How extensive are your online social network connections?

[MichaelCorfman]

After attending two trade shows over the past couple weeks (EiG and then BAC), one of my side activities has been inviting folks I met to connect with me on LinkedIn. As a result of that effort I now have well over 50 new affiliate manager contacts in the past week, something that can be quite helpful to me in addressing issues when they arise.

That got me wondering how folks use social networks, and how many people include in their social networks. So for this week's poll question please share how many social networking connections you have personally. That would be Facebook friends plus LinkedIn connections plus the number of folks you follow and that follow you on Twitter and the number of folks in Google circles with you, and so on for other social networks.

And in a post share your thoughts about the various social networks and how your use of them effects who you connect with using the networks.

Michael

[universal4]

I personally think LinkedIn has a major flaw in a few aspects.

There is no way to hide your email address from connections. Sure this is ok to folks you know and would normally give your email address to, but they do NOT give you the CHOICE to hide it.

They are also VERY AGGRESSIVE with convincing users to "sync" their address books with them, which gives them a whole fresh list of email recipients that have NOT given LinkedIn permission to mail them.

I have a number of clients in other industries that have stated that LinkedIn is a great tool for recruiters and job services. The problem I have with that is that I have also heard many spammers and those who sell lists to the spammers have situated themselves as recruiters or connected to job services organizations, and have developed quite an extensive list of email addresses.

Recently, there has also been some speculation in their support forums that some spammers have been able to access the emails without being connected, but that I have not confirmed.

Of any of the networks that deserve the "social network" classification, I do think that LinkedIn is one of the most professional, and in my opinion would have far more value if they were more sensitive to REAL privacy concerns, and not add marketing spin to what i feel invades their user's privacy as well as the privacy of users who do not even have a LinkedIn account, but just happens to be in an address book of a LinkedIn user.

Rick
Universal4

[Renee]

I voted 8000-9999, although thinking about it there could be far more than that.

On my work facebook I have just under 4600 friends, most of which I have hundreds if not thousands of common friends in the igaming industry. On that profile I only accept people who have a certain number of common friends so I know they are igaming folks (unless others are just accepting anyone).

I have an instagram account for my competition prep with as of now 1785 followers. On that account I follow about 900 people. On another instagram account I have about 300 followers, however that profile is my personal one and is private so only has friends and family on it. On the facebook page associated with the comp prep instagram account I have about 100-110 likes on that page.

I have another facebook account for some personal hobbies and that one has 600+ friends all of who have the same interest that I do.

I wouldn't count my personal facebook account here as it's personal stuff and apart from a few affiliate managers I keep it very separate from work.

I wouldn't even know how to see how many connections i have on linkedin. I can only find 500+ within my profile. Linkedin for me is one of those things where I only connect with people in the industry or people I know personally. I always have randoms trying to connect with me who have no common connections and are a teacher somewhere in the middle of nowhere. I always reject those people.

Edited to add: I didn't even count twitter or Google Plus which have a few more hundred there.

I don't know how I have time to keep up with all these to be honest.

I personally think LinkedIn has a major flaw in a few aspects.

There is no way to hide your email address from connections. Sure this is ok to folks you know and would normally give your email address to, but they do NOT give you the CHOICE to hide it.

They are also VERY AGGRESSIVE with convincing users to "sync" their address books with them, which gives them a whole fresh list of email recipients that have NOT given LinkedIn permission to mail them.

I have a number of clients in other industries that have stated that LinkedIn is a great tool for recruiters and job services. The problem I have with that is that I have also heard many spammers and those who sell lists to the spammers have situated themselves as recruiters or connected to job services organizations, and have developed quite an extensive list of email addresses.

Recently, there has also been some speculation in their support forums that some spammers have been able to access the emails without being connected, but that I have not confirmed.

Of any of the networks that deserve the "social network" classification, I do think that LinkedIn is one of the most professional, and in my opinion would have far more value if they were more sensitive to REAL privacy concerns, and not add marketing spin to what i feel invades their user's privacy as well as the privacy of users who do not even have a LinkedIn account, but just happens to be in an address book of a LinkedIn user.

Rick
Universal4

I have never had the aggressiveness when it comes to the syncing of the address book. I don't even think it's asked me once to do that. Perhaps it has to do with a setting somewhere?

And regarding the email address, I can NEVER get email addresses off there for some people so there has to be a setting somewhere for that too. There is definitely a setting when you send someone a message that says "allow to see your email address". Others have used it to block theirs from me when they have messaged me before, one as recent as 2 weeks ago.

There is also an option to block yourself from being seen as viewing a profile. As you know, linkedin shows people if you've looked at their profile, but you can show yourself as an anonymous user. I noticed this when someone kept looking at my profile anonymously, then my photo started appearing on hate sites, so I have since removed my photo as well as most of the info from my public profile from people who are not a connection.

Some of these things you may need to Google to find out how to do/stop them. Seems like it's definitely possible though.

[universal4]

Renee,

I asked support at LinkedIn, and they told me not to accept connections for anyone I would not normally give my email address to. They verified that there is no way to hide it from connections.

