Episode 179
Don't Fall For These "Smart" LinkedIn Tactics
Discover the prevalent LinkedIn scams and warning signs that can harm your brand and business. Coach Michelle J Raymond and guest Scott Aaron, discuss the dangers of these tactics, the signs to spot them, and the repercussions they can have on your LinkedIn presence.
Key moments in this episode -
00:00 Intro Guest - Scott Aaron
01:47 The Problem with LinkedIn Engagement Pods
05:06 Spotting Fake Engagement on LinkedIn
12:28 The Temptation and Pitfalls of Buying LinkedIn Followers
20:14 The Dangers of Rented Accounts and Data Scraping
25:39 Risks of Automation Tools on LinkedIn
31:22 Final Thoughts
The Power of LinkedIn Company Pages - Networking and Marketing Made Simple
CONNECT WITH MICHELLE J RAYMOND
- Michelle J Raymond on LinkedIn
- Book a free intro call
- https://socialmediaforb2bgrowthpodcast.com/
- B2B Growth Co newsletter
Today's episode is sponsored by Metricool. Make sure to register for a FREE Metricool account today. Use Code MICHELLE30 to try any Premium Plan FREE for 30 days.
https://metricool.com/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=influencer&utm_campaign=20250610_michelle-raymond_june-premium-poll_en&utm_content=audio&utm_term=q2
#LinkedIn #LinkedInScams #B2BMarketing
Transcript
G'Day everyone.
Speaker:It is Coach Michelle J Raymond, your trusted guide for building
Speaker:your brand and your business on LinkedIn and listeners this week,
Speaker:I have brought a guest on the show.
Speaker:The reason that I brought a guest on this show is 'cause just a few weeks ago I
Speaker:was a guest on his podcast and we just kept talking forever and ever and ever.
Speaker:Scott Aaron, we got onto the topic of all the red flags that we've seen from our
Speaker:experience on LinkedIn, so I appreciate you coming on sharing your experience.
Speaker:Welcome to the show.
Speaker:Grateful to be here.
Speaker:I'll say this.
Speaker:It was my longest podcast episode.
Speaker:Mine are typically bite-sized, either 15 minute solo episode
Speaker:or 35 minute interview episode.
Speaker:Ours was close to an hour.
Speaker:We kept going, because the sad thing is there's more red
Speaker:flags than ever on LinkedIn.
Speaker:You and I have been on the platform for probably the same amount of time.
Speaker:And there, there was a a, a day and an age where there weren't too many red flags.
Speaker:But it just seems like the more that technology continues to advance in
Speaker:social media, there's more and more spam that we need to be aware of.
Speaker:Yeah, there absolutely is.
Speaker:And I wanna talk about.
Speaker:These LinkedIn scams that are going on because they are getting smarter.
Speaker:And if you don't have the wisdom that comes with experience and amazing
Speaker:networks that you and I have, it can really impact your personal brand.
Speaker:I'm gonna start with the most obvious one.
Speaker:And I call them cheaters.
Speaker:It just infuriates me.
Speaker:But let's talk about engagement pods.
Speaker:Do we have enough time for this?
Speaker:You know, I didn't even prepare a list of questions on this one 'cause I
Speaker:thought there's no way we're gonna get to everything, even though I want to.
Speaker:I want you to explain what an engagement pod is to people and how can we spot them.
Speaker:So an engagement pod.
Speaker:There are two types.
Speaker:Some are free, some are paid.
Speaker:And it's crazy to me that people pay 2, 3, 4, I've heard up to
Speaker:$500 a month to be a part of that.
Speaker:And basically they were formed and I will preface this by saying LinkedIn does
Speaker:not support LinkedIn engagement pods.
Speaker:They do not support it.
Speaker:They've written articles on it.
Speaker:They are trying to crack down on them.
Speaker:It's when a conglomerate of people come together.
Speaker:20, 30, 40 upwards of a hundred people and they agree to all post on the same time,
Speaker:on certain days and like, and comment on each other's stuff regardless of any
Speaker:relation to each other's industry, any.
