Rinse and repeat on LinkedIn spam

Time for another missive on LinkedIn spam. I’ve touched on this topic before, discussing the notorious Pav Sanka and his inability to use a contact for its intended purpose.

Well fast forward to today, when the equally slimy John Keats – the Chief Sales Officer of 123 Greetings (visit at your own peril). Another person from the sub-continent who feels it appropriate to ignore clearly written information on what types of messages I’m happy to receive via LinkedIn.

For those who don’t remember, here’s a recap:

Contact Settings
Happy to share my knowledge and consider job offers, but please don’t contact me with spam.

Interested In: career opportunities, consulting offers, job inquiries, expertise requests, reference requests, getting back in touch

With that in mind, here’s the message I received today from John Keats:

Subject: CPO & CPM – Strategic Partnership
From: John Keats Chief Sales Officer at 123GREETINGS DOT COM
Date/Time: April 25, 2012

Hello Michael

I represent 123greetings.com (World’s #1 e-Greeting company) with 30 million opt- in users across the globe.

We help advertisers to reach their targeted audience on CPO and CPM basis via our email campaigns.

The Average performances are 6% open rate and 5% CTR and we can target users demographically and geographically.

You can message me for more information and I will be happy to discuss with you further. You can add me in Skype (greetings_sales)

Best
John Keats
Cell phone: +1 646- 257- 3763
Email:john.keats@123greetings-inc.com

Chief Sales Officer
123 Greetings.com, Inc
1674 Broadway, Suite 403, New York, NY 10019

Ok, let’s look at what messages I stated that I’m happy to receive via LinkedIn and which of these it matches up to:

• career opportunities: No
• consulting offers: No
• job inquiries: No
• expertise requests: No
• reference requests: No
• getting back in touch: Are you seeing a pattern emerging yet?

So – should John have sent his message? No way.

If I had even a remote interest in electronic greeting cards as part of a marketing campaign I might be running, I would have gone out looking for the relevant information.

And looking at this companies’ website, it doesn’t inspire me with confidence. It’s a design reminiscent of mid 2000, with all the design queues which give it the look and feel of something dodgy and untrustworthy you’d associate with India – right down to the use of generic and dodgy stock photos and more advertising than you can shake a stick at.

The consideration and application of ethics in marketing is something oft ignored by less scrupulous users of social media and communication networks. Those who fail to consider ethics in marketing also fail to realise the damage their activities do to their business and reputation.

I’ll bet this is why Pav Sanka tried to get in touch with me last week by phone, considering that Pav’s own name and business name (Vinsky Consulting) doesn’t appear on Google results without my entries appearing right next to or even before him and his company. It’s the same level of permanent record that’s given to Contractjobs.com and Lucy Plumridge thanks to their lack of business ethics and my well-honed SEO skills.

So, here’s the reply sent to the latest LinkedIn spammer. Will it achieve anything – likely not. However, if it does make the person in question reconsider their obnoxious tactics and think twice before misusing LinkedIn, then it has achieved its purpose.

John,

Let me be blunt and respond to your message with a question, did you bother to read the contact box on my profile which clearly states what kind of contacts I’m interested in receiving?

Let me answer that question for you – No, you did not.

You have sent me a message, a message with no purpose or relevance to why I’m here, and offers me nothing that’s aligned to the messages I’ve expressly stated up front that I’m willing to receive.

Spend a moment in my shoes – I get several messages here a day, on top of all the other informational networks I need to participate in to stay at the top of my profession. If you think that messages like yours are a valuable use of my limited and valuable time, you are sorely mistaken.

Connecting with you is of no value to me. You’re not a social network practitioner – you’re a bleeding sales person who’s so ineffective in their job that they don’t bother to read available information and form sound judgement. There’s simply no benefit to me in connecting with someone like you I don’t even know who is of zero relevance to me.

In short – you’re just another pain in the arse spammer who abuses networks like this for their own means and wastes other peoples time.

I’d thank you to refrain from such wasteful messages, and future pay better consideration to the messages you send so as not to waste other peoples time. Needless to say, I’ll be circulating your message and my response amongst my circle of influence both online and off to make sure that they never do business with you or your company.

Michael.

As I said last year – people like John need to learn the purpose of social networks, and understand the manners and expectations that goes with using them.