networking Archives | ARI HERZOG

Connect to People You Know

Nov. 15, 2018 By Ari Herzog

That’s the philosophy of Christina Milanowski in a LinkedIn conversation about why people connect with each other on social media sites.

She elaborates why she connects with people: “My rule of thumb [on LinkedIn] is that I’ve met them in person or connected with them in the past and I could remember how if asked,” adding that her Facebook friendship strategy is if she’d recognize the person on the street and say hi.

Online friendship is simple: If you know a person, invite him, her, or it to connect to you online. From there, the relationship can continue.

Why LinkedIn Throttles My Searches

May. 17, 2018 By Ari Herzog

[Image from Esther Vargas]

LinkedIn’s mission is to “connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.”

I joined LinkedIn on February 23, 2007 after reading reports of the business networking site reaching 10 million users (which it achieved in April).

I was in my final semester of graduate school and hoped the site could connect me with classmates and professors. Moreover, I knew I’d be laid off in the coming months but I didn’t know when. That occurred in May. I then used the site to contact connections to tell them about my layoff and degree, and to inquire how and if they could help me get hired.

Fast forward and LinkedIn continues to help me search and research people who share geographic, demographic, and psychographic interests — and who may be interested in linking their networks with mine.

However, because I have a free account, my searches constantly get throttled every month or so due to the commercial use limit.

This is an algorithm that prevents me from conducting additional searches unless I wait until the month ends or I choose to pay for access.

Here’s the fine print:

The commercial use limit is based on your search activity since the start of the current calendar month. It takes into account (but is not limited to) non-name searches, mobile searches, searches outside your network, frequency of searching, viewing suggested profiles, and other factors.

Members reaching this commercial limit would benefit from a subscription specifically designed to help them find quality potential candidates and sales prospects.

Note that the company suggests I purchase a paid plan as if I worked in recruiting or sales. I’m neither. I’m searching for a job. When I discover potential opportunities, I use LinkedIn to search for hiring managers at those companies, search for people in and out of my network who work at those companies, and search for people to connect.

I’m using LinkedIn in support of their mission. I’m connecting to professionals to improve my and their productivity and to achieve success.

But… how productive is it for a job seeker to pay $60 a month for ONLY unlimited searching? I don’t care about the other paid plan features, which is why I have a free account.

While the company has a “career plan” for $30 a month, that is not privy to the unlimited search. The lowest paid plan that allows that search is the “business plan” that costs $48 a month if billed annually, or $60 a month if billed every month. What job seeker would prepay a year?

Paying for LinkedIn Premium has its supporters and opponents.

I recognize the rationale for a premium plan. But if LinkedIn’s mission is to connect to people (who one may or may not know), then shouldn’t the act of finding those connections be free? Or, emulate web hosting companies and charge a reasonable monthly fee for data transfer.

In the meantime, I’ll continue to use the site the way I’ve been using it for years; and I’ll continue to hit those sporadic monthly limits in my quest to be productive and successful.

Why You Should Clean Your Social Connections

Apr. 20, 2017 By Ari Herzog

The purpose of LinkedIn, according to the company, is “to connect the world’s professionals to allow them to be more productive and successful. Our services are designed to promote economic opportunity for our members by enabling you and millions of other professionals to meet, exchange ideas, learn, and find opportunities or employees, work, and make decisions in a network of trusted relationships.”

Trusted relationships.

If you don’t trust the person in your network, why are you connected?

If you don’t respect, like, or (gasp!) know the person, how can you trust?

Scrolling through my LinkedIn news feed (similar to Facebook, showing what my connections are liking, commenting, sharing, and updating), I recognized this week that I didn’t know a lot of names.

I’m partially to blame. For years I openly connected with people who shared geographic, demographic, or psychographic interests. It takes two to approve a relationship — but I initiated a lot of them. Maybe we networked at an event. Maybe we exchanged business cards. Maybe we commented on the same blogs. Maybe we shared blogging advice. Maybe we were friends of friends.

Hi, we live in the same zip code, let’s connect!
Hi, we work in the same industry, let’s connect!
Hi, we both reacted the same way, let’s connect!

Here’s the rub. If I don’t know you or don’t remember why we connected in the first place, how can I accurately talk to someone on your behalf when I don’t really know you? How can I refer the other person to you when I don’t keep in touch with that person? To be blunt: Who are you? (Or: Who is the person you’re asking me about?)

