealers
We’re in the age of social selling , which takes advantage of social platforms to sell in a different, more qualitative way. Unlike traditional approaches, it favors authentic, personalized interactions, such as the sharing of relevant content or direct conversations, to demonstrate expertise and meet the needs of potential customers. Its aim is to create long-term value, rather than to sell immediately.
In “social selling”, it seems to me that some people have only kept the channel from the concept, because what I’ve been seeing for years is the return in force of hard selling, particularly through messages.
I’ll skip the “Hi Bertrand, I need to talk to you about…” tone. Since when are we close enough for you to be so informal with me ? (Well… it’s sounds less problematic in English since French social norms typically dictate starting with “vous” in new or formal interactions, with a mutual agreement needed to transition to “tu,” highlighting the importance of social dynamics in language.)
Qualification of the contact, his business, his needs? Zero.
Personalizing the message? Zero, and most of the time it’s a robot writing it anyway.
I’m not interested? It’s not a subject for me? Excuse me for not finding the time to tell you why, precisely because I have to devote my time to other things (I didn’t answer you? That’s perfectly normal!), I understand that you’re reminding me once because I might have forgotten but 5 or 10 times is heavy but it’s obviously fashionable among the “new generation salespeople” who have only ever prospected behind a screen.
I even read a post once by someone who basically said “prospects who don’t want to talk to me, know that I’ll nag you until you crack, because it’s the only thing I know how to do, and I do it very well”.
Oh, by the way, avoid the message with the standard catchphrase asking me to go and make an appointment in your diary myself. I’m not your secretary, I don’t work for you and I don’t serve coffee either (besides, I drink tea and it’s rather up to you to offer it to me).
It would be funny if I didn’t keep missing messages that are important to me, sometimes even from people who need my help and to whom I’d gladly give it, so many of these people pollute my Linkedin messages.
I know that some people get a kick out of playing with them and replying in a humorous way, but I just don’t have the energy for it.
The dishonest ones
Have you ever been surprised to be contacted by so-and-so even though you don’t know them from Adam or Eve? These simple, people “suck in” your personal data on Linkedin to resell your contact details to whoever wants them. It’s called scrapping.
I’ve already seen a fair number of discussions on Linkedin on the theme of “I’ve built a scrapping solution that works really well”, “how to scrape data etc”.
I just think I’ve made a nuisance of myself by getting into the conversation and pointing out that in France at least, scrapping is illegal and that businesses have been convicted for it.
I don’t know what bothers me more, that some people do it, talk about it openly, or that Linkedin lets it happen when it could be engaged.
In any case, it’s enabled me to draw up a list of people with whom I should never outsource my marketing.
Having said that, in the light of recent information, it seems that Linkedin isn’t exactly exemplary in this respect either (LinkedIn accused of using private messages to train AI).
The navel-gazers
You’ve been through difficult experiences, you’ve overcome difficulties, you’ve been at the bottom of the hole, you’ve picked yourself up, you’ve learned things? Good for you, and you deserve all my respect (provided your story is true).
But, between you and me, we all know that it’s a marketing trick designed to victimize you in order to attract sympathy, cleverly get a message across and sell yourself or your product.
It works at first, but it’s a bit of a mouthful. If you want to talk about your navel, there’s Facebook.
Those who have the wrong address
Let’s talk about Facebook and the others.
For me, Linkedin should be limited to professional reflections, but that’s not so hard to define.
Religion? Clearly it has no place here.
Politics? Yes, when it helps explain the economy, but not when it’s just an outlet for ad nominem attacks on people or ideas (as long as they’re within the bounds of legality).
Personal life? No.
Your life lessons? You can keep them.
Vacations, dry January and the like? I couldn’t care less.
I admit that sometimes the line is fine, but in many cases it’s well and truly crossed. It takes up space, it makes noise (mission accomplished) but it doesn’t do anything, especially for those who want to preserve the essence of this network.
And I’m not even talking about the vehemence of certain comments that wouldn’t have been tolerated 10 years ago.
“We’re not on Facebook here and if you’re looking for X, it’s down the hall next to the toilets”. A sentence you can copy/paste as a comment on this type of post.
Artificial intelligence
Talking about it around me, I was told that I couldn’t not talk about it here, even if I’m more circumspect.
We’re told that 61% of articles on Linkedin are generated by AI. In the end, this bothers me less than I might have thought , even if it goes against a certain form of authenticity that we have a right to expect on this network.
First of all, it’s obvious, at least for personal posts. People have a style that AI struggles to copy in many cases. For marketing posts, since I refuse to read them, I can’t tell you, but if it ultimately harms the image of the polluters, that’s fine too.
Secondly, because it all depends on the nature of the message.
If it’s an expert article, that bothers me deeply. Using AI as a sparring partner to see if we’ve covered the whole subject, to take into account divergent views etc., why not, but to write an article from start to finish, no! And having tested it once or twice (always test before criticizing), I’ve never liked the result, and it’s not respectful of your readers.
On the other hand, if you just want to republish an article you’ve read on the web and you want to make a factual summary, without giving an opinion or contributing anything, to share the key ideas with your network and make them want to read it, that doesn’t shock me any more than that.
If anything, I prefer an AI that’s a bit stupid to a human with bad practices.
So what can we do?
Fortunately, Linkedin gives us the tools to deal with all this. We can stop following someone, say that we’re not interested, and we can also report content that seems illegal (this option also includes the somewhat hidden possibility of saying that we’re not interested in the author, subject etc., without really knowing if this serves any purpose).
The same goes for private messages.
And believe me, I no longer hesitate to use these functions.
But I do think that Linkedin should be equipped with mechanisms or options that make it easier to preserve the essence of the network, such as the professional nature of content and people’s behavior.
But, as we’ll talk about later, this is unlikely to happen because Linkedin has no interest in it.
You’re going to tell me that I’m nostalgic for the old days, that it’s all over and that we have to move with the times, but I remain convinced that the hallmark of a professional social network, for which a large number of users pay a premium subscription, must be quality. And it’s less and less there. Or rather, it’s drowned out by deafening noise.
It’s nothing new, but today there’s no denying the reality: Linkedin is on a downward spiral , and what made the network special is gradually being lost.
Added to this is the fact that Linkedin is doing nothing to develop its platform in terms of experience, whether we’re talking about experience with others or experience with the tool, whose UI and UX managers I hope have ended up in jail.
But can we do without Linkedin? Today, the answer is clearly no, but who knows if someone will come up with a competing idea when the public is fed up and the platform’s marketing inefficiency has reached a point of no return for advertisers.
Having said that, I know people who have already defected by forming a private community on co-optation, even if it means paying out of their own pocket for an instance of a dedicated platform. It’s a pity for the encounters and serendipity, but that’s the price to pay for benevolence and quality.
And there are some who have ended up deserting the place altogether. Not many, but there are some.
In the meantime, I’ll take up the restaurant metaphor used at the start of this article.
“If it’s getting worse and worse why do you still go there?”
“Because my friends go there and it’s the only restaurant in town”.
Image : Linkedin by MOUTASEM PHOTOGRAPHY Via shutterstock