Speaker:Any form of relatability to the person's content, to quote unquote
Speaker:"beat the LinkedIn algorithm".
Speaker:Now, I will say this, there's 14 LinkedIn algorithms.
Speaker:There's a gentleman by the name of Chris Penn who, if you guys are not
Speaker:following him on LinkedIn, do it.
Speaker:He studies algorithms and he just released, uh, his mid year report on
Speaker:the unofficial LinkedIn algorithm, and there's 14 of them now.
Speaker:And he said basically there's no beating the LinkedIn algorithm 'cause there's 14.
Speaker:So this notion of getting people to like, and comment, like, and
Speaker:comment, it's, it, it's, it's cheating the system, number one.
Speaker:Number two, it's what I call forced inorganic engagement.
Speaker:It's not genuine, it's not authentic.
Speaker:It's basically becoming a job.
Speaker:And Michelle.
Speaker:I ended up talking to a colleague the other day and I said, how much time
Speaker:are you spending on LinkedIn every day?
Speaker:And they said, around five hours.
Speaker:I, that was my reaction.
Speaker:Well, for those that are listening on the audio podcast, my eyes just popped out of
Speaker:my head, if you can't see it, five hours.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:I said, what?
Speaker:God's Green Earth are you doing for five hours on LinkedIn?
Speaker:And they said, well, about three and a half of those are engaging
Speaker:in other people's content.
Speaker:And I said, whoa, pump the brakes on that one.
Speaker:I said, are you by any chance an engagement pod?
Speaker:And they said, yes.
Speaker:And I said, well, number one, I don't know who gave you that advice, but
Speaker:get out as quick as you can because.
Speaker:The number one priority that every single person should have on LinkedIn
Speaker:is their business reputation.
Speaker:And if people find out that you're participating in one of these
Speaker:things, your reputation is gone.
Speaker:There's no getting it back.
Speaker:Once it's done, it's done.
Speaker:So it brings up this secondary conversation, well, how?
Speaker:How can I tell that someone is in an engagement pod, which
Speaker:is a great follow up question.
Speaker:So I always use benchmarks or KPIs, key performance indicators to
Speaker:measure whether someone is or is not.
Speaker:So i'll, I'll cut to the chase.
Speaker:Gary Vaynerchuk, which many of you are probably familiar with.
Speaker:I use him as my benchmark.
Speaker:And just to let you guys know, he has under 6 million followers on LinkedIn.
Speaker:If you look at his engagement, it is completely compatible with what
Speaker:LinkedIn says, you should get.
Speaker:LinkedIn says, anywhere between one to 3% of your network will engage,
Speaker:sometimes even less than that.
Speaker:And if you look at his content, 6 million followers, some of
Speaker:his posts have 2000 likes.
Speaker:Some of his posts have 200 likes.
Speaker:Some of them have under a hundred likes, which tells me
Speaker:he's got an organic audience.
Speaker:Now if you look at some other accounts where someone maybe has 4,000 followers,
Speaker:5,000 followers, and every single post they put out is straight fire.
Speaker:No matter what.
Speaker:It's straight fire like it's 500 likes, 40 comments and I'm just gonna
Speaker:be honest with you, you should have a quote unquote dud post once a week.
Speaker:You should have a post that just doesn't hit.
Speaker:That's normal with social media.
Speaker:But if you look at someone's post and every single thing, I think
Speaker:Michelle, I shared this with you.
Speaker:I was looking at someone's post and I totally knew they were an engagement
Speaker:pod because it was a poll question.
Speaker:Now for any of you listening or watching that have ever done a
Speaker:poll question, the main object of a poll is to get people to vote.
Speaker:It's for market research.
Speaker:So this poll.
Speaker:Had about 40 or 50 votes and 70 comments, and I'm like, well
Speaker:warning, add up.
Speaker:Warning.
