Looking for community on LinkedIn

May 20th, 2010 | Leave a comment

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LinkedIn…remember them? The uber Rolodex with breadcrumb connections?

Historically, we all used LinkedIn to see who is doing what on the long tails of our work world. A polite ‘Let’s connect’ once you meet with people at a conference or on a blog. Not much more.

As a marketing platform, or even a channel for messaging, LinkedIn always stopped way short of useful. This was never the first website I looked at when I started the day.

I decided to take a fresh look after writing a number of posts on Facebook fan pages as a platform for promotions and commerce. The world is changing minute by minute and LinkedIn always had a lot of useful material–(us!)– to build something interesting with.

Two new pluses on LinkedIn:

1. Twitter and Foursquare feeds are there

They are everywhere else of course. Context-creating, real-time wallpaper is something we expect and need now.

2. Subgroups have popped up

I really like these and they have some brand and communications potential. They add more specificity to the discussion platform with big growth numbers in my interest areas.

Kind of search meets information portal meets forums.

I like the groups as a subject-filtering device and in some instances, I’ve made new connections. This has been very true for me in the wine business. Not so within the more dispersed marketing and tech groups.

But with LinkedIn the wish-they-would-do-it list still far outranks the glad-they-did-it list.

Big five (still) missing links for LinkedIn:

1. I can find people but I can’t find community

I belong to 20 or so groups covering social media, social TV, some e-commerce and, of course, the wine groups and subgroups.

The more specific your interest, the better the discussion you can find. Wines from a particular region. Interactive TV widgets. Facebook fan page commerce.

And I’ve met some interesting people posting my blogs or responding to others. But invariably we immediately move the discussion to our personal websites or email or Skype.

It’s like speed networking at the recreation center. Find a match and leave to find a cozier place to talk.

People are the heartbeat of any community. LinkedIn has a lot of people but no clubhouse to foster community.

2. No sense of place

There is ‘no there there’ with LinkedIn.

Unlike Facebook or a blog community, there is just nowhere to hang out. If you are going to have a community, you need to have a place, a page, an ongoing conversation and somewhere to go. Otherwise it’s like a newspaper with headlines to scan. If something is interesting, you jump in, otherwise you leave. It’s disposable communications.

Oddly there is an emphasis on news and discussions, not on people and communications. Without a sense of place there is no community.

3. No conversation platform

Blog and community platforms, especially dynamic ones like Disqus, encourage kinship and conversation.

LinkedIn is about forums and groups, not communities. About exchanges, not conversations. About adding facets of dynamic conversation to a newspaper format, rather than encourage communications and make the comments, the content. This seems like a missed opportunity for them and for us.

Join a conversation string on Fred Wilson’s or Mark Suster’s blog and you will get in an instant what I’m talking about.

4. Closed platform to the open web

Take millions of professional people. Connect them together. Create discussion groups with comments and close this off from Google spiders and open web indexing tools.

Why?

LinkedIn hasn’t learned yet that conversations are content and the key to networking.

That is why bloggers use the discussion groups as free channels, grab readers and move them to more dynamic systems that can be indexed and searched.

5. No video broadcast channels

Education, training and business information seem key to LinkedIn. Why they don’t have channels within the network for shows on job related topics, or interactive video for interviews seems a misstep for them. Moving communications broadcast channels inside of LinkedIn just makes sense.

So…do I find LinkedIn valuable?

Yes..as a database with some clever dynamic components. Design wise though it is socially maladjusted.

Do I  find the discussion groups valuable?

Yes…they are useful filters of information but they stop way short. They are swapmeet-like in structure as there is no community to define the value of the content.

Do I recommend LinkedIn as a marketing platform?

Not really. Nor very useful to build new connections. The communications and community platforms are sparse and archaic.

I’ve always believed that given enough eyeballs you can create a runaway business. Rumor has it that LinkedIn is making money from our eyeballs but seems like an uninspired use of a great resource. And that resource is us.

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  • http://www.victusspiritus.com/ Mark Essel

    Enjoyed your critical analysis of LinkedIn. I have joined the service but never spent much time there. I can see it as a useful tool to promote introductions or to see references quickly.

    We are constantly exchanging our attention for information and connectivity. You have added to my curiousity on who owns conversations, or should anyone? Organizing those conversations in a human readable format is valuable so businesses which aid this crowd knowledge framework should be rewarded for doing so. But do they own the communication between groups of people, does Facebook or even Twitter? Their database and permission access clearly says they do.

  • http://arnoldwaldstein.com awaldstein

    Hi Mark

    Glad my thinking on LinkedIn spurred some thoughts.

    The questions of 'privacy' and 'ownership' are obviously intertwined. And events of late have challenged my thinking on them.

    While I still believe that if we live in public, our actions and conversations are public as well, the adolescent and cavalier attitudes of Facebook, have chipped away at this core belief somewhat.

    LinkedIn for all of its archaic structures, has a lot of sincere folks milling around looking for community. Some groups and many discussions just don't gel. Possibly the topics are too large and broad.

    A few wine groups though are really valuable and I've connected with smart and inspiring people all over. I think the wine industry is ready for disintermediation. Based on passion. Steeped in a sense of place, it is strangled by old-school scales of value and legislated taste. This is changing and the discussions are lively and sharp and a change is coming. It is a large global community that is just finding its roots in the social web.