You follow over 1200 Instagram users, (across 2 accounts) how many could you possibly actually read a message from or look at a picture from if they ALL sent you a few a day?

Rick
Universal4

[Renee]

Renee,

I asked support at LinkedIn, and they told me not to accept connections for anyone I would not normally give my email address to. They verified that there is no way to hide it from connections.

You follow over 1200 Instagram users, (across 2 accounts) how many could you possibly actually read a message from or look at a picture from if they ALL sent you a few a day?

Rick
Universal4

On instagram it's just people posting photos to their account and they end up in my feed, so they aren't sending them directly to me. I scroll through my feed and if I find a photo interesting I'll read the caption and then comment or like it if I feel I have something to add. Instagram only shows a certain number of photos in your feed at a time, so I'm sure to miss out on stuff, but if I notice someone who posts heaps of stuff I like, I will physically go into their account to see what they have posted on any day in case I missed anything in my feed.

I have a really good memory so I don't usually forget the usernames I see if I really like their posts.

Do you have instagram Rick?

I can tell you there are some photos that have been sent to me via DM on instagram I'd prefer not to see. I really should start my own lolcocks.com website. I already have so much content for it.

Re linkedin - there is definitely something I'm missing then, because there are some people no matter how hard I've tried I cannot get their email address from their profile.

[universal4]

I do not bother with Instagram.

If someone I know needs to send me a pic, I have a number of different email addresses. If they catch me on one of the messengers I run, they can send it directly.

Looking at the explanation you gave about your instagram account, I see little value in getting a feed of pictures posted by 1200 people that you rarely look at.

I heard that search engines can produce a few hundred pictures of stuff when you search for them, i just can't think of the best keywords....although I do have some I try to never search for....

I wonder if those accounts which you can not see the emails are premium members or not. Although a few people have told me that they show on premium accounts also.

Rick
Universal4

[Renee]

I suppose it depends what you use it for and the type of people you follow.

My comp prep instagram only follows health and fitness people (they are mostly strangers). I see short videos of new workouts or someone posting something interesting to do with the body. I will admit, I'm on there so often I probably could see most things that get posted into my feed. The only stuff I really miss out on is when I'm sleeping. I've found new clothing brands through people I follow on instagram so it's handy for stuff like that too.

I have some people who follow me and are commenting on everything I post. They follow me for motivation to get themselves into gear and keep going. I like that I can encourage a stranger to get healthy just by posting a photo of something I'm doing.

I suppose if you don't have an interest in posting photos to a bunch of strangers there is very little point to instagram. As you said, people could just send you their photos.

Now I am going to go try to find all these email addresses on linkedin again

[universal4]

Every connection I have on linkedIn allows me to see their email and any other contact info they provided at sign up.

Just go to the contact, and click on "contact info" and it should be right at the top of that section.

100% of my connections have their email address showing.

Rick
Universal4

[MichaelCorfman]

I wouldn't even know how to see how many connections i have on linkedin. I can only find 500+ within my profile.

If you go to the home page of LinkedIn when you are logged in, and scroll down, looking in the right-hand column, you will find a heading titled "Your LinkedIn Network." That section shows the number of connections you have, and also the number of professionals in your network (which I think means all first, second, and third degree connections).

Michael

[Renee]

If you go to the home page of LinkedIn when you are logged in, and scroll down, looking in the right-hand column, you will find a heading titled "Your LinkedIn Network." That section shows the number of connections you have, and also the number of professionals in your network (which I think means all first, second, and third degree connections).

Michael

Thanks.
795 Connections and 14,616,512 professionals in my network.
Sheesh!

[jeffery123]

I used to create account with LinkedIn, and they suggest me to have at least 500 connections

[universal4]

Let's see, having 500 connections with access to your email address, what percentage of the 500 will sell it?

Even if it is 1% or .5% that sell the email numerous times, how many of those will re-sell it?

Rick
Universal4

[edgarf76]

I voted for 1000-1,999 for each social account. If I added facebook twitter and google plus it would probally be more together. I like social networking but not toward other Internet marketers like most people do. I focus on quality not quantity.


Best Regards


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[Renee]

Let's see, having 500 connections with access to your email address, what percentage of the 500 will sell it?

Even if it is 1% or .5% that sell the email numerous times, how many of those will re-sell it?

Rick
Universal4

You make a good point and I never thought about it.

Although I can't imagine someone would sit there and manually copy all of those addresses.

[gillies8888]

I answered over 20k but depends how everyone looks at this.

Facebook normal account has 1500
facvokm gambling account over 20k
not used LinkedIn that much, though try and build up contacts.

Also use several Facebook gambling groups I have ownership for, these are different though! As this gets feedback from the punters.

[universal4]

LinkedIn makes it very very easy for spammers to compile a list as they can export the contact details into a csv file.....

Rick
Universal4

[Roulette Zeitung]

"Less than 100" ... because a virtual social connection is no compensation for a real handshake, the real spoken word and not at all for the language of the eyes.



Leopold