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# The pitfalls of using engagement pods on LinkedIn
- URL: https://www.techstories.co/the-pitfalls-of-using-engagement-pods-on-linkedin/
- Published: 2025-01-24T08:24:00.000Z
- Updated: 2025-01-25T16:25:50.000Z
- Description: Here's what pod services are not telling you.
- Author: Paul Mah
- Tags: Unfiltered, Technology

Thinking of using an engagement pod to "increase your reach" on LinkedIn? Here's what these services are not telling their subscribers.

It's so tempting.

For tens of dollars a month, it's possible to sign up for a service to get 100 likes and comments - or more, for each of your post.

Beyond the obvious reasons which I've written about in the past, here are 3 new reasons this *UnfilteredFriday* why it's a bad idea.

**Everything you do can be tracked**

It's good to have social cred, isn't it? Just use it for a few months, grow your following first, and stop later. Nobody will be the wiser.

Hint: It's easy to start but hard to stop.

Well, there are those like D A N I E L H A L L who has made it a mission to track down pod users. A gifted coder, Daniel has written code that logs into the top pods out there.

And it had allowed him to see the most interesting things:

- Requests for 'likes'.
- Sample comments to use.

And his apps have been collecting logs - for years now.

At last count, he has a database of tens of thousands of users who have ever sent out requests for engagements across multiple pod services.

- Top influencers.
- Gurus selling LinkedIn training.
- Some senior leaders of large firms\*.
- Even some LinkedIn Top Voices.

Don't take my word for it - ask him and he'll gladly tell you. Do you really want to be recorded as gaming the system?

\*𝘓𝘪𝘬𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘣𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘴𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘮𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘢 '𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘴'.

**They use the access to create new services**

In the 2 months of posting daily in 2023, I subscribed to a new service that allowed me to schedule my LinkedIn posts, though I avoided the AI copying, I mean AI 'rewriting' features.

All good and well.

The next month, however, it suddenly launched a new, very high-end service offering the profiles of millions of users from their 'database'. Where did this data come from?

I never got a satisfactory answer and unsubscribed soon after.

But yes, it's possible for pods and dodgy service providers to profit from your connections because of the below reason.

**Cancelling doesn't stop them**

Most pod services work by making a copy of your authentication token. They then masquerade as you from their servers, engaging with others from your pod.

But unless you log out manually or explicitly revoke the session - invalidating the tokens - these services can continue to like and comment on others' posts.

This is not a theory but has been shown to happen. And LinkedIn cookies have a default expiration time: one year after their creation... which is a long time.

What are your thoughts about pods?