LinkedIn networking – a must-have or a right pest?

I recently attended one of Steve’s half-day LinkedIn workshops ‘Using LinkedIn to Grow your Business’, to see what all the fuss was about and whether LinkedIn could be an effective marketing tool for my business.

Like most professionals, I have a presence on LinkedIn, but similarly, I am not a frequent user…..erm, truth be told I’m a rather infrequent user – the question was, what was I missing out on?

Some LinkedIn facts & figures

• LinkedIn has more registered users than the entire population of the USA
• The LinkedIn joining age limit has been lowered to 13
• A new member joins LinkedIn every 2 seconds 
• 95% of companies use LinkedIn for recruitment

The 4 C’s of Digital

The 4 P’s of Marketing are rapidly being replaced by the 4 C’s of Digital

• Marketing (old): Product, Place, Price, Promotion
• Digital (new): Creating, Curating, Connecting, Culture

Connecting – this is the keyword as far as LinkedIn is concerned.

Branding yourself in the Digital World

I agree that in this new digital world, if you are a small business, you are your company’s brand.

Similarly, I had already recognised that if you worked for a large company, the chances of having a job for life were exceedingly remote, so you had better be ready to ‘brand’ yourself.

What I appreciate more than ever now though, is how important LinkedIn can be in differentiating yourself from the competition – after all, if the average user isn’t all that active on LinkedIn, then should be a relatively easy win, shouldn’t it?

What next though?

You get out what you put in