Secret Tip #4: Linked In to Replace Your Phonebook?

This is my fourth "Secret" tip that most online marketers usually keep to themselves. I've already spoken about Twitter and the Lead Generation secret: http://ping.fm/AqEEQ

My last blog spoke about Lead Retention secrets of Facebook: http://ping.fm/SHeEB

This time around, I'm going to talk about the Linked In secret... How Linked In empowers your business networking and becomes a fully fledged, Little Black Book of professionals you can call on at your whim.

Firstly, we've all heard the saying, 'It's not what you know, it's who you know', so after the MySpace/Facebook craze, it wasn't going to be long before someone "businessed" up Social Media, and so Linked In stands today.

LinkedIn.com is a very official looking website with the sole purpose based around you and your immediate connections.

So after you've registered, you're invited to add everyone out of your email contacts list, and your workplace. From there, LinkedIn asks you to see who else you know, based on your current immediate connections.

Here's where the beauty lies. When one of your connections grows their networks, they in turn, end up empowering your network.

Traditionally, if there was some high-flying Director you always wanted to talk to, you'd have to wait either for chance, or know someone close to him to even send him an email.

With LinkedIn, you can type in any name, and see how many connection circles you are away from that person. So lets say you wanted to talk to John Smith of Smith & Co about the possibilities of working together on a project. You type his name into the search bar (and there would probably be a fair bit of John Smiths, so you might want to stick a suburb in too).

Once you've found your John Smith, LinkedIn tells you if any of your immediate connections know him, or if any of their connections know him. Then you actually have a referral path to go through. You send an email to your connection, asking him to introduce you to John Smith, or they might know John Smith's secretary, so you can be connected to him/her.

The greatest thing about LinkedIn is that there's no rubbish. LinkedIn has somehow managed to keep it professional. Business and career advancement is the flavour, and no one really does anything different.

A few great plugins also help to power your profile. Things like TripIt, which tells every single one of your connections where you're flying to, where they can engage with your once your there. There's a TypePad, which feeds your Blogs to your profile, and a nifty feature that allows you to update your status every time you utilise Twitter.

As a bonus, LinkedIn integrates beautifully with an iPhone, and synchronises your contacts with LinkedIn, meaning those really important contacts are easily accessible from your phone book, including a bit about who they are in the corporate world.

It is is breakthrough of network and knowledge that has allowed any LinkedIn user a more powerful, connected experience.

So get a profile on LinkedIn, your networks/contacts/business development will thank you for it.

If you would like to know how to further utilise the web to empower your business networks, ask us here: http://ping.fm/3CtH2

Until Next Time,

Tomer Garzberg

http://ping.fm/NDCez