Below is Rammohan Sundaram's post on LinkedIn. (Reproduced with permission)

I recently let go off a badge on LinkedIn because I realised I don’t need vanity validation.

I was given “Top Brand Management Voice” - first few days I was thrilled and then I saw atleast a 1000 posts that had these vanity validations.

Smart strategy for continuous engagement for LinkedIn. It works for them because they realise the world is full of people who needed validations. I didn’t post anything for 3 months and then it disappeared!

The reason it disappeared was I was not ready to dance to the tune of LinkedIn on topics where they needed my free inputs for their engagement even if it meant there were a whole host of people trying to get a badge.

That day I told myself - I will post not for Vanity Validations - if I am able to make an impact to the entire population of the country then automatically I will be considered a strong total LinkedIn Influencer.

LinkedIn sorry you did your best but I just changed my goal post!