By bbr

by Sarah Warlick, content director

With a great sigh of relief, LinkedIn users welcome the news that the platform has promised to ease off on the constant flow of spam updates that fill their inboxes to overflowing. Oh happy day!

To the company’s credit, it has realized that getting too many emails turns people off (which is a point that every firm should keep in mind when planning newsletters, special offers, updates, marketing messages, etc.) and taken steps to stem the flow at least a smidgen.

Changes include replacing individual invitations to connect with a weekly digest, for users who receive numerous invitations, and combining updates from a user’s multiple Groups into one email.

LinkedIn promises to find even more avenues to exert its newfound self-control when it comes to launching emails, but these early changes have been met with an enthusiastic response. According to Aatif Awan writing in the platform’s official blog, “For every 10 emails we used to send, we’ve removed 4 of them. Already, member’s [sic] complaints have been cut in half.”

That’s definitely a good start, but I join millions of other users in encouraging the professional nexus to carry on slashing its email output.

If you are among those hoping for a fast and dramatic ebbing of the tide, there are several things you can do for instant relief. (Trust me, this can make a humongous difference in the volume of stuff you have to look at each day.)

• Dig into the settings menu of your account and create some discipline where none currently exists. To go find it, hover over the tiny picture of yourself (you did upload a professional photo, didn’t you?) in the upper right of your screen and click on Privacy & Settings in the dropdown menu, then Communications.
• Go ahead and open offending emails that you’d rather never see again so that you can scroll down to the bottom and unsubscribe using the link provided.
• Set some or all of your LinkedIn Groups to simply carry on without sending you emails as often or, if you desire, at all. You can always go check out what’s happening in the group when you have a free moment at work (which you’re more likely to find once you get seventy million fewer emails).

Take a few minutes to get control of the spam factor, because while LinkedIn really is a useful site, it’s hard to think fondly of it when you’re drowning in unmanageable oceans of email you’ll never read. If you’re particularly civic-minded, you might also take a minute to encourage LinkedIn in their mission of mercy. Awan says, “We welcome your feedback as we continue to make improvements.” On this issue, I’d say it’s worthwhile to provide all the encouragement we possibly can.