Is This Social Networking Or Business?
I recently joined LinkedIn on the recommendation of others. I wasn’t sure what I hoped to get from it but surely this many users can’t be wrong. For those who don’t know this is a website which allows business people to connect with each other and build up a network of contacts.
As my contacts started to grow (and the number is still quite small), I started wondering if this was just a way to link to friends or is it really a useful business tool.
I suppose it’s too early to tell but in my case the profile of my connections certainly suggests that these are old friends and colleagues getting back in touch. I’ve even noticed that the people I search for are deep in my past so I’m certainly thinking that way at the moment.
So, if I’m to do more than re-ignite my social circle I need to find real business uses for this. Otherwise I’m just wasting my time while my business spirals into decline because my attention is elsewhere.
I could run down all the contacts of my connections and ask for introductions if someone looks interesting as a potential customer. There must be at least one for each connection, so if I can build my connections up to say 100, then it follows that I should be able to find 100 leads.
I’ve also noticed that in the “real” world, if I work with a supplier, they are much more likely to recommend me as a supplier to one of their customers. I should therefore also look in my connections’ contacts to find suppliers who can be recommended.
Following that logic, I should expand my own profile to make sure I look interesting to others as a supplier. When they do the same as me then my 100 connections should pop me up some of the time as a potential supplier.
Now, thinking about my old friends and colleagues, they have usually all gone on to have varied and interesting careers in all sorts of industries so some of them will probably be of interest either as a customer or a supplier.
I’ll do all this and then await with interest to see what happens.
Being a logical kind of person, I wonder if there are any real statistics on all this or am I shooting in the dark?
I also wonder if people have had genuine business as a result of the time they have invested in LinkedIn, or are they just keeping busy with yet another social networking site.
Finally, I wonder if maybe I’ve missed the point and someone will enlighten me.
Time will tell.
