STRATEGIES OF LINKEDIN AND OTHER BUSINESS NETWORKS

STRATEGIES OF LINKEDIN AND OTHER BUSINESS NETWORKS 

 The freewheeling and highly personal nature of Facebook, MySpace, 
and other social networks is an alien landscape for businesses. Your organization
can fi t in and thrive there, but it will take a lot of reconnaissance 
and slow acclimatization. 
 LinkedIn, by contrast , is a natural for you. It is the easiest place for any 
business to begin exploring the social-media landscape because it ' s designed 
specifi cally as a business-networking tool. 
anything you do for a living will have its counterpart
communities, colleagues, and vendors present on LinkedIn. 
 There are currently 65 million LinkedIn members, hailing from more 
than 200,000 companies, and the rate of adoption is growing at a blistering 
speed. Some of the growth may be coming from the troubled economy and 
job market. Pointing to month-over-month upticks of more than 20 per-
cent, TechCrunch's Erick Schonfeld notes, “When times are tough, net-
working is a survival skill.” 5
 But whether in a good economic climate or bad, the business networking
resources on LinkedIn are a powerful help for anyone's career and 
daily productivity How? 
 You ' ll notice I didn ' t say anything about customers. By and large, 
LinkedIn is not a place to go in search of customers—unless, of course, 
you are a business-to-business company, a consultant, or professional user-
vice. In that case, LinkedIn can be an enormously fertile ground for you.

who, as an early stage angel investor, has his hands in Facebook, Digg, 
Ning, Technorati, Six Apart, Funny or Die, and literally scores of other 
Web businesses. With a BS in symbolic studies from Stanford and a masters
in philosophy from Oxford, Hoffman combines big-picture thinking 
with deep technical know-how. 
 Hoffman, who has invested across the entire spectrum of social media, 
believes that people are likely to maintain two or three relatively distinct 
social-networking personas—and it is the business persona that LinkedIn 
so squarely targets 
. 
 The two value-added services from which LinkedIn draws its revenues 
are employment advertising placed by companies and recruiters and 
upgraded account fees. LinkedIn ’ s other revenue source is from ads it dis-
plays on the site. 
 “Reid has a belief that every person is his or her own brand,” said Matt 
Cohler, a former LinkedIn exec now at Benchmark Capital. “He means 
that in a good way, not a cheesy way. He believes that we are all our own 
organizations in the world today, and that the things that power and drive 
goodness in the world are relationships and trust.” 6
 “I actually think every individual is now an entrepreneur, whether they 
recognize it or not,” Hoffman told Charlie Rose in 2009. “Average job 
length is two to four years. That makes you a small business . . . You are 
the entrepreneur of your own small business. How do you get to your next 
gig? How do you do your career progression? All these things now fall on 
the individual shoulders. And so, they ’ re essentially an entrepreneur.” 7
 Some 25 percent or so of LinkedIn users are hiring managers or recruiters, 
but LinkedIn is about much more than jobs. LinkedIn also supports person-
to-person networking, a very useful Q&A functionality, and professional 
groups. Not to mention, many business-to-business advertisers are promot-
ing free webinars and other sometimes interesting and relevant things. 
 So you ’ re ready to start using LinkedIn. Here are some tips to make the 
experience successful for you and your business: 

Nine Steps for Making the Most of LinkedIn 

 1. Connect to key people in your real-life professional network —your 
most important colleagues with whom you have a special connection. 
Key vendors or clients. Past colleagues who have moved on to other 
employers, the people you ’ re always glad to run into at conferences.