Speaker:Warning
Speaker:There should be more votes than comments.
Speaker:Not the reverse.
Speaker:So the other way that you can spot an engagement pod.
Speaker:If you really kind of dig a little bit deeper and just pull back some
Speaker:of the layers of the onion further, if you see the same people commenting
Speaker:over and over and over it, you see the same seven, eight names.
Speaker:Seven, eight names, seven, eight names.
Speaker:They're an engagement pod, and I will tell you right now, outside looking in, yes, it
Speaker:sounds great to have all that engagement.
Speaker:I guarantee you, because I've talked to multiple sources, Michelle,
Speaker:it's all vanity, meaning it never turned into any monetary result.
Speaker:No one was booking calls, no one was getting taken to the dms.
Speaker:No one was getting hired.
Speaker:So now you've created a job for yourself where your responsibility
Speaker:on LinkedIn is to scratch the back of 380,000 other people just
Speaker:because they've scratched yours.
Speaker:And that is my definition of LinkedIn insanity.
Speaker:It is the world's biggest Ponzi scheme.
Speaker:Really, the people that this benefits are the people at the top, the
Speaker:people that are getting your money.
Speaker:Now, I'm gonna go back a little minute and just share my view on this.
Speaker:I understand when you are starting on the platform and you haven't built
Speaker:your network or your community and you haven't found your people around you
Speaker:that are interested in your comments and are interested in your content.
Speaker:When you are starting out and you look around and everybody else feels
Speaker:like that they're getting huge numbers because you know, we immediately
Speaker:go and start comparing ourselves to everybody else, what the attraction
Speaker:is, to things like engagement pods.
Speaker:And just so you know, listeners, they don't call them engagement pods.
Speaker:Quite often they'll have fun and fancy names like communities.
Speaker:Of course, I love community.
Speaker:I would want to be a part of a community.
Speaker:I've heard ones called Beehives, you know, I love that idea.
Speaker:It's a great marketing name.
Speaker:The idea of coming together to help and support each other.
Speaker:I've got both hands in the air.
Speaker:That to me is the dream.
Speaker:That is one of my favorite things about LinkedIn.
Speaker:That is when we're actually really aligned, not that we are paying each
Speaker:other for pretend alignment, that essentially what happens is you are
Speaker:supporting by liking and commenting other people's posts in that pod, and
Speaker:ultimately you are just showing up to the wrong audience and you are going to
Speaker:go really fast in the wrong direction.
Speaker:And then one day you're gonna get down the track three weeks roughly
Speaker:to three months, depending how long it takes you to figure out, hang
Speaker:on a minute, what's going on here?
Speaker:You then have to turn around, come all the way back and start again and hope
Speaker:as you said, that you haven't burned the trust of those people that valued
Speaker:you in the first place, who have now worked out that you are cheating.
Speaker:It's no different to, if I turn up to the Tour de France and I'm on my high
Speaker:speed motorbike, and I go flying up the hill while everyone else is pedalling.
Speaker:Do I really win?
Speaker:Absolutely not.
Speaker:So, you know, engagement pods, I love the idea, and this isn't where you have
Speaker:a small group of friends and you're all supporting each other 'cause maybe you're
Speaker:small business owners, I'm not anti that.
Speaker:We need some help in the beginning.
Speaker:You need that support.
Speaker:I'm really a strong advocate for this and raising these red flags and follow
Speaker:a friend of mine, Daniel Hall, he is posting about this all the time.
Speaker:He shows you examples of how these things work.
Speaker:It's amazing, but I don't want people to give up.
Speaker:And you and I are absolutely in alignment for this, and I don't want the whole
Speaker:podcast to become about engagement pods.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:Because there's way more other red flags that I wanna talk about.
Speaker:So engagement pods beware.
Speaker:They're against the user agreement.
Speaker:We're just gonna all agree that if you listen to this podcast, you are not
Speaker:going to be part of an engagement pod.
