Lonely on LinkedIn

Has any professional service practitioner gained value from participation in the social networking website LinkedIn?  I admit I've gone hot and cold on this site since I became a LinkedIn participant more than two years ago.  At first, I was invited to link by business associates and professionals that I knew.  It's easy to click the "Accept" button, and kind of interesting to see the contact information and descriptions of people's expertise.  I have found contact information for people with whom I had lost contact (and wondered where they landed), and I've been surprised by the "six degrees of separation" connections between members of my network.   That's the good part.

But beyond this somewhat nosy aspect of my interest in being LinkedIn, I'm wondering how it can be helpful to me, professionally.  For example, yesterday I received another in a number of occasional invitations to link to someone. 

This time, it was from someone I had never heard of.  Perhaps I've met this individual, when I've made a speech at a conference somewhere.  When I clicked on his profile, his background appeared to have some relevance to my business interests.  But he gave me no information in his invitation text about where or how we have met.  I sent him a reply e-mail, asking him to let me know where he'd heard of me.  No reply from him yet.  He replied with a plausible reason for wanting to connect with me.

In talking to some of my other business colleagues, I find they have similar puzzled responses about LinkedIn.  It sounds like a great concept, but nothing truly valuable has come of it yet.  And, candidly, I want  my "connections" with people to be worth something.  As it is now, I feel like simply a name on someone's list. 

Why couldn't the LinkedIn folks help us understand the basis for our linkages, before we commit?   Isn't there some way it could be made more personal?  As it is now, I feel lonely on LinkedIn. 

Comments

[Paul Dunay]

Suzanne

you make a really great point about LinkedIn - I have used it to post a job and ask my connections if they know of anyone that could fill a job I am hiring for. That gives it some purpose by putting all those connections to work.

Some aggressive head hunters have tried to link to me. And some sales folks I know have used it to find a person who can help them get to an influencer in a buying situation.

Facebook also recently popped onto the professional services scene and many folks I know are using both.

But perhaps they are lonely in both as well ...

pd

[Jeff Scurry]

Taking on the question, how can LinkedIn be helpful to you, professionally, you can use LinkedIn to:

- know who is in management at various professional service firms and associations (something that is much harder to do without it)

- ask questions about topics you want to write about and issues that concern firms (see here http://proposalsarechaos.blogspot.com/2007/07/proposal-questions-on-linkedin.html) and follow-up with people

- find sources for articles (we used this successfully for an article we are writing for the Journal of Integrated Marketing Communications)

- find out information on prospects, clients and competitors (it is very helpful for consultants to note that a potential client has given a recommendation for other consultants, where they came from and relationships in their network)

- warm-up leads

- connect the dots

- understand who you know at a prospect organization

- more good uses than bad...

There seems to be quite a bit of talk about the death of LinkedIn lately. (I suspect both the Facebook PR team and the jump to the new new thing are behind the flurry of articles such as Jeff Pulver's Businessweek article, Confessions of a LinkedIn Dropout.) LinkedIn is not the answer but just another weapon in the professional services sales arsenal.

As for the note you received with no explanation, that is the sender's fault, not LinkedIn's. I do not remember if I sent an invite to you or not but, if I did, it would say something like, I referenced you in an article I wrote and wanted to connect with you to see if there are opportunities for us to work together in the future.

[Mario Sundar]

I'm the Community Evangelist at LinkedIn and I've been a LI user for over 2 and a half years.

Jeff covers some great ways to use LinkedIn professionally. Personally, I've used LinkedIn to find jobs, get expert advice (LI Answers), recommend friends (I need to do more of this), business development, etc...

Suzanne,
If you've any questions on LinkedIn feel free to shoot me an email at msundar@linkedin.com.

Mario from LinkedIn

[Suzanne Lowe]

What a fascinating flurry this post caused! I learned (or re-learned) two things: 1) I may need to do more to make my "investment" in LinkedIn a valuable one, and 2) social media does not, by itself, help people make connections. Without a plausible reason to connect, people simply won't employ social media tools.

[Peter T.]

I think folks have expected Linked in to do something for them, but I don't think thats what its about.
Its what you do with it.

Any persons network is like equity in their home. I look at some folks on linked in that boast of a gazillion connections, but they are no more connected than I am to the people I pass in my car on my way to and from work every morning.

The value of any network isn't in its existence - its in its use. Each relationship is only as good as its strength and quality.

The key is to look at your inventory of connections (which is really all I view linked in as good for) and keep connecting with them to build stronger, higher quality interactions.

Thats my 2 cents.

[Liz Kupcha]

It would be nice if LinkedIn had some type of an add-in where you can say how you know somebody. Facebook has a popup where you can click work, school, family, friend, etc. in terms of your connection to a person.

At least you tried to get a dialogue going with this person instead of merely clicking "don't know" and leaving it at that.