Is Linkedin a valuable business tool or a spam bucket?

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We are starting a new series today discussing Linkedin, looking at where it is as a social network, its strengths and weaknesses and how to best use it as a business and individual. Linkedin continues to grow in popularity as a business tool for finding talent, business networking and B2B marketing. The bad news is that it looks like it’s hitting a plateau.


At the end of 2012, Linkedin was growing at almost 100 percent quarter to quarter. That boosted its stock stratospherically and with good reason. As of the end of last quarter that growth had slowed to less than 35 percent and continues to drop. That growth decline looks like it began with the steady introduction of marketing tools, specifically lead generation, near the end of 2012 and took a major plunge with the launch of their expanded marketing platform in February.


I’ve been hearing about the rapid expansion of spam in Linkedin for several months (We plan a live discussion of the topic of Linkedin spam soon, so watch this space for details). I also noticed a significant growth of spam in my own inbox recently.  Several major influencers told me that they had already given up on Linkedin because of the crap flowing steadily to them, joined by malicious code and sophisticated investment scams (which I almost fell prey to and will be talking about in the live discussion).


Linkedin will need to address these issues soon if they are to stop the bleeding, but there are some simple techniques you can use to minimize the flow of unwanted material and keep this platform a valuable source of information and connections. Come back next week and we will let you in on a few of the secrets we’ve discovered.


If you can’t wait that long, click here, fill out the form and get a free consultation.


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