Speaker:If you are, you should unfollow this podcast right now because I'm not
Speaker:the right LinkedIn teacher for you.
Speaker:I wanna talk about something else that you've probably seen on the platform,
Speaker:and that is, can we talk about how cheap it is to buy followers in general to
Speaker:buy newsletter subscribers on LinkedIn?
Speaker:Can you talk people through that?
Speaker:Because I don't think people understand that you can literally buy.
Speaker:What, 10,000 followers?
Speaker:I think the last time I looked was about 350 US dollars.
Speaker:Like it's nothing that temptation is real.
Speaker:I'll share a couple things with you.
Speaker:So number one, people may look at my, my LinkedIn profile and they'll see
Speaker:that I have close to 35,000 followers.
Speaker:But what they don't recognize is i've been doing the same thing every day
Speaker:since 2013, so you're looking at 12 and a half years of success in a glimpse.
Speaker:So it's been steady growth up until this point.
Speaker:So there's a tipping point.
Speaker:That's the first thing I want to say.
Speaker:So don't compare my chapter 12 to your chapter two.
Speaker:We're all on the same path.
Speaker:Some of us are just a few steps ahead.
Speaker:In regards to the, the buying of followers.
Speaker:So this, this trend and this service, and I'm gonna call it a service 'cause that's
Speaker:what it is, came about through Instagram.
Speaker:So Instagram fame and Instagram popularity, everything was measured
Speaker:on how many followers do you have?
Speaker:How many followers do you have?
Speaker:So as it came to be, you could buy followers.
Speaker:Now I will be very open and transparent.
Speaker:I had a business coach back in 2018 that told me if I really wanted to
Speaker:be credible on Instagram, I needed over 10,000 followers, and I had
Speaker:maybe three or 4,000 at the time.
Speaker:And he said, here's a link buy this service and they're
Speaker:gonna dump about seven or 8,000 followers right into your account.
Speaker:I'm like, okay.
Speaker:So I did it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:One of the biggest mistakes I ever made.
Speaker:Not only did my engagement tank, but
Speaker:the running backwards, as you mentioned, I had to hire another
Speaker:company to undo everything that it had been done because all of these
Speaker:followers, they were all fake accounts.
Speaker:They're literally bots.
Speaker:Now, as other companies have came about, you can do the same thing on YouTube.
Speaker:You can do the same thing on Facebook.
Speaker:You can do the same thing on TikTok, and unfortunately you can
Speaker:do the same thing on LinkedIn.
Speaker:So this is where the problem of all this comes into play, just as Michelle
Speaker:said, it sounds like a great idea to be an engagement pod because you can have
Speaker:all this, the vanity metrics galore.
Speaker:It sounds great to spend $350 and automatically have 10,000
Speaker:followers or all these subscribers on my, on your newsletter.
Speaker:It sounds great, but using the same analogy, Michelle, that you just said.
Speaker:The amount of backtracking that you're gonna have to do, because
Speaker:here's the thing about LinkedIn.
Speaker:What people don't understand is that you have to so carefully curate
Speaker:the right audience because it's not a numbers game on LinkedIn.
Speaker:I love what you said in Chris Do's podcast.
Speaker:It's a slow burn.
Speaker:That's exactly what it is.
Speaker:You need to be so methodical with everything that you do.
Speaker:So any connection request that I send, there is a reason for that.
Speaker:I I sense some sort of business relatability between
Speaker:myself and that other person.
Speaker:Anyone that subscribes to my newsletter.
Speaker:My, my newsletter is called LinkedIn Tips and Updates.
Speaker:Someone is gonna subscribe to that, that once LinkedIn tips and updates.
Speaker:Your follower count will grow the more aligned you are with the content that you
Speaker:create and the presence that you have.
Speaker:Just because someone has a lot of followers doesn't mean they did it A
Speaker:the right way, or B, they have the right followers, because here's a clear sign of
Speaker:someone that may have bought followers.
Speaker:You see, they have a ton of connections, a ton of followers, and then you
Speaker:go and look at their engagement.
