Is LinkedIn A Waste Of Time? Answers from 4 Superstars

Everyone’s on LinkedIn looking for the same 3 basic things:

• A Leg Up in Work
• A Shortcut to Success
• Connections with the People Who’ll Help Things 1 & 2 Happen

The great irony is that, for the thousands of professionals who share these simple goals and desires, very few of us ever achieve any of these things. 

I’ve been on LinkedIn for four years. Getting a professional-looking LinkedIn profile was the second thing I did when I chose the path of a freelance copywriter. And my success in terms of the three universal LinkedIn goals has been minimal – at best. 

So, one of three things must be true:

1. LinkedIn is a colossal waste of time
2. The three universal LinkedIn goals are unreasonable and unachievable – and if this was true, LinkedIn wouldn’t exist at all, so...
3. We (the hapless pros on LinkedIn) are missing some obvious element to success

LinkedIn Works for Some People

The truth is, LinkedIn has worked gangbusters for quite a few people. So it can’t be a complete waste of time. Maybe different people have various reasons for not needing certain elements – for instance, the job listings where the competition is so fierce, or (for me) the paid version may never be worth it. 

But I’ve just spent the last 21 days of my life hearing from four different people who’ve become LinkedIn marketing superstars, and they all say the same things, basically.

Ilise Benun – The Marketing Mentor

The whole challenge to spend 21 days to see if you could make major changes and get growth from your LinkedIn profile by spending hardly any time on it was her idea. 

My top takeaway from her? The shortest cut to success is daily action. 

You can’t expect to spend five minutes on a platform a week, or a month (guilty), and see big results. 

But you can see amazing results if you spend 10-30 minutes a day doing something useful to connect with people who can actually give you a leg up, or provide you with a shortcut, or help you find more people who can help with those things...then you can get some traction. 

Ann Handley – She Who Put “Letter” into “Newsletter”

Ann’s brand is all about communication, about reaching out, taking the first step, providing the first bit of information. 

She’s a great marketer, a great writer, a true pioneer. 

And from her I learned about the business application of the Golden Rule. Market unto others as you would like to be marketed to – after all, “nobody likes to be pitch-slapped” right? 

Which doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t reach out to your network.

But what it does mean is that you should be ready to offer the first piece of value. That you should be the one to start a conversation and see it through to the end. 

Danielle Zeitlen Hughes – Personality Brander

Danielle was just inspirational – if you haven’t connected with her online yet you should, because she’ll fire you up and make you feel like your personality and beliefs are enough to carry you to greatness.

And she’s absolutely right. There’s no greater gift you can give your network than to show up, day after day, and “to thine own self be true.” 

There’s no one else like me, no one else like you, active on LinkedIn today. We have amazing gifts and insights to share. And remember, especially if you’re working in a job you love, we do this because we have a passion to help people – and we can do it.

Sometimes you don’t even have to share “content.” Sometimes just an opinion can be enough. Just show up, and be authentic to yourself, and you’ll build your brand.

Melanie (Barnes) Deardorff – Melanie the Marketer

From Melanie I learned that you don’t have to be a “superstar” in the conventional sense in order to be wildly successful. Melanie is a quiet, gentle, technically gifted person who responds to everyone with kindness and understanding.

She’s humble, and she listens more than she talks. 

She’s a success both as a person and as a copywriter – and she’s a lovely presence on LinkedIn. And, looking through the answers she gave on the interview, and the way she accepted my LinkedIn connection request, she’s true to that pure, simple, reciprocal brand. 

These 4 Marketing Superstars’ Share the Same Basic Formula for Networking Success

Four very different women. Four very different approaches, personalities, and top takeaways. 

But, as I listened to them, I realized that they had all hit upon the same formula for success in networking – a formula that will work on any platform, presentation, or event. 

You can learn all the tricks to LinkedIn:

• Editing Your Profile
• Character Limits
• How & When to Post
• How to Search for the Right Target Audience
• Better Connection Strategies
• Shortcuts

But when it comes right down to it, those are just technicalities. If you want to use LinkedIn effectively you’ll do well to learn these details and make use of them, but they can change at any time, and they’ll be different on Facebook, or in a newsletter, or in person. 

The base formula they – and many other superstars – use to market and network successfully, is:

Common Sense + Common Courtesy = Uncommon Success