LinkedIn - Upgrade - is it worth it?

[rsccford]

Recently I wanted to send a Retail Buyer an InMail via LinkedIn but then was greeted with the Upgrade option to do that. I see that Linked In is basically going to cost £300/£400 for a limited number of InMails which seems like a lot of money. Anybody out there paying for LinkedIn ? Interested to hear from those who have and whether they have found it worthwhile.
Thanks, Rod

 

[Uzair Kharawala]

I too would like to know as I've been thinking about upgrading LinkedIn. The email feature looks good.

 

[IANL]

I likewise wouldn't mind knowing, Have managed to get away without the upgrade yet.

 

[beasty]

There are 3 levels

FREE
60 ish quid a month (the one i am on)
300 ish (not sure) quid a month..

I find it is great value for me, works well.

Email feature is tremendous
(Of course it depends what you have to bring to the person you email) I have had 1 person reject an approach in around 3 or 4 months and when they reply you get their company email in your email inbox too.


I have only used linked in for a few months, but have a great network and I know that paying has helped me achieve this, i have people approaching me with business deals and to be honest I reject more than I add.

Great resource, I worked it hard for 30 days in a row, I now have every contact in my industry that I need.

Whenever you do deals people always say WHO ELSE HAVE YOU GOT, well LINKEDin is no different, people look at your profile and see who else you have got, it greatly helps me in what I do and I would imagine at some point soon I will upgrade it again.

Personally I do not want 500 contacts, I try and delete people who I have no business with (Some exceptions of course)

When doing deals with smaller companies, it is part of how I close the deal, I get their linked in, tell them I only retain conacts I have business with and send them a link, they then see an army of guys they want to know.

Works for me.

It may not work for you.

Social media I see like this


FACEBOOK retail customer
TWITTER weak business intro, some retail
LINKEDin By far the best business networking site
PAID LINKEDin Just accelerates the above

They do a free 30 day trial as an upgrade option, I used this and well now I pay and its worth every penny.

 

[10032012]

Don't be a fool, invest the £300 in real face-2-face networking.

It was just a big trend like all the other social media websites; everyone in business got a linkedin and now over the last couple of years hardly anyone uses it... membership numbers mean very little when members are not "active" (I could set up a website next week with more members, either randomly generated or pulled form facebook, google plus etc. but as all profiles are fake, whats the point?)

£300 is nothing if the people you need are on there and willing to talk with you, AND if it can bring you business, but this premium of monetisation is solely due to the vast majority of people are FREE members and unlike mainstream social media websites typically full of teens and unemployed people that have lots of spare time to constantly use the service and click on adverts...

From my experience and what others have told me is, its not as lucrative as the site once was, and there are better ways of networking both online and offline.

All these sites get known for one thing then they like to try and stick their hands in various different pies exploiting that developed brand even if they contradict or move outside their original remit. These large global websites with millions of members in each of the worlds greatest economies seems a very tempting prospect... but in my experience and opinion, its best to drill down locally (even if locally means UK only) and into smaller but stronger networking groups, both generic and industry-based groups.

These corporate giants turn businesses into "consumers" and trying to persuade you to "buy" people to "talk with". Its basic subscription based business model and everyone knows the scam that most dating sites do of fake users to get a subscription (i.e. messaged by someone attractive and cannot read their message or contact them without subscription), I doubt linkedin is similar, but you never know. For £3600 per year, I doubt many will be able to convert enough deals from the website to make much of that back. Networking isn't all about today and making sales, but when you have a huge pool of users its more likely to be unsuccessful than successful.

If you have that sort of money assigned for networking etc then being part of a closed networking group I would suggest likely to yield better results. Of course, everything depends on your own credibility and that of your business too etc

 

[Ashley_Price]

I have actually left Linkedin!

I made the decision because, despite the effort I was putting into it, I was getting very little return, or even replies from the people I was connected to.

I would regularly message people (individually, not a round robin) that I hadn't heard from in 2 or 3 months, but only a small percentage would reply. As 10032012 says above I think it's become a barren wasteland where the only people who use it on a regular basis are spammers (the number of times I removed connections because they would send a round robin email asking for me to recommend them!) or job seekers.

The other problem is that so many of the businesses who had pages on there had no idea how to run them and apart from putting up the basic information, wouldn't do any more - no regular updates etc., what was the point of following them?

So, I have left and it's made such a difference, because I'm not constantly thinking "I must do some Linkedin stuff", spend an hour or so on it, and then get no/little response.

Of course, going back to the OP's question, ask yourself if Linkedin has worked for you with a free account?

 

[beasty]

1 size does not fit all for me it is beyond doubt that it works

Today I have 4 new relevant connections, I spent 30mins on LINKEDin last night, they are company owners that I want to do deals with. There is nothing even close to providing this, if i do not do deals with them I will remove them as previously mentioned I only retain contacts I have actual business with or who are industry leaders and handy to have access to.

My network is very international, biased towards the USA then Asia, then Europe

There is nothing I know of that works like LINKEDin, remember I PAY and I am delighted with the results, reason being, those 4 contacts, I will most likely do deals with 2 to 4 of them worth several thousand, then delete those that I have no business with.

For me, it works, for reasons stated already, for LOCAL companies I am not sure if it would be such a great resource, I think Americans are keener on this too and they are the largest group for me.

For LOCAL networking, there are alternatives, for Global networking, I know of none but would be happy to hear!


A paid subscription will accelerate any results you are getting, if it is slowly working for you then it will work many times faster, the INMAILs are very useful and it is certainly easier to attract quality contacts with a paid subscription. Once you have a nice network the hard work is done, It took me only a couple of months to get the network I need now it is easy and it only happened when i paid then spent a time each day working it.. totally worth it as I know have emails, phone numbers, have spoken to most and done deals with most also.

