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Linked In? How Are You Using LinkedIn?

By Michael Stelzner

I have to admit that the LinkedIn website is rather addictive in nature.

It kinda works like this:

Someone asks you to join their network and then you realize you should expand your own network.

You start searching for your friends and business associates and find they also belong to LinkedIn.

You send them a “Join my network” message and then they start doing the same to other people.

This sets off a chain reaction that ultimately drives traffic to LinkedIn.

Smart viral marketing!

If you want to see my profile:

View Michael (Mike) Stelzner's profile on LinkedIn

How are you using LinkedIn? Has it actually brought you opportunity?

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This entry was posted on Friday, April 27th, 2007 at 6:56 am and is filed under Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

  • Coincidently, my blog post today is entitled "Why I use LinkedIn" (http://www.grey-consulting.com/blog/2008/03/why...).

    Further to "How to Use LinkedIn to Create Authoritative Content" (from Michael's newsletter)... Implicitly, your LinkedIn network is built from a chain of trust. It's likely that a trusted source knows, or knows whom to ask, about information that you need.

    - Maurene
    http://www.linkedin.com/in/maurenegrey
  • Green - I will fix that link - Mike
  • Diane the link is not working with that structure you may remove the , part to make it work:)
  • Diane
    For me, right now, adding any additional "to-dos" are distractors from what I need to be doing which is focusing on my business goals and working every day on steps to reach them. So, things like LinkedIn just turn into additional noise in my head.

    However, advice like I see here at writingwhitepapers is stuff that I can use to build materials to help my own business. So, I think I'll be adding this site to my list of blogs to visit.

    Right now one blog I visit regularly is http://www.jamesbrausch.com , where I find advice that keeps pointing me back to working on "working my way out of a job." That's been my goal ever since I got his Freedom Business System, which gives more nitty-gritty specifics of the idea which I first encountered in the book The eMyth.
  • I also have a linkedin account but since the day I joined... I only visited the site once and that was the day I joined.
  • Hi Whitney and Leif;

    I have a sneaking suspicion that LinkedIn is mostly done for vanity.

    I know I have never used it for business and have rarely been contacted through it.

    Mike
  • I have a friend who is using it quite a lot, and has received several job offers with it. I have also received one job offer with it, but this job was in another country so it did not really fit me at the time.

    As always, it might be useful, but there are so many other useful things. You have to choose where to spend your time.
  • It's funny that you bring this topic up this precise week, Michael. At one of the sessions at the recent ASJA conference, a presenter asked a roomful of writers (about 50) if anyone used LinkedIn and had any success with it. About half the room was "linked in", but only one person said she'd gotten work directly off a contact through her profile.

    Many of the other people who got up to answer said they'd mainly found it useful for reconnecting with people. A couple said that reconnecting with old colleagues had led to a name that led to another name that led to a bit of work.

    Didn't Guy Kawasaki blog recently about the rewrite he did on his LinkedIn profile?
  • David and Tom;

    It is very interesting for people that just get into it.

    However, I have seen no benefits other than people making recommendations publicly.

    I would love to see how others have benefited from it.

    Mike
  • I have a LinkedIn account, but haven't invested much time in it (or in any of the other social network sites).

    I can see the benefits, but have too many other interesting projects that aren't getting done... 8-)
  • I've only recently looking into the whole LinkedIn site and I can see the huge potential there is for networking.

    Seems like you've built yourself a nice network already, Mike.
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