The timing of my blog posts concerning monetizing your LinkedIn connections has to be coincidental, but yesterday, for the first time, I received an email (which was probably sent out to all of this person’s LinkedIn connections) which was an offering, in essence, to sell his LinkedIn account.
He explained how he was getting out of business and didn’t need his LinkedIn account anymore. And thus he would sell it for $10. Now, you could transfer ownership of an account by simply changing the email address and password. But something tells me that he is looking to sell his email database, which you can easily export to a .csv file, for $10. And if he has 1,500 connections and 10% or 150 people bite, he could take in $1,500. Not bad for some pocket money.
Which brings me to the point that for a lot of people who want to sell into the LinkedIn market, the connections themseleves don’t mean anything. They don’t have time for it. They want to acquire email addresses from a certain demographic. And, indeed, the person selling his profile gave a % breakdown of who was in his network by job type. This perfectly fits the model, if the demographic matches, for someone who just wants to acquire email addresses for whatever purpose. We may start seeing more of this in the future.
What is LinkedIn doing about this? You may not have noticed the change, but two weeks ago when I uploaded a .csv file of contacts to send out invites, I was asked for the first time to enter the text that appeared on the screen in order to authorize me. I had seen this being used at ticketmaster.com and other e-commerce sites to authorize that it indeed was a person and not a machine entering the data, but on LinkedIn is this necessary?
Perhaps LinkedIn has caught on to this and is now monitoring those who upload .csv files to see if someone is doing this for multiple accounts or if the same data is being uploaded by many people. Once you enter that text, I am assuming that at least LinkedIn is recording your IP address, and therefore they could potentially refuse upload requests at a later date from you… I maybe wrong or paranoid about this, but something tells me that they implemented this functionality for a specific reason.
Which raises a bigger question about privacy and how secure your secret information is. It is clear that once you connect with someone that you don’t know on LinkedIn, your email address may be up for sale to the highest bidder.
Conclusion: be careful networking out there!
LinkedIn Expert Advice & Insight through Your Questions - A LinkedIn Blog that Goes Beyond the "Official" Explanations 
“Can You Sell Your LinkedIn Account?”
I have a LOT of valuable connections, and I value each and every one of them. I’ve been asked by many people, firms and organizations to “sell” or “share” my database, but in a nice and polite manner, I always declined their offer for ‘business’ — am I crazy? Call it whatever, but I have nearly 40,000 direct connections (as of January 2009) and I have been in contact with many of them – via e-mail, in person or on the phone. I take notes and keep contact with them. To me, they are my human capital asset!
I keep them private, and never give out e-mails or contact info if these contacts do not list them in their Linkedin public profile: http://tinyurl.com/MyNetwork
I do, however, encourage the use of InMails and Introductions, and I do facilitate those in a timely and courteous manner.
– Steven Burda
P.S. Oh, and wasn’t it Linkedin’s main VC firm that valued each connection, back in June of 2008, at OVER $50 USD each?
See this: http://tinyurl.com/50dollars
“With fresh growth capital, LinkedIn will expand its marketing efforts globally and grow its user list. The user list is the most valuable asset and Sequoia Partners valued each member at over $50.”
By: Steven Burda on March 13, 2009
at 7:17 pm
Steven,
Again, I agree with you 100%. You are obviously not crazy for not sharing. I don’t share my contact database either, but pass on introduction requests between members of my network as necessary when the opportunity and need arises.
But $50 per connection? I guess all of us LinkedIn users are really just a number to the VC firms!
– Neal
By: Neal Schaffer on March 13, 2009
at 7:23 pm
As a follow up, what is the value of each connection? ONE may never know, as they are intangible assets that people have. Whoever did the “analysis” at Sequoia Partners for Linkedin back in June 2008, the $ value was over fifty bucks for each.
That would mean that my own connections, as of January 2009, were worth at least $2,000,000 ($50 x 40,000). With the economy going the way it has been since last summer’s analysis, and professional membership doubled, maybe today my connections are worth $5,000,000+ ?
Oh, this analysis. Who cares. My question to you — how can I help you? (and no, my connections are not for trade, sale or barter!)
Have a good weekend,
– Steven Burda
http://tinyurl.com/SuperConnected
By: Steven Burda on March 13, 2009
at 7:24 pm
Steven, you are a truly virtually rich man!!!
– Neal
By: Neal Schaffer on March 13, 2009
at 7:25 pm
Ha, Neal, I guess you can say that… 🙂
But to me, helping people is what makes me rich. I have met many people, and some I have not (yet) — but knowing that I MADE A DIFFERENCE in an ethical way is richness in itself!
See: http://tinyurl.com/MyGoals
Thank you again for great blog topics,
– Steven Burda
By: Steven Burda on March 13, 2009
at 7:31 pm
I hear ‘ya…it really feels good to help people out, doesn’t it? Something that seems so trivial to you but can be so important to someone else. I believe that we, as human animals, are natural networkers and want to help others as well as be helped. LinkedIn is a great facilitator for this.
– Neal
By: Neal Schaffer on March 13, 2009
at 7:36 pm
Coincidentally, I just finished reading “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
Hasn’t it been more than 140 years since it became illegal (in the US, anyway) to sell oneself, in the form of one’s personal profile, or to sell other human beings, in the form of one’s contacts?
By: Karen on March 14, 2009
at 6:57 am
Neal,
thank you for a great post a pretty damn good question.
I am with you to a certain extent. Yet my approach – from the beginning, now even a bit more aggressively – has been to encourage the people to pick up the phone and talk to me because my experience was that it became easier in terms of making referrals. Makes sense, doesn’t it? If I’ve talked to a person on the phone I know them better than I would from just reading their profile.
None the less – upon my network growing and my agenda getting more and more jam-packed, I have my staff send out an invitation to a phone call which is then posted on my agenda, giving everyone a 30+ minute chance to talk to me.
To make a long story short – eventhough I am one of LinkedIn’s primary assets, I offer the possibility for everyone to talk to me personally to get to know me and what I do. So yes, I do very well care about all my connections and have so far talked to over 60% of them on the phone.
By: Lars Hilse on March 18, 2009
at 12:16 pm
Hi Lars,
Thank you for your comment, and, don’t get me wrong, being able to have a face-to-face meeting or even a phone call is ideal. It is common to the networking events that I attend in that the real relationship is only formed after doing a separate one-on-one meeting over coffee or lunch. So I would agree that a phone call adds “the personal touch” which is essential in developing more genuine relationships. The size of my network has grown to the extent that I would be on the phone for many months to personally talk to everyone, but when the opportunity arises I do pick up the phone and ideally meet my network. And my phone number is actually included in my profile so I am always welcoming calls 😉
Cheers,
Neal
By: Neal Schaffer on March 18, 2009
at 12:22 pm
How insulting to value your connections at only $, these are supposed to be your support group and your friends.
I’m glad that I appreciate the value of my connections and whilst I don’t offer my phone number out, anyone that asks gets it. It is just that being from the UK, those from across the pond in North America sometimes forget we are a few hours ahead…. and ring at 3 a.m. in the morning.
Thanks for the post Neal.
Cheers, Simon
By: Simon Hamer on March 22, 2009
at 2:43 pm
Hello Simon,
Thanks for your comment. I actually do leave my phone number on my LinkedIn profile, but I rarely getting any phone calls from it. That being said, before I go to bed, I make sure that the phone is far away from me being charged so that if it did ring it wouldn’t wake me up!
Hope to see you again soon on the site!
Cheers,
Neal
By: Neal Schaffer on March 22, 2009
at 7:42 pm