 

[Ashley_Price]

Today I have 4 new relevant connections, I spent 30mins on LINKEDin last night, they are company owners that I want to do deals with. There is nothing even close to providing this, if i do not do deals with them I will remove them as previously mentioned I only retain contacts I have actual business with or who are industry leaders and handy to have access to.

My network is very international, biased towards the USA then Asia, then Europe

How much paid work have you got through your Linkedin connections so far? The ROI has to be worth it of course.

 

[beasty]

It pays plenty, the single question i have now is this

IS THERE A BETTER WAY?

If so, I would drop it today, but I need to see a better way, until then LINKEDin works best for my purposes

 

[10032012]

The attitude is different on a global scale granted. When I registered for alibaba every company (low triple figures) on there (Asia, mostly China) that I have requested a quote from were very engaging with linkedin and facebook requests and skype invites etc. but in the UK that just doesn't happen almost all of the time.

Obviously this attempt of networking was solely sales based on their part - not saying its pointless networking activities but its far off a professional working relationship.

For me (again the "UK thing") its not worth my time with the silly networking flowchart procedure when there are existing basic negotiation tools available to get a better deal for both parties. If I was looking specifically for a manufacturer for a product I developed the game is completely different... you would need to network and get a trusted business relationship. What I was after was a relatively small number of goods sent wholesale... which for these people is their industrial equivalent to a commercial business getting more likes and followers... vanity presentation only. Its like a basic way of them saying they have x amount of business people as customers.

Back on to the topic... It would be interesting to find out how many of the 4 converts into a financial transaction and the value of said transaction. Ashley hits the nail on the head, its more about scammers, jobseekers and over-confident-sales-people-that-have-yet-to-make-any-sales-to-pay-their-mortgage-repayment (ok I added the last one) which doesn't have much basis for networking in my eyes.

Talking networking in general I find there are too many parasites widely plugging and recommending someone that they don't even have a business relationship with other than the agreement to promote each other businesses to others at a networking event (note to them: it doesn't work when you are both at the SAME event doing it simultaneously, people can smell the rat) ...

 

[Ashley_Price]

It pays plenty, the single question i have now is this

IS THERE A BETTER WAY?

If so, I would drop it today, but I need to see a better way, until then LINKEDin works best for my purposes

If it pays then that's fine. So, the question is then would you want to drop some that "pays plenty"?

I never found it worked for me, in spite being linked with clients in places like Abu Dhabi and Western Australia. The thing I found was that I would meet people, or clients would become aware of Linkedin, and ask to be a connection and then... nothing, despite my trying to keep in contact with them.

 

[RogerBa]

I'm quite certain different industries have and do use LinkedIn in different ways, I have yet to see any specific return from my new business via it, however I'm just a free member with a company page there. I do have plans that will involve identifying potential customers via LinkedIn later this year when I have the right offering for them, for now I am just building my contacts in the appropriate area.

Not so long ago I was in the pharmaceutical industry, and if you wish to find a job in that sector then LinkedIn is the number one route. The agencies and company recruiters have moved in big time and having several vacancies come my way every week was the norm.

As with most things it's down to trying it and seeing the suitability for your individual purposes, for some it defiantly serves a purpose while for others it is of little or no use.

 

[10032012]

Ashley, I think its natural. otherwise your whole family would live on the same road as you. people have close friends and best friends, close family and normally people prefer one parent over the other. But then you have extended family, not-so-close friends and friends of a friend.

It would probably be a lot different if we didn't have to work and didn't have financial pressures etc.

People have to have favourites and prioritise contacts... international clients are more likely to focus on local contacts etc. as you are. Its the whole facebook social-networking thing... you work out who you want to "own" (i.e. have as a friend) then you completely ignore everyone apart from very close people you know in person, do your own thing, upload photos and waste your time playing the facebook games and occasionally comment on what people say as you are bored. Then after a while of reflection you, like others do, wonder why you got so many people on your friends list you haven't spoken with in 3-6 months, then delete some, then that person wonders why and who deleted them. Then with all the updates flashing in front of your eyes you continue on the cycle...

Networking is supposed to be something to be taken importantly if not completely seriously - you can have fun. Sites like linkedin share basic principles that facebook and the like also have. With facebook its a general website - the basic purpose is to relieve boredom so whatever they implement goes. With linkedin aimed to be a business tool - but your business is their business - its effectively just a picture (if you are lucky), a name, some meta details and relationship linking - are half the people actually a unique human behind it all? I wonder....

 

[Nathanael Jones]

I sometimes question if the free linkedin is worth the cost!!

I don't much like it from a UX point of view and simply do not find it engaging. I've hundreds of "connections" but have failed to generate a single job, or even a lead from Linkedin.

 

[Nord20]

Whether or not it works for you, LinkedIn behaves in many ways like a virus and up with that I will not put (technically, I'm still on there, but only because I can't be bothered to wade through the quagmire of misdirection to close my account).

Do a google search for 'linkedin is a virus'.

 

[beasty]

For balance

Google is a virus
Facebook is a virus
Amazon is a virus
ukbf is a virus

I rest my case

You will get similar results for all companies, the larger they are the more likely

 

[Ashley_Price]

For balance

Google is a virus
Facebook is a virus
Amazon is a virus
ukbf is a virus

I rest my case

You will get similar results for all companies, the larger they are the more likely

Slightly off topic, but I remember the moment, a few years ago, we stopped using a supposed computer expert. He was examining my PC when he saw "Spybot - Search and Destroy" software. Not knowing what it was (which started alarm bells ringing, as it's a famous anti spyware software, recommended in a lot of magazines), he did a search on Google and then announced, after only looking at the results that came up (not actually clicking on any of them) "We must get that off your system, it's a virus!" Oh dear...