I’m a member of a lot of groups… almost 50 (which is the limit).  Some of them are awesome, others are beyond useless.

One, in particular, ONLY has discussion spam.  So I went to the Group page to get out – no more spam from them and I free up one of my 50 slots.

The only problem is I couldn’t find out how to leave the Group from the Group page – I poked around quite a bit, and I hope I just couldn’t see it, nonetheless, I think the only way to leave a LinkedIn Group is to do this:

1. Click on Groups from the top main menu,
2. Find the Group you want to leave and click on the Actions link, for a drop-down
3. Select “Leave Group,” and then confirm you really want to leave when the popup pops… up.

That’s it.

I would suggest you stay in Groups unless you have a compelling reason to leave, which might be:

1. Because of spam, like my issue, or
2. Because you are at your limit and there is another Group that you really need to join.

Cool?

I read a post on TechCrunch titled MySpace Lost Faith For All Things Mobile; Former VP John Faith Gone.

(clever title Robin!)

Check out this line, in the first paragraph:

His resignation hasn’t been announced yet (nor has his LinkedIn profile been updated), but we’ve confirmed hallway rumors that…

Wow… journalists are checking out your LinkedIn Profile to see what you’ve moved on to.

I guarantee journalists are NOT the only ones who are checking to see what’s new.

When you leave a job, or change your title or company, how soon do you “announce” it on LinkedIn?

Should you do it quickly?  Or does it even matter?

Let’s get started, from the top of the LinkedIn Profile to the bottom:

1. GOOD: just the name – not an email, not how many connections you have, not telling me you are a LION, etc.  Clean, not distracting, not noisy.
2. OK: I like to think of the LinkedIn Professional Headline as an opportunity to share your very condensed elevator pitch… not just tell me your job titles.  Imagine we meet and you say “Hi, I’m Thom, web designer, information architect, entrepreneur.”  That doesn’t do much for me.  Think of this as an opportunity to give me a marketing message.
3. NICE: it’s a good picture – the key is that it’s a closeup headshot… that’s what LinkedIn (and I) want to see.
4. NOT BAD: updated in the last 4 days.  This is a great opportunity to tell your LinkedIn contacts what you are up to – I’ve been amazed at how many people actually see your status updates.  Think about keeping this updated at least once a week (or tying it in with your Twitter Tweets).
5. HMMMM: I got a lunch invitation, which lead to two speaking opps and some book sales, because I had CEO in my profile.  But aside from that I encourage people to put something more value-add as a title.  Don’t make something up just for SEO, but I wonder if you change the title to something your target audience is searching for if they won’t find you more often?
6. HMMMM: I don’t like the LLC… it does nothing for me.  I have no idea what your company does… where can I find out more?

1. HMMMM: 13 LinkedIn Recommendations is fine – nothing wrong with that.  However, since you have 500+ connections I would hope to see more Recommendations…. just my thoughts, like I said, 13 is OKAY, especially if they are well-rounded and well-crafted.
2. NOT BAD: 500+ is fine, but the thing that makes me question the quality of any of those is the ratio of Recommendations to Connections.  At least I look at that and say “okay, he knows some stuff on LinkedIn, enough to be connected to a lot of people.”
3. OUCH!!: Dude, get my DVD.  Or listen to any of my podcasts or webinars.  This is one of the easiest, fastest things to change.  Go to your Profile page and next to the links click the EDIT link, and then in the drop down click OTHER, and then freehand something more descriptive about your company “My iPhone Development Company,” your blog “My Professional/Photography Blog,” and … My Facebook?  How about “Connect with me on Facebook.”
4. NICE: Cool, and you are very active there.  I LOVE this new field so I can learn more about you, and interact with you better on Twitter.
5. PERFECT: You got your vanity URL… nice job.

1. WEAK: “I’ve pretty much been developing”… you can tighten that language up.
2. WEAK: “I’ve done everything from coding to design, to product management.” Clean that up but break it down more.  ”As a professional developer I’ve _________, which helps companies _______.”  ”As a software designer I specialize in ________ and am passionate about _______, which results in ________.”  ”As a product manager for various companies I’ve been able to _________ which resulted in ________.” (see notes below, after the 6th bullet point)
3. WEAK: “I really want to work with” I would find another way to word that… sounds begging.
4. WEAK: this sound like begging too, but you haven’t given me any reason (any meat) to really think you are going to be my CTO or VP.  Also, it would be nice to know what size company you think you are a match for – Fortune 100 or small company?  Funded or entrepreneur… etc.
5. WEAK: See your full profile?  I thought I was on your full profile… where else do you want me to go?  There is very little meat here for me to really know if I want to move forward with you as my CTO or VP.
6. WEAK: Oh yeah… “as a complete afterthought… ”  … this is like listing “and I know how to use Microsoft Office products…”  … it is a “maybe this is an important skill.” If you are good at it then include it somewhere in the Summary.

When you write your LinkedIn Summary I want you to think about using the entire allotted space, which is 2,000 characters.   Tell me stories (like I show in #2, above).  Think Problem-Action-Results.  Give me MEAT.  This summary is way too short to really tell me much about you.

1. GOOD: This is a feed from your blog.  I am not sure how many people actually pay attention to this, but realize it’s on your Profile so make sure that what you are writing about is on-brand with the rest of your LinkedIn Profile.
2. HMMMM: Not sure why this even shows up, I thought it only showed up if you added slides… apparently not. Anyway, I LOVE the idea of YOU adding a visual presentation to your Profile, and this is how to do it.  So make up a 15-20 slide presentation about you and your strengths and put something there… !

