Linked in Might Actually End Up Being the Link We Overlooked

If you read through my blogs and books, you'll see that my view of social media looked something like this:  YouTube and Blogs offer most local retailers and service companies an immediate return on investment, and sometimes and outstanding one.  Facebook, Twitter, and Linked in suck up tons of time and rarely result in an actual sale.  You should have a hand in all of them, but they aren't the best way to increased sales.  Google Plus and Pinterest are very interesting and are definitely worth a hard look. 

Now come Panda, Penguin, Venice, and all that.  With those algo changes we are back to unique, quality content being in the drivers feet at Google.  That means blogging and video are still the king and queen of social media, but it also means that the smart guys all know that.  How can you stand out?  By supporting your blogs and videos with FB, Twitter, Google+, Twitter, and Pinterest. 

So that brings me back to Linked in.  Over the past five years, Linked in has slowly but surely built up a vast network of people who have signed up and get the occasional email about someone's change in status.  There is just enough of a continuous presence to keep everyone interested.  Sure, there are those who make excellent use of Linked In to end employees or jobs, but I'm pretty sure you will agree that almost no small business owners have ever made a dime off of their involvement with Linked in. 

Now however, it is possible to quickly amass a large network in just a few hours of brainless activity while watching TV.  Inviting excellent, relevant people to connect with you is easier than following folks on Twitter, hoping they will follow you back.  You merely go to Linked in sites of those whom you are already linked to, and you can invite anyone they are linked to.  From there list you will undoubtedly find some folks who have even more relevant folks. 

Three years ago, this was a long arduous task, but it is common to find linked friends and people you may not even know who have 100's of connections.  So, over the past 24 hours I added 65 people with about 3 hours of multi-tasking in front of my boob tube. 

What is the advantage?  There are many things you can do with your Linked in group.  The basic idea is that you can put up an update, such as your availability for work, job description of a possible hire, or even a sale item or new product offer, and your group will have a high likelihood of giving it a quick notice.  And they may even resend it out to their group. 

Anyway, this is not the spot to list the many options available on Linked In.  The usefulness for the purposes of this post is that you can promote your blog posts and videos.  Takes a few seconds.  And if only a few check out you content, it helps to build your stats, hence your ranking, which help your visits, which helps your ranking.  And over time, as you will see, this process can grow everything at once. 





You merely go to your update, give a quick headline and description of the media you want to promote and give the link.  Easy.

So the little engine that could, the tortoise called Linked in has created a huge network that can.  What about my least favorite, Twitter.  That's next.

What have I missed?  What can you add?

PS.  While you are thinking about it, here is my Linked in.