Two months is a long time. But two months slips by fairly quick in blogging world. You get busy and don’t add a new post for the week and the next thing you know it’s been 3 weeks (or nine). I’ve been busy with other projects and have had to put things on hold.
First I’ve been launching a new benefits company and developing the website. I finally finished that today and it can be viewed at www.iXLbenefits.com. Not that you care but I finished the site and decided I wanted to add a opening splash page. Once I created one that I liked it really didn’t match the site behind it so I redesigned the site around the splash page. I like the look and feel and love the fact that it doesn’t mention a single insurer or insurance plan.
Second, I’ve been developing the website for my LinkedIn group North Fulton Business Group. This can be found at www.northfultonbg.com. It’s launched as well.
There’s been a lot of action around LinkedIn and their groups. The problem with LinkedIn groups is that other than a way to be able to connect to a large group on LinkedIn that you don’t really know, there isn’t much to it. They now have message boards available, but so what. That doesn’t do much. And anyone these days can set up a blog and create a message board.
I still struggle with LinkedIn because with all that they have done right, I still think they’re missing some key pieces to foster interaction. Everything at www.northfultonbg.com could easily be duplicated on LinkedIn, which would create more of a foundation for online networking.
I don’t want to sound too pessimistic because LinkedIn is a great tool. Beyond enhancing my network, though, I’m still looking for ways to generate business. I think many of you are in the same boat. You’re on LinkedIn, but you still really don’t know how to use it effectively to generate consistent business.
I’ve currently identified one way to possible generate some business and will be testing it out over the next couple of months. I hope to be able to share a success story that you can duplicate.
Update: This is nothing to do with LinkedIn. I mentioned above that I finished the XL Benefits website, but after looking at it for two months it just didn’t work. Two designs later I can finally say I accomplished what I wanted. Really!
