LinkedIn: beware the LIONS, they may savage your reputation
What would you do if you received a heartfelt testimonial for your work – from someone you had never worked for? It has happened to me on LinkedIn earlier in the year and in return I was asked to publish a similarly misleading recommendation. It has bugged me ever since, hence the belated post!
It almost feels like you have been stalked, or accosted by someone in the street or at the very least like those real life networkers who pounce on you and pretend they are your best buddy – before trying to sell to you!
Who was it from? A guy called Steven Burda who is a so-called LION, a LinkedIn Open Networker who follows the minority religion that believes in numbers rather than relationships. He explained himself in an email after I complained, saying he liked my Questions & Answers on the site, but I was not convinced. Why recommend my services at Thames Valley Police when he never knew me then?
The proliferation of online social networking is fabulous for businesses – it has opened up many more channels for promoting your services. However, it also throws up dilemmas in contrast with traditional networking where you had normally met the people in your network.
LinkedIn pioneered online business networking, but makes it clear to those who use it that you should only become LinkedIn with people you know.
My LinkedIn network follows this recommendation and the majority of people I am LinkedIn with I have either met, or have worked with online through the LinkedIn Answers service. Yet I am routinely declining invitations to connect with people I do not know.
Why do some see it as a game where the game it collecting names, not building relationships. This approach to networking was why I withdrew from Ecademy after being plagued with strangers wanting to be my new best friend and carve another notch on their desk.
With LinkedIn anyone in your network can normally see anyone else within your network and there will be an understandable perception that you would willingly recommend people you are connected with.
This differs from Twitter for example, where for many the fun is understandably getting lots of followers – but in contrast to LinkedIn no-one expects you to automatically recommend their followers. They get to do that with the ‘#followfriday phenomenon that allows Twitters to tell their followers who they think they should follow normally based on their performance on Twitter, but also the real world experience.
There is an overlap but it is important to distinguish the purpose of different networks – unless you want to unwittingly recommend the services of a LION to your flock of contacts?