Time for spring cleaning those connections.

“The objective of cleaning is not just to clean, but to feel happiness living within that environment.” – Marie Kondo

I suggest the following actions on the top three social networks.

On LinkedIn: Remove connections with anyone you don’t recognize.

If I ask for a referral to one of your connections and either you don’t know me well enough or don’t know that person well enough, remove one or both of us.

Tip: Start with the newsfeed. If you don’t recognize someone’s name, click to their profile and peruse their job and recent experience. If you think their experience can be helpful to you, don’t remove but write hello. If you think their experience is irrelevant to you, smile and let go.

If you let go, go back to their profile and click the link to view mutual connections. Chances are, you might want to let some of them go too.

P.S. Edit your privacy setting to not display your name before visiting someone’s profile that you might remove. Otherwise you might get a message from someone who suddenly realizes you’re not connected.

On Facebook: Unfollow your noisy friends. You know who they are.

Unfriend anyone who either doesn’t interact on your wall posts or you on their posts. Interaction is liking, commenting, or sharing.

Tip: Dive into your friend list. The newsfeed is algorithm-oriented so you won’t see everyone. If you unfriend someone, click the link to see mutual friends. Chances are, if you unfriend one, you’ll unfriend the others. Smile and let go.

On Twitter: Unfollow everyone. Then follow a select few.

It’s the only way to do it properly. Some people like browser extensions. I like Tweepi.

My current few includes Kirstie Alley, Mira Sorvino, Curtis Armstrong, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and other celebrities. I never followed them before — because they were drowned out by social marketers who tweet constantly. In recent days, though, each has interacted me either through liking my tweets or replying to me.

Create lists. One list could be for people in your geography. Another list could be for people who work in an industry. For instance, here’s a list of mine featuring people who work on Capitol Hill.

That’s a public list but you can also create private lists that only you can see. I have a bunch of them.

Tip: If you don’t want to unfollow everyone, then unfollow selectively. It’s okay to let go. You can always refollow.

If a relationship doesn’t exist, there’s nothing to let go. Accept the past for the past and just say no.

I’d enjoy reading your thoughts. Share this post and add a comment below.

You and Your Online Friends

Jan. 28, 2016 By Ari Herzog

If you think about your friends — not the Facebook ones but the real offline friends who you talk to and see on a regular basis — they’re all the same. They mirror you socially, geographically, demographically, vocationally, politically, and intellectually. And the best of them are your clones.

If you think about former classmates, ex-coworkers, old flames, people living on your street, and other people you’ve met but never moved beyond acquaintances, when was the last time you asked them for advice or shared something new about your life? Because these weak and absent ties don’t mirror you and your strong ties aka besties, wouldn’t you welcome their insights?

I recently wrote about weak ties and the importance of connecting with people who either you don’t know well or don’t know at all. This applies to traditional networking and social media. It’s more important online, though.

The fallacy is of the three big networking sites, Facebook and LinkedIn frown on connecting with weak ties; whereas Twitter is OK with it.

Facebook says …you should only send friend requests to people you have a real-life connection to, like your friends, family, coworkers or classmates.
LinkedIn says …the basic type of connection is a contact you know personally and who you trust on a professional level.
Twitter says …”people you may know” are based on an algorithm that makes personalized suggestions for you.

If you adhere to Twitter’s philosophy then you should befriend people on Facebook and connect to people on LinkedIn regardless how well you know them. This is important because if you limit your online relations to strong ties, you’re saying fuck you to everyone else. Don’t be that person.

Unfriend, Defriend, Kill Your Friend

Jan. 12, 2016 By Ari Herzog

Studies from the Pew Research Center and the New York Times indicate the typical American has 245 Facebook friends and knows 600 people both on and off the social network. In other words, if you’re a typical American, 355 of your peeps don’t use Facebook.

I have a lot of friends who prefer the offline life. I don’t mean they have accounts and don’t use them (though I know people in this category) but they don’t have accounts at all. They never did and they don’t want to join.

I once met a woman who works in marketing but cannot be found on Google. Sarah isn’t on Facebook, doesn’t tweet, shares nothing but her name and title on LinkedIn, and search engine results for her name (minus that LinkedIn link) are for someone who shares her name. She’s OK that nobody can find her. If you know Sarah, there are offline methods to contact her. If you’re googling for her name, you clearly don’t know her at all. And that’s how she wants it.