Speaker:Well, A, they don't have any because they haven't created content.
Speaker:And B, their engagement is absolute crickets, meaning.
Speaker:No one, not even one person is liking or engaging in their stuff, which means
Speaker:they have bought followers just to give the vanity metric that they're a
Speaker:quote unquote, some micro influencer in some industry that they're in.
Speaker:But the real influence comes from providing that value added content
Speaker:to the network of connections that you've built over time, not with
Speaker:the press of a button to hit pay.
Speaker:That's the real measure of success on LinkedIn.
Speaker:It's how you're leaving people better with the thought leadership
Speaker:content that you provide, which is exactly the strategy that you follow.
Speaker:It's the exact strategy that I follow, and we encourage
Speaker:everyone to follow this strategy.
Speaker:If it sounds too good to be true, it most likely is
Speaker:. Amen.
Speaker:I am sitting here the whole time going preach because this is exactly why
Speaker:you and I are having this conversation so that people understand like, how
Speaker:do I spot these types of accounts?
Speaker:Number one.
Speaker:They pop up their overnight sensations.
Speaker:There is no such thing anymore on LinkedIn as an overnight sensation.
Speaker:If you think that everybody around you happens to be a unicorn
Speaker:and you are the only one that's not, nope, they're cheating.
Speaker:That is the only way.
Speaker:They've bought their way because LinkedIn restricts how many people
Speaker:that you can connect with every week.
Speaker:So I've been maxing out.
Speaker:I think it's around a hundred or something.
Speaker:I don't count, but it's not a big number.
Speaker:I remember when I. First started being pretty active on
Speaker:LinkedIn about 10 years ago.
Speaker:I used to sit there on a Saturday night connect, connect, connect,
Speaker:connect, connect, connect.
Speaker:And it didn't have a limit.
Speaker:So, nope.
Speaker:The longer that people have been on the platform, the more advantage
Speaker:we had back in the earlier days.
Speaker:So again, if you are just starting now, you are limited to around, let's call it
Speaker:a hundred, and LinkedIn is saying it pops up with all of these messages and says.
Speaker:Hey Michelle, uh, do you really wanna connect with these people?
Speaker:Like it actually pushes back as you work your way through those
Speaker:hundred invites and says, hang on a minute, do you really wanna connect?
Speaker:Do you know this person?
Speaker:And it's giving you warning signs saying That's not what we're about.
Speaker:And you know, I'm absolutely the same.
Speaker:And I wish that we didn't get judged on numbers.
Speaker:As much as I agree with you that it shouldn't work out, that the higher the
Speaker:number where they buy these numbers, that life doesn't turn out great for them.
Speaker:I unfortunately disagree with that.
Speaker:'cause there are some people that are making a ton of money off other people
Speaker:buying their crappy services because they look like they've got these
Speaker:huge numbers, had overnight success, and who doesn't want a shortcut when
Speaker:Michelle and Scott are sitting here going, Hey, LinkedIn takes time.
Speaker:It's gonna take months, years.
Speaker:Build your reputation, build your brand.
Speaker:Or.
Speaker:Person B, look what I did overnight.
Speaker:You could have this in the next six weeks.
Speaker:Like which one are you gonna be drawn to?
Speaker:Especially if your business is in trouble.
Speaker:I get why these are so attractive to people and I understand that for the most
Speaker:part, they will burn people, but there are definitely people profiteering off this.
Speaker:Now, there is one other type of thing that I've seen pop up recently.
Speaker:Maybe you've done some more research into this.
Speaker:I keep getting emails from people asking me do I want to
Speaker:rent other people's accounts?
Speaker:And I assume that it's like essentially I then control my own pod.
Speaker:So I've got my own fake rented accounts that I've now got commenting on my stuff.
Speaker:Is that how rented accounts work?
Speaker:'cause I honestly, they make me so angry.
Speaker:I just hit delete as fast as I can on those emails and
Speaker:resist the urge to write back.