2. Stay focused . We all have varied interests and a broad range of people 
in our lives. Think of your Facebook network: Aunt Millie, an ex-high 
school sweetheart, some pals from work, college buddies, your 
boss (gulp!). Soon there ’ s nothing you can post on your wall that feels 
comfortable, authentic, and relevant for everybody in your network. 
Don ’ t let that happen to your LinkedIn network. One beauty of Linked In 
is that as a professional networking tool, it ’ s inherently focused, as well 
as more discreet in tone. However, it ’ s easy to get off base in the con-
nections you seek out or the unsolicited ones that you accept. I work 
hard to connect with people I know, and know pretty well, in my indus-
try and who likely share my business interests, goals, conference-going 
schedule, etc. I ignore most connection requests from people I haven ’ t 
met, or who seem only trying to sell me something, or who just seem to 
be obsessive “people collectors.” At the end of the day, I like to have an 
elevator pitch about my network. I can say it is comprised not exclu-
sively but mostly of B2C e-commerce and marketing executives. They 
are a great group for me to ask questions about search-engine optimiza-
tion or who is going to attend the Internet Retailer Web Design show. 
It ’ s probably not a good network from which to recruit investment 
bankers or to get legal advice, but it suits my purposes. And the compo-
sition of your network isn ’ t just for your benefi t, but also to those select 
few you share it with. “Shared connections” is a great indicator of the 
overlap between people in the same industry or job, and it makes their 
connections richer and more useful because you ’ re introducing your 
connections to others like them. 
3. Complete your profi le . This isn ’ t number one on the list, because I 
want you to be a little familiar with the platform, and seeing whose 
profi les are most appealing, before you fi nish yours. What you choose 
to include in your LinkedIn profi le, and what tone you adopt, is impor-
tant. This is not a resume, per se. It is a professional biography, a busi-
ness card, selling points, and a subtle window into who you are as a 
person.
4. Post your status . LinkedIn lets you check whether you want your sta-
tus post to also go out as a tweet in your Twitter feed. That ’ s a handy, 
laborsaving touch, and it ’ s easily turned off if your LinkedIn post is 
going to be inappropriate for your Twitter feed or vice versa. Letting 
your connections know what you ’ re working on, sharing a new devel-
opment in your industry, or voicing your opinions on a topic of mutual 
interest is a great way to anchor each other in your professional worlds

and keep each other up-to-date. The status bar is also where I publish 
links to any blog post or article I ’ ve written. Without doing that, my 
blog would surely wither into obscurity, but by doing it, I give it a 
chance of getting some attention. 

 5. Ask and answer questions . LinkedIn questions are superpowerful. 
Answering questions well—and being selected as a “best answer” by 
the person who asked the question—is a nice little badge of courage on 
your profi le. 
6. Provide and ask for recommendations—but sparingly . A few well-
chosen recommendations from past bosses, employees who reported to 
you, and clients or vendors who worked with you convey a more tan-
gible sense of who you are and how good you are. It feels a bit narcis-
sistic to ask for recommendations, but it ’ s something you have to 
do—you ’ ll never get any unless you ask. 

 7. Join groups . LinkedIn groups are a mixed bag, and the LinkedIn plat-
form does not bestow a ton of useful functionality on groups. But nev-
ertheless, if you can fi nd relevant groups and start posting in discussions, 
you may fi nd that you make connections that are useful and learn some 
useful things. Discussions you elect to “watch” are e-mailed to your 
in-box, which can be zero activity for many groups and can be terribly 
annoying in that rare overactive group that just takes off virally (“What 
is your favorite motivational quote?” was a discussion I was ready to 
slit my wrists over after a few dozen alerts). 
 8. Use Amazon Reading List . This is a handy feature that lets others see 
what books you are reading and what you think of them. If you do a lot 
of business reading—management, marketing, self-help, technical, 
how-to, etc.—share it. It ’ s often a kickoff to some interesting interac-
tions, and at the very least it signals something about what makes you 
tick intellectually and professionally. 
 9. Use TripIt . Another handy and easy to use application, TripIt lets 
you log your business travel schedule. If you travel much, it ’ s of 
interest to your connections (it may cue them to connect with you at 
a shared conference or meeting). LinkedIn also reminds you of who 
among your connections lives in the city you ’ re visiting. That ’ s help-
ful, and it gets to one of the most powerful aspects of social networking
: these connections are stronger and more satisfying when 
the digital connections are reinforced by occasional face-to-face 
meetings.