  • http://steamcatapult.com/ Dave Pinsen

    Insightful observations here, Arnold. I haven't spent a lot of time on LinkedIn, but I have found it to be of little utility, mainly for the reasons you mention above.

    Good point about the lack of engagement/community as compared to blogs with active discussions in their comment threads. I don't think the folks at LinkedIn understand the potential of this sort of community. One of the problems with LinkedIn is that you really don't need it for your 1st degree connections and the value of connects of 2nd and greater degrees drops off fairly quickly. But active blog comment threads build real connections organically. I have a better chance of hearing back if I e-mail you or Mark, for example, than if I were to reach out to a 2nd or 3rd degree contact via LinkedIn.

  • http://arnoldwaldstein.com awaldstein

    Hi Dave…sorry for the slow response. Disqus is acting weird and didn't get a notification.

    I agree with your comments.

    There are some exceptions:

    1. Europe in general. I'm getting more and more links and contacts and conversations with people from Europe that are reaching out to me based on the categories that I blog on. Could be cultural.

    2. Specific groups like wine and socialTV for some reason seem to be active. My guess is that wherever there aren't rockstar community blogs to congregate around people look for ways to connect and LinkedIn groups are a good place to start those discussions.

    Enjoy

  • http://twitter.com/ronetele Ron Wolf

    re. The Silver Bullet to making a group/discussion/community vital: Size counts, many high functioning communities have been wrecked by growth. But then others, work better when large. Great moderation, applied judiciously is critical. Conversation – I observe community on Twitter, but is that conversation? And then, specificity, as you point out, seems to be a consistent factor. But, specific doesn't mean small. Or do I misunderstand you?

    Regarding the failure of LinkedIn, its a classic case of Cooper's “The Inmates are Running the Asylum”. Clearly less than vital. But, with my/our investment in building network there, and as a place for sometimes quite well informed discussion, it has a place.

  • http://arnoldwaldstein.com awaldstein

    Hi Ron

    In no way am I belittling the accomplishment of LinkedIn. But they are late to the concept and upsides of community and could be much more valuable to their users…myself included.

    Not undermining their value, just articulating the incredible assets they have and how limited I feel they use them.

    They work for some…it appears for you. Great. I think they could work for many more if they put some strategic thinking and additional infrastructures in place.

  • http://twitter.com/ronetele Ron Wolf

    right, the impulse to give LinkedIn advice, to move them off the mark, to see them provide more value. you do a great job of suggesting coherently here some things that they should seemingly act on. on the other hand, its all too easy to see some of this and many do. the obviousness of their shortcomings has made LinkedIn is a bit of a Silicon Valley joke. that LinkedIn doesn't seem to see this is a bit maddening. but knowing a bit about their culture, there is an easy explanation. they simply aren't listening – at LinkedIn, they are very wrapped up in their own world.

  • http://arnoldwaldstein.com awaldstein

    Ron
    LinkedIn has built a successful and useful business.
    So I don't knock them nor agree that they deserve that.
    They could just do more for my needs.

  • http://steamcatapult.com/ Dave Pinsen

    Hi Arnold,

    Yeah, I've noticed the slowness of Disqus this week. Interesting exceptions.

    Have a great holiday weekend.

    ________________________________

  • http://arnoldwaldstein.com awaldstein

    And to you as well Dave

  • http://lmframework.com/blog/about David Semeria

    These are excellent observations Arnold.

    I particularly like the idea that LinkedIn doesn't provide a 'space' for people with common interests. It's almost like they are inviting you to go off site…

  • http://arnoldwaldstein.com awaldstein

    Hi David…always a good day when you drop by.

    You are so correct…there are filtering communities popping up everywhere..on wine, on socialTV, on tech and others which are inviting their members to republish their blogs on their URL building content and community simultaneously and driving traffic back to their members sites as well.

    Irony is that I find most of these through LinkedIn…then move off and join a community.

    Maybe there is LinkedIn logic behind this but it eludes me.

  • http://arnoldwaldstein.com awaldstein

    Hi David…always a good day when you drop by.

    You are so correct…there are filtering communities popping up everywhere..on wine, on socialTV, on tech and others which are inviting their members to republish their blogs on their URL building content and community simultaneously and driving traffic back to their members sites as well.

    Irony is that I find most of these through LinkedIn…then move off and join a community.

    Maybe there is LinkedIn logic behind this but it eludes me.

  • http://hirethoughts.blogspot.com Donna Brewington White

    I tend to use LinkedIn a lot and spend a lot of time there. But, I go there for work and not for play — to see and be seen, but not to really build relationship or community. I still find it immensely valuable, but that is because I am in a profession dependent upon databases. I do think there is marketing potential, but haven't quite figured this out. All in all, Arnold, excellent points. Incredibly insightful as always!

  • http://arnoldwaldstein.com awaldstein

    You hit it right that LinkedIn's DNA is its database. And it's useful for that reason.

    But imagine if you had leaders for those LinkedIn groups, some which are very targeted, and a Disqus-based comment system to encourage conversations. You might even develop a 'community'. And it is in LinkedIn's business model to have people hang out there and connect and comment.

    What happens is that we go there and literally funnel off group members to our own URLs.

    Thanks as always for your comments Donna!