Speaker:You are the scourge of LinkedIn.
Speaker:I hate you.
Speaker:Like that's what I wanna write.
Speaker:But have you come across those?
Speaker:'cause that seems to be a relatively new thing for me.
Speaker:It is.
Speaker:Luckily I haven't received any of them yet, but that was
Speaker:popularized before LinkedIn.
Speaker:So a lot of the strategies and a lot of the spam tactics originated on Meta.
Speaker:Um, they also originated, on YouTube as well.
Speaker:Instagram also became big for this when people would do account takeovers and
Speaker:a lot of big brands would do this, and a lot of these people picked up on it.
Speaker:And now you are seeing the same thing unfortunately happen on LinkedIn.
Speaker:Again, I'm just gonna go back to the adage that I said a few
Speaker:minutes ago that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Speaker:Michelle, for, for me, I am so protective of my LinkedIn
Speaker:account for a number of reasons.
Speaker:Number one, I honor and appreciate every single connection I have, because
Speaker:it's my due diligence to protect them.
Speaker:So I don't want to give any spammer access to my connections because if they're
Speaker:spamming me, they're gonna spam them.
Speaker:The other thing as you mentioned
Speaker:I, I really wanna be, quote unquote, the good guy on LinkedIn.
Speaker:Like just being very honest, open and transparent with people that to
Speaker:build a sustainable and successful business, it's not supposed to take six
Speaker:days, six weeks, or even six months.
Speaker:It may take six years.
Speaker:And if you don't have the time, energy, effort, and patience for that.
Speaker:LinkedIn may not be the best fit for you.
Speaker:It, it just, it really isn't because mm-hmm.
Speaker:Any, anytime you take a shortcut.
Speaker:I believe in shortening the learning curve.
Speaker:Now, shortening the learning curve could be working with someone like
Speaker:you, working with someone like me.
Speaker:Anyone else out there that's shortening the learning curve.
Speaker:You're, you're investing in yourself through someone else to learn something
Speaker:quicker so you don't have to go through all the patchwork quilting and the
Speaker:failure in forward, you're, you're paying that person who failed forward
Speaker:for you to show you what they need to do.
Speaker:Anything that is taking a shortcut, it means you're trying to build
Speaker:a boat with wood that is rotted.
Speaker:Eventually, as soon as that wood, that boat hits the water, it's gonna
Speaker:spring a leak and you're gonna sink faster than you can ever imagine.
Speaker:So the one thing that I am seeing, so in, in regards to getting these
Speaker:emails, I personally have not seen the email that you mentioned.
Speaker:But what I do get is I get these emails from my LinkedIn connections and somehow
Speaker:I ended up on their email list service.
Speaker:It's almost like I opted in for something of theirs, when I never did.
Speaker:So now you're seeing this uptick in what are called data scrapers.
Speaker:Meaning people are using these scraping tools and not actual scraping
Speaker:for people listening or watching.
Speaker:It's literally a service that you attach to your LinkedIn account
Speaker:that extracts all of the email addresses attached to your account.
Speaker:Via connection wise and imports them into an email listserv that you have, like
Speaker:MailChimp or Constant Contact or Kartra or Kajabi, and then you start getting emails
Speaker:from these people and you're wondering, I. How the heck did that happen?
Speaker:Now, words of the whys.
Speaker:If you end up seeing that you've done nothing wrong, it's not on you,
Speaker:they, they basically have invaded your account, stolen your email, and
Speaker:put them into your email listserv.
Speaker:My recommendation, as soon as you get that type of email, you report it as spam.
Speaker:And the reason why that's important is because their spam score will increase
Speaker:on their email listserv, and they could get in trouble and they could
Speaker:be removed from their email listserv platform because if they've done it
Speaker:to you, they've probably done it to hundreds, if not thousands of others.
Speaker:Oh, it makes me so angry.
Speaker:I was sitting there listening, I don't even remember where now because I, I
Speaker:switched off and tried to block it out.
