Think of your LinkedIn profile as an interactive billboard. The billboard has been erected but you’re waiting for traffic to drive down the road. You can wait and hope that someone takes a wrong turn and sees you, or you can try to detour traffic past your billboard.
connecting
The LinkedIn Light Bulb is Flickering
Here is what I used to believe. I believed that protecting the value of your network required that you know or have plans to get to know those that you were connected to. I believed that it only made sense to add new connections as I met people within my chamber or other offline networking. Since my prospects are in Georgia I believed that there was limited value in connecting to other outside of the state. I was wrong.
The Average LinkedIn Network
Numbers are always interesting to consider. Take for instance the 40+ million users on LinkedIn (not an official number but an educated guess). That’s a pretty impressive number. But, more important is the number of people that are active. The value of one member in your network is not equal to the value of another.
But how do you place a value on each member?
Wednesday Comic: LinkedOut 03
LinkedOut comic number 3. How do you balance privacy with the need to show enough information to have a profile that works? Do you allow your connections to see your contacts? If not, why have you chosen not to?
LinkedIn Benefits Don’t Follow a Straight Line
Most of us joined LinkedIn because we hoped that it would somehow impact our bottom line. That at some point down the road we would be rewarded with some economic return. I’ve been fortunate in that it has generated business for me. Just as important, it has helped me provide value to those that I have connected to.
Straight line benefits include developing new partners or alliances and developing new client’s. Crooked line benefits include introducing connections, writing recommendations, and simply helping others.
The Linkulator: How Good is Your LinkedIn Presence
Have you ever wondered how your presence on LinkedIn compares to the average LinkedIn user. Last year I created the Linkulator to allow people to score their profile and presence numerically. You simply answer some questions about your profile and participation in things such as Answers and Recommendations. It then calculates a score and displays the average score of everyone who has computed a score. It also classifies your presence based on your score and offers some tips to improve.