The topic for the May Microfocus
meeting was LinkedIn.
Was LinkedIn worth linking into? Would it have benefits for your
business? Was it a good way to socialise on the Internet? Or was it a
waste of time and encouraged spam? I myself
was not able to attend the meeting at the time, but I did pass on some
of my
own thoughts. My first encounter with LinkedIn was one of regret – I
responded
to an invite and ended up with a lot of spam messages from LinkedIn, as
did
many people on my mailing list. Since then it has been a bit more
positive – I have
found some of my old clients on LinkedIn and even reunited with an old
friend.
And by a strange coincidence, LinkedIn sent me a message saying they
were
celebrating their tenth anniversary. I passed that detail on to
Microfocus as I
thought it might add something to the discussion that I would not be
able to
attend. Well, if LinkedIn is ten years old, it must have something going
for
it.
The feedback I received back from the discussion
revealed that Microfocus had come to the conclusion that LinkedIn can work for
you. However, LinkedIn is like a Facebook page – you need to devote time and
energy to keep your LinkedIn active. And if you have a busy schedule this can
be difficult. But if you can devote time and energy to LinkedIn, what would the
benefits be? Our group coordinator is going to try it over the next few weeks
to see what benefits she gets. I shall be looking forward to her feedback.
In the meantime, the benefits of LinkedIn that came up
in the meeting were similar to those of Facebook. They include Internet
socialising, sharing information on blogs and forums, joining interest groups, and
reuniting with people you have lost contact with, as I did. In terms of
business benefits, LinkedIn is just like Facebook. It is an avenue for making yourself
and your business visible on the Internet. You can connect with people who work
in the same industry as you, and you can also make contact with potential
customers. People can find you directly or through your connections. LinkedIn
can help you make yourself visible by replying to other people’s
comments/forums, and learn from others by joining groups in your field and
typing in your own updates of what you have been up to recently.
But, as with Facebook, your LinkedIn page is not private.
It is open to everyone, so you do not want personal content there.
So LinkedIn is just like Facebook and has the same type of benefits as
Facebook. So how does it differ from Facebook? Does LinkedIn have any
advantages over Facebook or will Facebook work just fine? If you have a
Facebook, is there any point in having a LinkedIn and vice versa? These are
questions I am left asking after reading this feedback, but I have no answers.
Except one – having a separate LinkedIn and Facebook can be an excellent way to
separate business and personal visibility on the Internet. So you can have a
business LinkedIn and a personal Facebook.
What are your thoughts on LinkedIn?
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