Speaker:I was listening to a strategy around growing emails and, you know, that
Speaker:whole email marketing type of thing, and it's why it took me so long to actually
Speaker:get my own email newsletter started.
Speaker:'cause they're like, I don't wanna be like this.
Speaker:These people were sitting there talking about, so we have our warmup
Speaker:email address and when that one burns, 'cause we've scraped out details from
Speaker:here there and everywhere, bombarded people gone against all the GDPR and
Speaker:all that kind of stuff over in Europe.
Speaker:Bombarded people, they did report them like you said.
Speaker:Then we've got our backup email, which we'll start sending.
Speaker:Then we'll do this.
Speaker:And I was like.
Speaker:How is this something that you think is honestly gonna work and
Speaker:build relationships with people?
Speaker:And I've noticed that a lot recently.
Speaker:Now.
Speaker:I don't wanna go down that path too much because you know, we've
Speaker:only got a few minutes left.
Speaker:Yeah, totally.
Speaker:But
Speaker:I also wanna talk about automation tools and there are so many of them right now.
Speaker:And I have to say on the surface and, and these are tools, I'm gonna call one
Speaker:out, like Taplio is probably one of the most popular ones that are out there.
Speaker:And I don't normally like naming names, but I think it's important
Speaker:that the listeners understand that these tools exist on the surface
Speaker:who wouldn't want a tool to do the grunt work that happens on LinkedIn?
Speaker:These tools are super capable.
Speaker:I love them on the outside, but then we're automating relationships.
Speaker:You're putting your account at risk.
Speaker:You're against the user agreement.
Speaker:Like there is red flag after red flag, after red flag.
Speaker:And some of these tools, Daniel Hall has done the research,
Speaker:which scared me even more.
Speaker:They then use your account to comment and you don't even know
Speaker:what's happening because you gave them access to your LinkedIn cookie.
Speaker:That scares the bejesus out of me and that's why I wanna talk about this.
Speaker:Do you have anything you wanna add?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:I'm a rule follower, so one of the first things that I did is read the
Speaker:user agreement on LinkedIn and the, the two biggest red flags that gets people
Speaker:kicked off of LinkedIn is using scraping software, uh, that that exports data into
Speaker:an email listserv and also any automation that connects in messages for you.
Speaker:You for mentioned this.
Speaker:You're only allowed to connect with a hundred people a week.
Speaker:Right now on LinkedIn.
Speaker:When Michelle and I first got started on LinkedIn, you could send
Speaker:thousands of connections a day.
Speaker:And so there was this game that people played called the Race to 30,000.
Speaker:So it was to see how quickly could you get the 30,000 connections because
Speaker:in theory you could probably do it in a month if you send, you know, a
Speaker:ton of connections every single day.
Speaker:And a lot of these softwares.
Speaker:Would do that, they would send 10,000 connections in one day.
Speaker:So overnight, someone looked like they had a ton of followers and connections.
Speaker:So the thing is this, LinkedIn always claps back.
Speaker:So in, as in, in regards to the connecting and messaging, they limited the amount
Speaker:of connections to a hundred per week because of this reason, and I, I shared
Speaker:this with Michelle when she was on my podcast, that there were, at the time
Speaker:that we were recording a few weeks ago, there were two highly, highly
Speaker:accredited softwares that were completely blackballed from LinkedIn forever.
Speaker:seamless.io.
Speaker:Apollo.
Speaker:Ai.
Speaker:Now, these were two of the most popular softwares that had presences on LinkedIn
Speaker:that were basically automating processes, scraping data, and what I mean,
Speaker:blackballed LinkedIn just kicked them off.
Speaker:It was like literally the lights were turned off.
Speaker:And you know what?
Speaker:Not only did that obviously affect those two companies, but all of
Speaker:the users that were using that platform, they lost everything.
