Generating Business by LinkedIn

It has been a busy week. I set out one week ago to increase my network on LinkedIn. At that time I had about 140+ connections and thought I was reasonably connected. A few weeks earlier I had been at a Conference where Stan Relihan spoke. He is Australia's most LinkedIn person with some 16,000+ connections. You can also see him noted on TopLinkedIn where others around the world are listed.

From this I felt a need to see where this would take me. Using Business Cards and my existing Outlook, I was able to generate another 100+ connections and I was past my original goal of 250+. Then I discovered there are groups which I joined and was able to find more people connected to me via our common connections to Associations, past companies etc.

Now I was on a role.....500+ was in my grasp. Why did I want 500+? Well when you look at Stan's profile you will see he has 500+ connections. I wanted that same tag. Compared to my profile, you will see I have a unique number noted .

Another thing I noticed along the journey was that some people did not want to Link. They would mark my Invitation as "Dont know him". This is a bad. If you get five of these you get blocked from directly linking and have to know the person's email address to Link.

Why do people do this? the reason you join something like Linked In is to build your connections and business network. Every connection is valuable . I had somebody even say they were "limiting their network at this time". That is an interesting concept. I would suggest FaceBook or MySpace is about that. You have a limited number of people you wish to be with.

So how is this helping Business?

Well one of my connections, Luke Harvey-Palmer, blogged this on Buzz Blog. He outlined 40 things you must do in LinkedIn to improve your Personal Brand.

What has been my experience? Well today at 470+ LinkedIn has noticed me. I have little box that was not there before. It says my profile has been viewed by 12 people in the last 4 days and I have been in search results 31 times in the last 3 days. Two weeks ago that was not happening.

What else? Well I have been contacted by Recruiters seeing if I know anybody for roles. I have been contacted by Recruiters wondering if I am interested in a role. That doesnt happen often. I have been contacted by people wondering if we can do business together. I have been contacted by people to see "what I am up to" and lastly I have had people contacting me to sell me a service.

The traffic to my website and to my InForm consulting website has quadrupled in the last two weeks. All the good SEO tips work.

As Luke would say I feel a "Buzz". All in all, this is good. Your Personal Brand is important. Any possible way you can raise your profile, legally, is a good thing.

Let me tell you how it is going in one months time. Just a blip?

What about your experience? Have you tried LinkedIn?

theBizWiz
www.boulterassociates.com.au
www.informgroup.com.au