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12 min reading time
I’m trying to work with you, LinkedIn, really, I am. I may lead the Medical Devices Group which, as of this writing has 250,000+ members, but I play by your rules. Fair enough; it’s your platform. Through your lack of response, you’ve subtly and repeatedly informed me you don’t value my input. But, please. When you send an email like the one above to the 150,000+ recipients of the daily digest with the headline “TO MIGRATE TO CANADA FOR WORK,” from dubious member “atsi offpage” … how am I supposed to retain and educate members? You say “TO MIGRATE TO CANADA FOR WORK” is a “Trending Discussion.” It’s not. It’s not even a Discussion. No, your algorithm might have better selected one of the two discussions I published among 100 submissions yesterday. I provide this service for the eyes and minds of the busy medical device thought leaders I hope to engage. You might even make the “Manager’s Choice” designation meaningful again, as I fruitlessly recommended months ago. Your selection, “TO MIGRATE TO CANADA FOR WORK,” may just as well have said … “TO UNSUBSCRIBE CLICK HERE.” Do I have a vested interest in the group’s success? Yes. But you – and your shareholders – have a bigger one: Our premium memberships, our engagement, and our willingness to click on your advertisers’ links. Listening to customers = good. Please. Listen to us, your customers. +++ DOUBLE DAMMIT ADDENDUM. If you’ve ever been frustrated by LinkedIn’s product and “customer service,” please like and share this post, and leave a comment. It’s a long shot but maybe with enough attention, LinkedIn may fix the issue? About the Author: Joe Hage leads the Medical Devices Group here on LinkedIn and his 10x Medical Device Conference unites Group members in an intimate and educational forum each year. He specializes in marketing communications and strategy, lead generation, and website development for medical device and related companies. And he is frustrated by LinkedIn’s unwillingness to engage its heaviest users. Andy Hewitt Joseph Zagrobelny Robyn Barnes David Lim, Ph.D. RAC, CQA Joe Hage Joseph Fodera Kelly J. Waffle Joe Hage Leonard Eisner Christina Pucci Jill C. Schmidt John Pobursky RN, BSN, CURN Dave Delaney β However, this is unacceptable. It’s also a BIG reason why I don’t rely on social networks as much as I did at one time. Don’t misunderstand, I love SNSs and connecting with friends on them, but I’ve learned not to entirely trust them. Facebook is a great example of a social network that turned around and became a pay-to-play medium for brands. Let’s face it, if you want your content seen on your page you now have to pay for it. Instead, I rely on email as the key thing. Yes, I run the New Business Networking Group on Facebook, but – an email is needed (and now a small payment too) to join the group. The key reason (beyond the payment) is that I have access to contact everyone in the group should I need to. Facebook could go down, my account could be compromised, or they could start charging $1,000/month to run a group – who knows! Back in 2007 (or was it 2008?), I was locked out of Twitter for a weekend. My account had been suspended “due to suspicious activity”. It was a mistake that Twitter never apologized for. It was also a wake up call. How could I contact and keep in touch with my Twitter friends without access? Heck, I didn’t even know everyone’s real names, let alone their contact information. I love LinkedIn for a lot of reasons, especially that we can still export all of our connections (names, titles, businesses, emails and all). We should all be doing this monthly (or weekly) to back it up – just in case. I recommend still using social networks to network with your peers and friends, but always be sure you have their personal information, or you may be disconnected in a heartbeat when the social network starts to spam it’s users and the people decided they’ve had enough. End rant. π Joe Hage Now with 260,000+ members worldwide, it’s the world’s largest medical device community β a hard thing to walk away from. And even more difficult to replicate outside LinkedIn β believe me, I’ve considered it β but joining a group is a low-commitment decision; it’s just clicking an extra button. The work comes after they join by consistently delivering value that justifies their return. My relationship with LinkedIn: Can’t live with them. Can’t live without them. Steve Terrell, EdD Joe Hage Steve Terrell, EdD Joe Hage Paul Thoresen, M.A. Steve Wallace Of course, LI will not divulge their thoughts nor share details on the selection algorithm, so I now try to quickly post the following message when I delete a post that has violated the group rules: Heading: “LinkedIn is having issues with deleted posts (temporary topic)” “In the last few months, even though a post has been deleted for being spam, off-topic, or in violation of the group’s rules, LinkedIn has nevertheless selected the deleted post to lead the e-mailed daily Digest. LinkedIn has been notified but, so far, no progress on a fix. “A post was removed from here a little while ago, so this message is being temporarily placed in case another, valid post does not arrive in time. We would rather that the Digest grab this post than retain and publicize the deleted post. Thanks.” Unfortunately, it does not always work – sometimes LI publishes a piece of spam that had been deleted 23 hours before the Digest. But it does work sometimes and it helps to educate the membership on why the featured Digest post is not available. Spammers have gotten wise and include their URL in the heading so that they still accomplish their purpose, even when a post has been deleted in the group. Joe Hage Joe Hage They say hope isn’t much of a strategy. LinkedIn published jobs to the worldwide group twice more since I originally penned this article. Another headline was “New content on Medical Devices Group” which only featured TWELVE (12) job opportunities from “Kelli Johnson.” Paul Fussell Nicole Reif C. Yusuf Mumtaz Joe Hage Erik Van Erne Eric Way Robert Trinka, MBA Travis Fisher Jim Madaffer Joe Hage Lance Miller Joe Hage Christopher Burgess Mark A. Johnson Joe Hage Iris Fisher Joe Hage David Lachmann Stephen Glassic Joe Hage James Gilliland Joe Hage Steve Fawthrop Joe Hage Laura Dodson Joe Hage Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA Joe Hage Haasan Zaidi Joe Hage Nicholas Roberts Joe Hage Stephen Glassic On the group I mentioned above, there have been an average of three posts per day similar to the ones you mentioned Nicholas. It looks like it is someone being paid to post those bogus get rich quick schemes. They are probably all the same person creating fake LinkedIn profiles usually with a photo of attractive woman. I have been flagging them as inappropriate daily. Don’t click on the links in those posts. They might be malicious. I clicked on one of them and it locked up my browser. I had to close and restart it. Marked as spam
 Posted by Asked on November 12, 2014 1:00 am
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