Speaker:The fact of the matter is, is that if you can't organically just block out about
Speaker:15, 20 minutes a day to send some genuine connections, genuine messages, really good
Speaker:content, and you're gonna just fall into that trap of hitting that easy button,
Speaker:which one does not exist on LinkedIn?
Speaker:It's not worth your time.
Speaker:Read your user agreement.
Speaker:Michelle, I don't know about you.
Speaker:I get emails every week from people saying, help me.
Speaker:I'm restricted.
Speaker:I'm in LinkedIn jail.
Speaker:I can't get out and I have to reply.
Speaker:I don't work for them.
Speaker:But if you broke the user agreement, you're not getting it back.
Speaker:So do not play in that sandbox.
Speaker:Do not take the risk because once you lose it, you never get it back.
Speaker:It's a slow burn, as Michelle always says.
Speaker:Take your time.
Speaker:Do your due diligence.
Speaker:Build your business like a retirement fund.
Speaker:You have to treat it like a marathon.
Speaker:It's small steps every day that compound over time to create
Speaker:the result that you want.
Speaker:It absolutely is compounding all the way.
Speaker:Small actions pay off, but you have to show up and do them no matter
Speaker:how many disclaimers you see on the websites of all of these tools.
Speaker:So yeah, probably, maybe we won't get your account restricted 'cause yeah, we kind of
Speaker:play the game 'cause they know about all the rules that LinkedIn has internally.
Speaker:Ultimately, if it is going to take income away or the integrity of the
Speaker:LinkedIn platform for all its faults.
Speaker:The fact that LinkedIn is a place where we can come and there is
Speaker:a certain level of integrity and sometimes it's up to us to call it out.
Speaker:So be mindful of the types of people that you're working with.
Speaker:If it seems to good to be true, it probably is.
Speaker:If that person has a huge amount of followers, especially if they come from
Speaker:a small country and all of a sudden they have hundreds of thousands of
Speaker:followers, and it's the same people commenting every time immediately,
Speaker:as soon as that person posts.
Speaker:They come from third world countries because you have to remember, this
Speaker:is happening because there are people in third world countries
Speaker:that are sitting in awful conditions doing a lot of this stuff.
Speaker:Not all of it is automated, and that's like a whole other side of
Speaker:this conversation that we need to be mindful of these farms that are going
Speaker:on out there to make this happen.
Speaker:And so from this perspective, work with people that are showing up,
Speaker:adding to conversations, showing genuine thought leadership, not things
Speaker:that can just be pumped out on mass.
Speaker:And this is the thing people you are going to fall into times on LinkedIn
Speaker:where you wonder if it's all worth it.
Speaker:Do not jump in the lane of trying to shortcut that
Speaker:success as we've shared today.
Speaker:I am going to wrap this conversation up because I want people to think
Speaker:about, who is it that you've been engaging with in your community that
Speaker:perhaps you may need to disconnect with after this conversation?
Speaker:My mum gave me some great advice as a teenager, which
Speaker:I will leave everyone with.
Speaker:If you hang out with garbage, you smell like it.
Speaker:If you hang out with garbage, you smell like it.
Speaker:And the two of us are here to protect your brand on LinkedIn, help you grow it.
Speaker:Now Scott, I want to make sure that people listen to your podcast as well.
Speaker:What's it called, and what's the best way to get in contact with you?
Speaker:Thank you, Michelle.
Speaker:So my podcast is called Networking and Marketing Made Simple.
Speaker:Uh, it is a LinkedIn themed podcast.
Speaker:You can find it on all the major platforms, Spotify,
Speaker:iTunes, everywhere else.
Speaker:Uh, also if you wanna connect with me, obviously gimme a follow on LinkedIn.
Speaker:And you can also find more on my website, Scott Aaron.
Speaker:Love it.
Speaker:Thank you for all of those, and thank you to everyone that joined this podcast
Speaker:was recorded LinkedIn live, uh, which I forgot how much I love doing those.
Speaker:So thank you to everyone that joined us.
Speaker:Until next week, cheers.
