LinkedIn is turning into a Spam Fest. And so are all the other social networks– since there are so many marketing tools that will spam the crap out of us. Plus, crank out zillions of posts– spread across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google My Business, WordPress, and so forth. They promise you can get thousands of posts done without having to lift a finger– since it’s all automated. And these tools now have clever AI integrated, so they write seemingly personalized messages. I get fooled daily by these in my DMs and texts where only later do I realize I’m not talking to a human, even though the bot is chatting under someone’s profile I know. Resist the urge to let the spammy tools do this for you. This “spammy shortcut” may generate leads for you right now, but like any other new fad, it will eventually lose effectiveness. The right answer is to build real relationships and repurpose content from those interactions– like doing podcasts you record as video. The AI is still puzzled by how to fake these video interactions– even though it’s pretty smart at generating subject lines, blog posts, and direct messages.