You are missing an opportunity to put MORE information about your current company, what you guys really do, who you serve, what your role is, etc.  Look at the difference between the first company (1) and the second company (2).  Why are you giving more info about (2) than (1)??

This list of Groups gives me a really good idea of what you like, who you hang with, etc.  It is on-brand and not distracting… not bad

There you go – how’s YOUR Profile?

Oh yeah, that LinkedIn DVD I was talking about is here.

Over on the JibberJobber blog you can learn how to get the LinkedIn for Job Seekers DVD for free (it’s just this week, and only one person will get it)… go see for yourself!

>> I accidentally INVITED some people to LINKEDIN that I did not want to invite. They accepted !!

I’m guessing you accidentally invited them because of importing from your email system.  What a rotten feature in LinkedIn, especially since they still have this notice when you invite an individual:

So on the one hand they say it is IMPORTANT, on the other hand they say “let us into your gmail addy book so we can invite every Tom, Dick and Harry to your network!”

>> Is there a way that I can UNinvite them – or remove them from my LINKED IN contact list

Yes, absolutely. At the top menu click on Contacts, then on the right you’ll see this link to Remove Connections:

>> without them knowing I removed them.

They don’t get a notice that you removed them… they would only know if they noticed it when they looked at the connections, or when they go to your Profile page and see you are not first degree contacts, etc.  Most likely people won’t notice… one issue with removing a connection, as far as I can remember, is that if you change your mind you cannot reconnect with them.  I’m not positive on that, but I seem to remember it that way.

>> Is there any way that I can block them from my profile?

I don’t think so. You can differentiate between your “public profile,” which people can see if they are not logged into LinkedIn, and and what people who are logged into LinkedIn… but you can’t blacklist people and not let them see your Profile.

>> It would not be polite if they knew I removed them.

I agree, but most people will never know they were removed.

>> I am trying to change jobs/ careers, so I do not want my clients to know.

Sensitive reason.

>> I am new to LINKED IN . but I asked an experienced user before sending this email.

You should check out my DVD.  Right now it is only $25, or you can purchase this one and prepurchase the second edition for $50.

In the comments, though, the controversy continues… on the one hand you have some cool “let’s connect all the dots in the world together” technology, on the other side people are saying “I didn’t give LinkedIn permission to get into my private stuff – where are they even getting this information from?”

Aside from what I put in that blog post I haven’t ever seen LinkedIn comment on the privacy issues… I have no idea how it works.  But here are some comments from that old post (click to see all the comments):

Miles Austin: The explanation does pass the sniff test for logical. Guess we will have to take them at their word, no reason not to.

Peter: I’m not sure that their response does pass the sniff test…. Now here is the interesting bit. The only electronic connection that does exist between us is that this person is a friend of my wife’s on Facebook.  I am not connected to my wife on LinkedIn and am no longer connected with her on Facebook

Greg: My theory is this: I’m undoubtedly on some contact lists uploaded by others. So, it’s easy as pie for LinkedIn to suggest I might know THOSE people. Then, there are 2nd degree connections, 3rd degree connections, etc.

Peter: in the case I described, none of this was applicable. The only electronic data that connected us existed on my wife’s computer in a supposedly separate application. … Since that last post I have also seen on my “People you may know” list the person who bought my last house – more than 3 years before I joined LinkedIn. We are now in different cities and completely unrelated industries. We have no contacts in common. He is in my Apple Address Book, but I did not give LinkedIn permission to scan that for potential contacts.

Interesting stuff… we’ll never know unless TechCrunch or some watchdog comes out with their answers or theories…

Last week I found this LinkedIn Marketing Guide slideshare… it’s pretty good.  It’s not comprehensive but I learned some stuff while going through it.  I also enjoyed the case studies at the end.

Enjoy!

Check out this cool post by Steve Duncan titled You need to look at more profiles.  Steve talks about how he got on someone’s radar just because he looked at her LinkedIn Profile…

Are you looking at enough Profiles of key people you want to network with? Or, do you check out the people who are looking at your LinkedIn Profile?

I am on a newsletter that Marc Freedman puts out where I learned about an Irish startup, Goshido, that got it’s first round of financing by using LinkedIn.

Only LinkedIn.

And they apparently closed the round in eight days (having been looking at financing for the last 4 years, I find that impossible to believe, but I don’t know what they did).

Read the Irish Times writeup here, or the Business Insider writeup here.

One sentence stands out:

“Clearly, LinkedIn can be used for more than just making contacts and recruiting — it’s a lucrative opportunity for business growth as well.”

That is absolutely right.

You can see his post titled: The Misrepresenation of the Power of Social Media – here is his (and my) contention:

5. If you’d like to increase your personal network be sure to link to [name withheld] directly,I have more than 12 million connections, and will gladly share them with you.

Oh. My. Gosh.

The MORE contacts you tell me you have the less value I think you bring me.  If you tell me you have a lot of contacts I immediately think:

1. Do you have a relationship with ANY of them, or are they just a number for you, helping  you to get to a billion?
2. Do any of them know who you are, or to them are you just a LinkedIn spammer or LION or some other vague connection.
3. Are you communicating with any of them?
4. Are any of them relevant to you, your business, or me and my business (since you are insinuating that having those connections will bring value to me).
5. Do you have any idea how to process any information from 12 million connections?
6. Have you ever done a search, or done anything to tap into the value of those 12 million contacts?
7. ________________________________

I mentally shake my head.  Worse than thinking “so what” I think “you have no idea what you are doing.”

Sure, I’m assuming here, and I could be totally wrong.  But I’m with Thom Singer on this one.

Have the connections, but don’t brag to me about it, or I immediately think you are a noobie.