LinkedOut: a comic strip about LinkedIn
connecting
LinkedIn Part 5: I Highly Recommend Recommendations
If you’re a small business or a sales person you’re not selling a product or service, you’re selling yourself. For many, the thought of self-promotion just isn’t one that they are comfortable with. LinkedIn can help you with your discomfort.
Recommendations can serve as an effective alternative to selling yourself.
LinkedIn Part 4: Connecting Your Offline and Online Brand
LinkedIn, if you think about it, is simply an offline idea implemented in an online manner. It takes advantage of the ease of communicating and interacting that the internet provides.
LinkedIn hasn’t changed or replaced the old way of networking. It’s just added a new dynamic to the mix.
The Chicken (Chamber) or the Egg (LinkedIn)
I’ve stated often that LinkedIn is simply a tool that you can use to enhance your networking and grow your business, but alone it is simply an interesting application. By itself you can definitely conduct a successful job search. You can gain insightful information through the Answers section. You can even build credibility through generating […]
200 Connections…More Width than Depth?
At some point in the next week I will pass 200 connections. There was a time when I couldn’t imagine having more than 100 connections much less 200. Many of these people I know and some are people that I crossed paths with at the chamber and would like to get to know.
The separation is simply a matter of have I sat down with each person for an hour or not. LinkedIn makes it so easy to connect that we often mistake the number of connections we have (the width) with having an effective network (the depth). It’s important to strive for both, but it will take more work to create depth in your relationships.
Guy’s Jobs Story
This morning I received an email from Guy Havelick with a tale of two workers who were laid off. Here’s part of his email:
I work for a large corporation. They too often play the musical chairs game with far too few chairs. Recently two good friends, excellent contributors and employees, were caught when the music stopped. One had a great network and found another job immediately. The second was not properly networked and is still struggling to start his own business.
As a good employee, as secure as I can be working for a big company, how can I provide myself a safety net? (One that I would prefer not to be forced to use.) LinkedIn seems like the best social networking tool out there. How can I use LinkedIn to be that safety net? What’s the best way to sell my reputation when I’m not yet in a position to be bought?