I got an email from LinkedIn this morning congratulating me for being among the top five percent most-viewed LinkedIn profiles for 2012. Considering that I barely understand the purpose of LinkedIn, I find this hard to believe.
On the other hand, since I barely understand LinkedIn, it just might be true.
The e-mail said LinkedIn has 200 million members, so that puts me in the top 10 million of all profiles, so I guess that’s plausible. It does seem like I’m connected to 10 million people, after all. I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do with this information.
Every day, I get a few LinkedIn requests from people I have never met. Most of them check the box "friend," as their connection to me. I tend to approve the people that I might have some potential professional connection to, the rest I ignore.
And that’s usually where it ends.
A few people have contacted me via LinkedIn to ask for a job or to pitch a story. But the vast majority of these 759 connections I never hear from again.
It’s true that I’ve used LinkedIn to check out the resumes of said job applicants, but beyond that, it hasn’t been much of a tool for me. It feels to me like the boring, red-headed stepchild of Twitter and Facebook.
That being said, I do appreciate the 94 recommendations in the fields of blogging, social media, media relations, public relations and social media marketing – although I don’t recall telling LinkedIn that I was any good at that stuff.
All I know that the last time I updated my profile, a bunch of people asked me if I was looking for a job, because that’s apparently the intent when someone sees a flurry of LinkedIn’s activity. Of course, I said no.
So tell me, what’s the deal with LinkedIn? Am I right that it’s basically a recruiting tool? Or is there more to it? I really want to know.
Andy is the president, publisher and founder of OnMilwaukee. He returned to Milwaukee in 1996 after living on the East Coast for nine years, where he wrote for The Dallas Morning News Washington Bureau and worked in the White House Office of Communications. He was also Associate Editor of The GW Hatchet, his college newspaper at The George Washington University.
Before launching OnMilwaukee.com in 1998 at age 23, he worked in public relations for two Milwaukee firms, most of the time daydreaming about starting his own publication.
Hobbies include running when he finds the time, fixing the rust on his '75 MGB, mowing the lawn at his cottage in the Northwoods, and making an annual pilgrimage to Phoenix for Brewers Spring Training.
