Where’s The Value In Sends And Saves Of Our Posts?   

Post Sends and Saves strike me as a flawed feature. So far anyway. 

These are stats we can see for our content – how many times people clicked to save them, and how many times they were sent by a reader to someone.

So what are the possible positives here? 

• They give us positive feedback as to which content resonates with people.
• They send the same signals to the LinkedIn™ algos. Of course we have no clue if or how Saves and Sends are weighted. We just assume they are. 

But there are possible negatives too:

• As Tony Restell points out, you can Send a post to multiple people, but he says that only counts as a single send. Hypothetical case: Someone finds your content so relevant they send it to everyone in their company. Wouldn’t that warrant a little bit better recognition than a single Send? 
• Sends and saves are only visible to the author, so there is nothing to be gained by using a pod to artificially inflate these numbers. On the other hand if these are used by the algos to decide on a posts value, then Saves and Sends – requiring only a click or two – are prime features to be gamed. Heck, you don’t even need a Pod as you can go Save and Send your own posts. 
• We can see that our content really resonates with someone. The operative word there is “someone.” We can’t see who it was, which to my mind is bizarre. If a Save has so much more value than a Reaction, why is it I can see  who the people that Like my post are, but not the people who thought my post was important enough they wanted to save it to read later?
• The assumption is that someone found your content relevant enough to Save or Send. But with the Saver or Sender being anonymous, how do we know if they are relevant to us? Are they in my Ideal Customer Profile or are they casual, “I was notified because a connection commented on it” types?

So what does all this mean? LinkedIn™ has made it clear that they want thoughtful and coherent comments on other people’s content. Saves only require a mouse click and Sends a couple clicks. And they are completely anonymous. I hate to say it, but as they are currently set up, these two strike me as vanity metrics.