Back in the day, LinkedIn used to be a resource for information, best practices, and the latest and greatest news and information about marketing and sales. Well, something, besides their redesign to make LinkedIn look just like Facebook, has happened and my LinkedIn referrals are in the toilet. It seems like everyone is using LinkedIn, only no one is paying attention or clicking on the wealth of great information being provided.

I seed content to LinkedIn three times a day. All of it is relevant, new, and well targeted. And according to LinkedIn I have close to 2,000 followers. How come StumbleUpon, a platform that was nearly dead a year ago, is now out-pacing my referral links from LinkedIn? Do conversations still happen on LinkedIn? Is it all happening in the groups? What am I missing?

I’ve posted several questions on LinkedIn. Just plain old, "Hey Network, what do you think about this?" and I have gotten ZERO responses. Nobody has time for LinkedIn? My questions were not provocative enough? What’s going on?

Here are my 5-month social referral numbers.

Pinterest is giving me as many referrals as LinkedIn.

Here is the deeper dive into all of my referral traffic.

Of course, organic search is number one, by a long shot. It’s still a little hard for me to understand how I can do so much work socially for so little return. But LinkedIn has really fallen off the map. Perhaps this next month I will post into my groups and see if the life is there, though I doubt it.

So, how did LinkedIn become so marginalized? I know it feels a lot like Facebook when I’m browsing. But people are sharing a ton of content. And NOBODY is clicking? How is that possible? Are we really just using LinkedIn as a resume portal?

How do you use LinkedIn? Have you seen a change since Microsoft took control? Do you pay for LinkedIn? What has LinkedIn become? I’d love to hear about your experiences in the comments.

John McElhenney

@jmacofearth (also seen on Google+: jmacofearth)