To all those idealist who thought that social media has heralded a new age of selling.

No more spam, no more push marketing... yeah, right.

Yesterday I received 2 messages from advertisers straight into my inbox on LinkedIn. One was from HP and the other from Microsoft (not sure why I got them since I'm not in IT, but whatever).

They appeared in my inbox alongside other network messages. When I clicked on the link I'm sent to micro site on LinkedIn. Right at the bottom it tells me:

Why did I receive this message? This partner message was sent to you based on non-personal information, such as the title of your current position, your primary industry, or your region. Per our privacy policy, your name and e-mail address have not been disclosed

And there's an option to change my contact settings.

No more today so far, let's see what happens.

Now LinkedIn usually tests things in the background before launching and, when they do, there's little fanfare or announcement, they just slip in it.

But it looks like they're trying the equivalent of "promoted tweet" ie: good old fashioned direct marketing.

Personally, if it's relevant I don't really care but in this case it wasn't. Possibly because I have the word "technology" on my profile but that's it. Hardly targeted with laser precision.

And, even though I use LinkedIn every day, these 2 ads made up 22% of my inbox messages yesterday. Hmmm, wonder how long it is before those contact setting get changed?

On a similar note, there's been a round-robin style message going around Linkedin about the fact they've changed their privacy settings and can now use images and details of you in their advertising campaigns.

While I'm dreaming of my 5 minutes of fame on prime time TV, others are up in arms spreading the word that you need to change your settings to stop this happening.

Ah, social media.... it's so social.

Labels: direct marketing, social media