Ten Ways to Make LinkedIn Less Boring

BY BOB HOFFMAN

Let’s face it. 

LinkedIn is a monumental bore.

Unless you’re a demented stalker or desperately looking for a job, what the hell is LinkedIn good for? I’ve been on it for about five years and I still have no idea why.

The only thing the site has to offer is a constant stream of tediously earnest essays entitled “10 Amazing Ways To Promote Your Personal Brand” or some other stale business banality.

Other than that…let’s be honest here.. we don’t really give a shit if some dry cleaner from Buffalo is looking at our profile.  We want people who can make us some money, do us some good, or at least get us laid.

Am I right?

So, I have some ideas for the folks over at LinkedIn. Use all the awesome data you’ve collected about us and our “connections” to create some pages with categories of stuff that we ambitious business folks actually care about and will come back to check on every day.

Here are 10 suggestions for totally compelling pages that would make LinkedIn a lot more interesting:

• CEOs you’re connected to who have done time

• People who used to work with who hate you and are now unemployed

• People you are connected to who have extra Super Bowl tickets

• Pathetic douche guys you once slept with when you were drunk and are now “life coaches”

• Super-hot nymphos who looked at your profile

• People you’ve done business with who are useless but have job openings you want

• Rich guys who can get you on Pebble Beach

• People who have deliciously nasty stories about your boss

• Contacts who’ve had bad plastic surgery

• People your age who look way older than you

See what I mean? If LinkedIn had stuff like this, I’d Like them on Facebook.

Bob Hoffman has been called “The most provocative man in advertising”. In his book, Laughing@Advertising, he is out to disrupt the disruptors – those sombre, imperious souls who’ve made marketing and advertising such an earnest and humourless endeavour. It is on sale now at Amazon and only available in paperback. There’s no ebook, he says, because pixels aren’t funny.

This article first appeared in MARKETING magazine Issue#235.
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