My brother encouraged me to join LinkedIn. He said that it was a more serious and business-like social networking site. Anyone have any thoughts or experiences using LinkedIn.
I agree with him.
I’ve just started. Really oriented towards networking for business professionals. None of the silliness that you find with something like facebook.
Absolutely. It is for business networking. Keep social stuff on Facebook.
I’ve been using it for about 3 yrs now, I like it for my business contact info. It helps to keep connected with others you have worked with, and it’s amazing to see how many common acquaintances people have. No need to constantly update your status either 
Do it, then I can link to you LOL
AP
its a waste of time… people’s need for constant “networking” sort of makes me laugh. in many cases its a bunch of unemployed folks looking at each other saying how bad things are or in other cases it spurns out so much more unwanted email and unsolicited sales calls that people now get 5-10x the amount of junk email than anything useful. If your into sales, get yourself a good customer support system, if you need a friend get a dog, and if you need someone to gripe to get a therapist. I have one of each and life is good.
You ask that AFTER you added me???
To answer, yes, it is strictly professional. There are many groups you can join also, usually pertaining to your own interests (for me, algorithmic trading, quant finance, and a couple others), there are job listings, head hunters, etc.
You ask that AFTER you added me???
To answer, yes, it is strictly professional. There are many groups you can join also, usually pertaining to your own interests (for me, algorithmic trading, quant finance, and a couple others), there are job listings, head hunters, etc.
Damn frenchy, you appear to be even more boring in persons than on ST. I am not sure how that is possible…
its a waste of time… people’s need for constant “networking” sort of makes me laugh. in many cases its a bunch of unemployed folks looking at each other saying how bad things are or in other cases it spurns out so much more unwanted email and unsolicited sales calls that people now get 5-10x the amount of junk email than anything useful. If your into sales, get yourself a good customer support system, if you need a friend get a dog, and if you need someone to gripe to get a therapist. I have one of each and life is good.
2 thoughts…
First, a “good customer support system” is a network.
Second, I’m guessing that therapist really earns his/her money!
people’s need for constant “networking” sort of makes me laugh.
Indeed. As a life long salesman, I have an extenisve network of contacts already. It’s not in a funkly interface like LinkedIn, but I have all the contact information for many, many people in a vareity of industries that I have met over the years - it’s what you do if you want to be successful.
It’s also what Malcolm Gladwell pointed out in the Tipping Point - connectors are important people in the propagation of any idea. These are people that maintain a great number of contacts, who have an extensive network of contacts that they have naturally developed over the years. Current social networking sites such as Facebook and the others, really facilitate all of this with a user friendly interface and a number of funky applications.
I am also realizing that many people don’t opperate this way, and in this current economic down-turn, when they get let go from a job, they literally have no where to turn or go to. They are starting from ground-zero, on the contacts and networking front. That would be a daunting task.
Is it mainly “Business” or “Business professionals”, companies versus individuals?
~Matt
Steve,
As others have mentioned, it is a business professional site. I started using it a couple of years ago, but never really did get fully engaged on it. I have friends and family on Facebook, business colleagues on LinkedIn, and am always looking for ways to expand that network (if you are also a long time salesperson, you too know that sales never sleeps, and EVERYBODY either is a prospect or knows a prospect that could buy from you 
I read an article in a local OC rag about a month ago about how these young CEO’s (30 and under) have built multi million and even billion dollar businesses around networking. One guy spends his entire morning on something like 12 different sites and uses it to expand his network and his business. Listening to his philosophy was interesting, as he said he can network with more people online faster than he can in person. It has worked for him, I think his business just hit $100 million in a few short years.
Just like anything, LinkedIn is what you make of it. As a sales & marketing professional, one would think I’d utilize it a bit more (I have some colleagues who simply dumped their database in there - which I’m not sure all my 15,000 engineers or engineering companies would appreciate without their permission (although it does ask if they want to be “linked in”).
Play with it, enjoy it, if it doesn’t work - you can always fade away into the vastness of the world wide web
It’s like anything else. If you use it correctly it can be an asset.
It’s like anything else. If you use it correctly it can be an asset.
I can see that already. It’s a tool. I have been around enough to know that nothing really happens until you get in front of someone - be it closing a business deal, a sale, a job interview . . etc . .Despite all these marvelous and funky connection and networking tools that we have at our disposal today, we still need that personal face time to really be comfortable about making the big decisions.
It is a good business networking tool and is not your standard social website. Just this week the VP at my last company invited me to join his network.
Yes.
It is “business professionals” mostly, but businesses absolutely have profiles and will put out job solicitations etc.
An example - as more people from my employer join and list the employer correctly, the bigger our company’s profile becomes. If you check out some large company’s profile you’ll see lots of demographic info on their workforce, including where most employees come from and leave for. Interesting stuff.
To all others - slowly less true networking stuff is creeping in. The reading list thing from Amazon, the shared project space, etc. I can see the value, but some of those tools are loosely relevant.
Yep, LinkedIn is for professionals and professional type of social networking. Facebook may be “silly”, but it is addictive, fun, and pretty mature. MySpace is now the trailer park of social networking.
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LinkedIn could be useful but think with the proliferation of online directories and online networking sites (professional and social) that it may lose some of it’s effectiveness. It is a job recruiter’s and headhunter’s dream. Not so sure about using it for sales and business deals. To use all the features like being able to contact someone, view a person’s profile, etc. you actually have to pay a minimum $24.95 fee per month. It doesn’t hurt to have an entry in LinkedIn but if someone contacts you through that, then you have to be an active paying member. Just one more account that you have to login and check, in addition to your email, blackberry, cell phone, Facebook, etc.
Don’t belong to LinkedIn but have a Facebook account and so many present and past co-workers belong to it and sent friend requests, that it serves both purposes - social and professional. However, I do not really use it as a social tool…I don’t do the silly stuff and am really careful about adding friends b/c I don’t want someone posting pics or writing crazy things on my wall for all my co-workers to see.