Every single day I get 10 to 20 InMails on LinkedIn. They're all in the same category. Some "insanely successful entrepreneur with 'a bajillion' followers willing to help me out with some rubbish service or product".
Often times they're 16 years old, but yet they're still somehow magically the CEO for thousands of people, and have started "a bajillion" companies, often with VC funding in the hundreds of millions of dollars. And they've got hundreds of thousands of followers on YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Often they have a couple of PhDs, even though they're 16 years old judging by their photo - And they're always the "Top LinkedIn voice" on some rubbish subject.
Today I don't even read what they're sending me. I just instantly block them. Tage, my son, told me the other day I could turn off InMail. However, for weird reasons I don't quite understand, it gives me pleasure to keep InMail turned on, for the joy of blocking them when they send me their garbage proposals. I feel almost as if I am providing a service to the world by blocking them, kind of like "bringing out the trash" to help clean up the web. So at least for now, I've kept InMail turned on for these reasons.
How the scam works
They're basically bribing their friends, and/or have bots subscribe to their social media profiles. This artificially inflates their followers, resulting in that they can create the image of being "important entrepreneurs", while probably the most important startup they've ever created in their lives, is selling sausages in their high school's cantina.
If there's even a human being behind their followers on these social media platforms, the statistical probability of that this human being has enough money to actually buy your product is roughly 0.0000000000000000001% - So these so-called "followers" are basically worthless from a business perspective. Yet for some weird reasons, they seem to consistently being willing to "help me out expand my reach for a small fee".
Alan Kay
Meet Alan Kay. Alan invented the internet, modern software development, the tablet, the graphical user interface, the printer, and basically everything we appreciate today. Alan has 900 followers on LinkedIn!
If you've got more followers than Alan, I will by default assume you're a hustler and a scam. In fact, I'm ashamed of that I've got 3 times as many followers than Alan myself. And as I'm writing out that sentence, I realise maybe that's the reason I get all this spam ...?
How to contact me
If you start out by bragging about how you've got more followers than Alan Kay, the result is already given. I don't even think before I click block!!
If you on the other hand engages with me and my content. Click like on a couple of posts, maybe add a couple of relevant comments over a period of a couple of weeks - BEFORE you send me an InMail, I will take you seriously!
This guy went straight to InMail. For all I know, he might be the inventor of Penicillin and the guy who solved heavier than air flight. However, he went straight to InMail and bragged about his 17,000 followers on Twitter, so I didn't make it past the first two sentences even before I clicked block ...
How to Deal with LinkedIn Scammers - YouTube
If you're a "social media influencer", the statistical probability of that you're a scammer is roughly 100%! And this is how I will deal with you!
youtube.com
This is an educational article
Notice, I wrote this article such that I could hopefully teach you something - And that something is to stop trying to sell me your garbage services on LinkedIn. You having "a bajillion followers on x, y and z" only proves to me you're worth zip!
If you on the other hand engage with my content, add meaningful comments, and maybe share one or two of my posts you find particularly interesting - You will have a 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times larger chance of succeeding with having me answer your InMail when you actually send it than the above guy had.
You can choose to take this article offensive or you can choose to take is as a lesson. I suspect if you're actually looking to grow and prosper it's smarter of you to take it as a lesson. But what do I know, I only have half as many followers as the guy in the video ...
However, you being "top LinkedIn voice in x, y, z" means nothing to me! Alan Kay is "top LinkedIn voice" on nothing!
Be like Alan!!
Top comments (4)
All I get there are young Asian women with modelling careers or similar occupations and great looking profile pictures writing about how they sincerely desire friendship with balding pot-bellied American men who happen to have or been in national security related occupations ;)...
Hahahaha :D
I think we've ended up in different garbage cans ... ;)
All I get are "amazing business opportunities", mostly from 16 year old CEOs, with 15 PhDs and a badge proving their "top LinkedIn voice" on some garbage subject ...
It's a shame LinkedIn didn't model itself on la costra nostra, particularly rule 1: no one can present themself directly to another member; there must be a third member to do it.
Hahahaha :D