LinkedIn's Most Annoying Feature and How You Can Avoid It

I just celebrated my birthday. I won't tell you which one because I am of that age where I need start counting backwards. I had a nice day, with visits from my children and lots of wishes from friends I know well and from those I don't know so well on places like Facebook. We are familiar with how Facebook handles birthdays: If you allow people to post on your timeline, you'll get a zillion people wishing you. You don't have to do anything and the next day they are gone. I actually go in and like every comment, but I am a bit crazy when it comes to my social media. 

On LinkedIn, on your birthday, the present they give you is a deluge of messages from you connections IN YOUR MESSAGE INBOX. Add that to the spam messages you get daily and the people thanking you for endorsements you actually didn't give and you have an inbox that is fried. Since there are no tools to clean up your messages and their message system is from the 1990's, you basically have lost your inbox and any important messages forever.

What am I supposed to do with the 959 unread messages I now have? How will I ever get that red flag off? How will I ever find messages that are actually needed? Oh, woe is me.

The solution to this painful problem comes in 2 steps:

Step 1: In LinkedIn, edit your profile and under "Personal Details," change your birthday month to the prior month and then change it back several days after your birthday is over. Between world-wide times zones and delayed notifications on LinkedIn, if you don't make the change a few days before and wait until a few days afterwards to change it you will still get birthday messages in your inbox.

Step 2: Say good bye to LinkedIn and join beBee. We just send you a sweet (I am man enough to enjoy being called a Queen) email wishing you a happy birthday. That's it.  I know, I am biased, but it's still good advice. We don't do Mickey Mouse stuff like LinkedIn does. And wait until you see some of the amazing platforms advancements that are coming soon. If you like beBee now, you are going to love what's ahead.

Buzz on!