LinkedIn spam — Fail Spectacularly! (SM)

You have something to sell, and you want to get the word out via your LinkedIn contacts. How long should your pitch be?

Me? I say, “the shorter the better.” If you’re on my mailing list, you got an email from me this morning suggesting you read this and check out that and the whole email takes less than 30 seconds to read, which I know this because I wrote it with the help of a stopwatch.

Others? Not so much on the “brevity.”

Like the guy who sent me a 675 word sales pitch via LinkedIn and buried his ask in the last damn paragraph.

I took the liberty of reprinting his note here in its entirety. Annotated, so you could understand what goes through someone’s mind as he actually reads this tripe.

Here we go:

Dear Fellow 1st level LinkedIn Connection,,
Awkward capitalizations… stuttering comma… impersonal greeting. There’s money for me in a Kenyan bank account, isn’t there. I’m sliding my finger across my iPhone to activate the delete option. But wait. Maybe your account got hacked; you’d want to know that. I re-open the message and skim four paragraphs to see what’s up. Now I’m pissed at myself for not trusting my gut and deleting you outright.

Firstly, I hope this finds you well! And secondly, I hope this doesn’t surprise you.
Bullshit, and bullshit.

This is the first “all points” message I have sent to my connections on LinkedIn, and I am doing it for a very specific reason.
Yes, but is it a good reason?

My question to you is: do you check your Social Media profile, and if so how regularly?
Oh, guess not.

From my own experience as a recruiter and CV writer, I am assuming most still don’t know that they are creating a Social Media footprint, let alone how to manage it. In example, from my own workload in the last 12months:
Exactly how lazy are you? You seem to have spent about as much time researching me as you spent proofreading your letter.

• The graduate who claimed that her hobbies and CV Interests included fitness and gym membership, when her Bebo profile happily admitted she hated the gym and was in fact the local pub food eating champion
Did you know that, when skimming this bullet point—and this very well could just be a function of reading this after an afternoon on the beach—”her hobbies” reads as something less appropriate? You just made me smile for the very first time. Not quite redemption, but hey.
• The job applicant to one of our own IT jobs who offset his experience by a year, when the company had closed own and the building demolished; or the job applicant for a heavy-trucking job who’s online handle was spliffboy, when the licensing authority insist on compulsory drug testing
Did I tell you about my dog? Her name is Lennie. She makes about as much sense as you do.
• The marketing executive who had left her social media profile footprint so open, after we had found her personal profile on a dating website, we had enough information to replicate her identity and possibly leverage the fact she sat on the local Police board
You lost me with the police board thing. I’d have gone for the cheap joke about her so-open footprint + dating site + implied identity theft and the guy you set her up with when you put all that stuff together.

In 2008, the Trades Union Congress in the paper Briefing on Social Networking and Human Resources, described Facebook as “3.5 million HR accidents waiting to happen.” I am tending to agree, and with more candidates leaving their Social Media profiles open and more recruiters/employers using online background checks – 75%+ according to one report in the Wall Street Journal – it is something that all employees, job applicants and executives have to come to terms with.
I am enthralling with your -8% use of the English language +3°, which is suckmongously distracting. And isn’t Facebook like 300 million HR accidents waiting to happen, or have 296.5 of those already occurred?

It is with this in mind that I have created form my own experience as a recruiter and CV Writer a new product, Social Media Checklist. Within its easy to follow step-by-step guide way to
Something about this reminds me of my 14 year-old self, who once got hit on by the hot girl in English class but was too naive to understand what was happening, and who thus missed out on what could have been the summer of his life. Or maybe I’m just daydreaming because my most mortifying adolescent memories are still more pleasant than your overgrown weed of an advertisement.

1. Become aware of how recruiters and employers are now using social media
Whoa, when did this turn into a list?

2. Avoid the mistakes of open social media profiles, and manage your online footprint
My mind has gone blank.

3. Exploit the maximum opportunity to be found by a potential employer via social media
ooooohhhhmmmmm…..

This checklist should ideally be used as a point of reference before applying for jobs, and follows the ROSIE rules:
For any post-pubescent male, ROSIE, when used as shorthand and not as a proper noun, is associated with one thing and one thing only, and that thing leads to blindness.

Research -> Objectives -> Strategy -> Implementation -> Evaluation
Oh. Hey, just so you know: I’d like to jam a pencil through my goddam ear right now.

There are then some specific briefs on the key social network profiles you should create before undertaking a job search.
Oh, crap. Here we go.

I am so concerned at the number of open Social Media profiles and the mistakes within, I agreed after review with some friends to price Social Media Checklist at what is a very reasonable price of one hour of the average British workers annual wage. The highlights of the book will show you step by step:
What did all those open social media profile ever do to you that you should be so concerned about them? Did they beat you up or something?

• What your current online footprint says about you
Right now, my online footprint is telling the world that I’m an ass hole for doing this to you, but also that maybe it’s OK to take would-be marketers to task for doing a poor job and unintentionally creating spam. This makes some people conflicted about me at the moment.

• How your online footprint/image can be managed positively
Oh, yes, please: I want Mr. Two Typos in His First Six Words to manage my stuff.

• How to create consistency of results, which is more important than message
Careful, your modifier is dangling… or something.

• Employers do not expect nun-like perfection, with evidence of social engagement positive…… But over indulgence will always be seen as negative
I’m a non-Catholic male. No offense to nuns, but I’m not feeling the example here. And why is this point even in this list? All the others so far have been “how to’s.”

• How to be found by employers and recruiters who use new methods of searching to both source and vet new employees
Somewhere, someone has just had an asthma attack.

• What to think about first when creating an online profile
Not to beat a dead horse, but… you mean other than making sure there aren’t two typos in my first six words, right?

• You have the right to a private life: how to create one, which is wholly legal and approved
I live in America. People don’t get their private lives “approved” here.

• Guidance on what material you need to create a positive online profile, and how to create it
You do know you sent this email to people who already successfully set up LinkedIn profiles, right?

• Which sites to prioritize, in a steps 1 thru 15 system detailed on the checklist. This will take you less than an hour to complete
I’m tired just thinking of your 15 steps.

• A set of 10 further steps which will take an additional hour and cost £20/$30 to further supplement your online profile
Another 14 steps and you’ve got yourself a Hitchcock film.

• How keeping on top of your online image is essential, and easy to maintain – automatically
Does anyone have a wall I can borrow? For my head?

If you would like a copy of Social Media checklist, its on sale now on our website – Thank You!
No. No sale for you. I am exhausted and aggravated… so no.

With Best Regards,
670 self-absorbed words later, and you want me to believe that you have any regard for me? Get out of my face.

NAME REMOVED
Miraculously, I did just find the energy to click a link. And guess what? We are no longer connected on LinkedIn.

The lesson here? I’ll leave you to figure it out for yourself. It shouldn’t be hard.