Dear Linkedin: you’re trying too hard

I can’t be the only one getting fed up with all the meaningless noise on LinkedIn – all the updates and features desperately trying to get me to interact. To me, it seems that LinkedIn is trying to hard. For example:

In the past week, I helped two clients change some details on their profile: one who changed the name of their company and another who changed their job title from Head of HR & Benefits to Head of HR. In both cases I received an email telling me to congratulate them on their new job – but neither had moved! Now, of course, both have been inundated with congratulations and queries. One has 10 likes and 5 comments (in other words, 15 opportunities for LinkedIn to prod you with a notification).

Even these aren’t that bad. Someone I know left their job recently. LinkedIn put a little rosette next to their name and again urged me to say congrats! His new job title? “Immediately available senior business consultant” (Perhaps just as baffling are the likes they received).

Please, LinkedIn, stop bugging me. I don’t want to say Happy Birthday. I don’t want to congratulate people on their work anniversary. I don’t want to know who has endorsed me every day.

The alternative is that I shut off every notification setting and only check when I want to – is that what you really want? . Instead, contact me when it’s important or useful – then you’ll become my passive media business choice again.