When did it become normal to befriend people you don’t know?

I’m not specifying Facebook. How many phone numbers do you have of those you follow on Twitter? How many email addresses do you keep of your LinkedIn connections? If you’ve never called or emailed a person, how do you qualify being connected to the person? What does it mean to be connected? Facebook fucked up the definition of a friend — and if you remove Facebook from your life, your friends are probably not the people you see in that newsfeed.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not implying the telephone or the electronic mail address is the holy grail — but if you remove yourself from social networking sites, if you accept that the best Facebook friends are strong ties and the best connections everywhere else online are weak and absent ties; in other words, if you’re not findable in a place, then wouldn’t it be the phone and the email and the stamp and the physical door knock that connect you to the people you care about, the people you trust, and the people who want to be around you?

Look at me.

If you follow my digital personas but never interact through comments, tweets, posts, pokes, whatever, I’m hardly your friend. I’m just some guy you’re following and you are free to decouple the relationship at any time. Many of you gained insights from my blogging and followed me on Twitter and Facebook, and invited me to join you on LinkedIn. I usually said yes — especially on LinkedIn.

But, as Phil Gerbyshak suggests, if you’ve never interacted with me since that first contact on LinkedIn (or any other social networking site), you owe it to yourself to send a message saying hello. If you don’t or can’t then remove the connection. Kill your online relationship. Set yourself free. Because neither LinkedIn nor Facebook tell me if you unfriend me, I’ll never know about it unless I happen to randomly visit your profile and see we’re now two or three degrees apart.

I don’t suggest killing me off if we frequently comment, like, or share each other’s updates. But if there’s been zero interaction since whenever we became online friends, take control now and unfriend us.

Once you understand unfriending and accept that others are doing it, you owe it to yourself to join them.

P.S. Here’s a primer to my social networking dashboard. If you want to connect with me somewhere but not everywhere, use this as a guide.

Why Sharing on Social Media is the Water Cooler

Sep. 9, 2015 By Ari Herzog

Sharing on social media is the new water cooler.

This quote is the kind of quote that we need to say over and over to ourselves. It’s not a new idea to me and it shouldn’t be one to you. The honesty about our changing world is why I share ideas on my blog and why you share this post in your own way.

I’m fond of saying that cave paintings, created some 30,000 years ago, led to today’s versions of Flickr and YouTube. Sharing isn’t new but we use different systems today that we didn’t have yesterday.

Blogging and podcasting, for instance, are iterations of what a caveman might have said about the buffalo hunt, gathering eager children around him who oohed and aahed at every gesture and exclamation! Is an ooh about a hunt any different than a click to tweet?

[bctt tweet=”Is an ooh about a buffalo hunt any different than a click to tweet?”]

While it’s important (if not part of your DNA) to share, it’s equally important to do it for a reason and not because you have nothing better to do. I wrote about this idea yesterday, about taking breaks and focusing your attention on what matters.

Phil Gerbyshak is someone who matters. Browsing my blog archive, I see references over the past eight years about Phil using Facebook to Phil using LinkedIn and using LinkedIn again to Phil using Wibiya. He’s a social media consultant, travels the country talking about how to sell your brand online, and, until earlier this week, we’d never met.

He’d contacted me a few days before arriving in Boston and we met for dinner to talk business and the casual side of life. We enjoyed our food and moreover we enjoyed the conversation that bypassed the “Hi my name is” and “What do you do?” chatter and focused on the stuff that mattered.

Because social media acts as a water cooler, it’s not always important for two people to meet in person to know each other. Meeting helps solidify a relationship but it’s unnecessary for the relationship to form. I look back over the years and can count off scores of people who I’d known (fairly well) online, typically through reciprocal blog commenting or social networking, and when we met in person it was like we’d known each other for years. Andy Krzmarzick, Jesse Stay, Erica Napoletano, Scott Monty, Gwynne Kostin, David Saranga, Geoff Livingston, Thom Singer, the list goes on.

Social media does not replace the water cooler or the diner. It’s merely a newer version, a different version, and, to some, a better version.

P.S. If you’d like to read the larger context of the above quote by Elizabeth Breese, here is a 2014 interview with Advertising Age in which she talks about opinion analysis and pattern finding.