Wow! It’s an honor to have been mentioned in your blog about LinkedIn … by far the most valuable resource (and book!) out there concerning the subject. Thank you!

I continue to see people asking “What is a LION” on the LinkedIn Q&A, and several months after writing my original definition I would simplify the meaning by just saying that a LION is someone who is generally open to receiving new invites, but does not necessarily accept them. I have seen too many exceptions to the rule to state otherwise.

As far as finding other LIONs, there are many open networking groups on LinkedIn, such as the original LION group, where LIONs can be found. That being said, just putting “LION” as a keyword in the People Search will return more than 18,000 people (not all are LIONs but doing a boolean search and adding “Open Networker” or “Invite Me” will still give you many results). Similarly, if you are a LION, through SEO techniques, I was able to get my profile to be in the top 40 listed for a “LION” search. And this was not difficult to do.

It all depends on your objective of why you use LinkedIn. For someone who spent most of his career working for foreign companies abroad and currently in transition and wanting to connect across continents and industries, a LION strategy makes perfect sense for me. But it is definitely not for everyone. And I don’t pretend to be the authority on what a LION means, because with so many new “LIONs” over the last several months, the meaning of the word has become diluted to the point where there is no single authority on the subject anymore.

Thank you again for all of the insight that you have provided and looking forward to your new blog posts as LinkedIn continues to evolve!

I asked him to post his comment here, but he said he doesn’t do blog stuff. I do think that his perspective is valuable, so if you are in LION investigation mode” please read his post.

Realize, however, that the entire thread is a bigger picture, where he gets blasted by other members of the forum, and his replies tell a lot about his character. If this is something (or someone) you want to get involved with, go for it. Just realize what/who you are getting involved with.

I only recommend you read the entire thread if you have the time and interest in LION stuff (or, are doing a paper on the social aspects of online forums).

Realize that I wrote some stuff that maybe I shouldn’t have, and there is a lot of strong finger-pointing stuff going on there. I am personally attacked, and the LION guy says that based on this post, 20% of my book must be flawed Don’t read it on a queasy stomach, it’s the darker side of humanity.

Finally, I have chosen to NOT respond, based on the moderator asking to close the thread, and my assumption that any reply would just keep feeding the fire.

Each person has to determine their own strategy and if being a LION supports that then more power to them.

LON’s can benefit folks new to LinkedIn by expanding their network. I advise everyone trying to build their network to connect to a couple of LION’s to do so (although I usually give them the name of a couple of people I know who are Lions but are also active in the community).

On the flip side I think Closed networkers are missing one of the benefits of being on LinkedIn and that is to expand their network.

I’ve met many new contacts by inviting them to connect after they attended the same chamber meeting that I did, even though we did not meet personally. I usually find that the connection is a great ice breaker and at the next meeting its easy to get into a conversation. Maybe with this philosophy I should call myself a TIGER, or just simply a NETWORKER.

Greetings; I’ll try to do my best to add a third scenario to Doug’s.

When I started back in July’ 06 as a LI member, I thought that being a LION was a good idea… but it wasn’t.

During my first two years as a LI member, I’ve had to learn how to revamp my profile and contact settings in order to make things a bit clearer (now, I sort of like who I am but not satisfied yet).

After receiving invitations from many LION’s with no actual results (many attempts to talk with no answer… just silence), I had no choice but to refresh my list of contacts from 120 to 92. Difficult thing to do because networking doesn’t work that way but I think it’s less difficult to manage.

Today, from an international perspective, I try to focus my efforts towards creating serious contacts mostly with decision making (hiring) executives working for multinationals (financial institutions and/or private companies) doing business in Mexico (Mexico City).

I’ve been somehow successful in building a list of contacts mostly in the global financial industry and receive feedback from some of them about local opportunities (nothing concrete yet but still working on it)

LION’s or not, I’m aware (thanks to Scott Allen and you) that most of the times, quality (involving care and patience) tends to be better than quantity.

I respect LION’s but don’t like their approach and prefer not to connect with them (I respectfully ask them why they wish to connect with me). I guess it has worked for me.

Thank you.

1. Regarding the value of the MetaNetwork – the only thing I use it for is to publish my LinkedIn page. The MetaNetwork will occasionally publish a list of all registered users, which an aspiring LION can then bulk import into LinkedIn in order to get a lot of invites quickly. Currently, with out mentioning LION on my page, I 5-15 invites per day. MetaNetwork claims some other benefits, but I forget what they are.

2. If you’re going to be a LION, know that you’ll be facing a very wide audience and strategize accordingly.

My experiences:

Scenario 1 (the way my profile was):
I listed many key terms in my subject such as “Project Manager”, “PMP”, “BA”, “Software Development”, “Solutions Consultant”, “IT” and on and on. The intent was to appeal to the broad market.
As a result, between those words and my large network, LinkedIn reported that my name was showing up in 100s of searches per day (forget how many). My page would get about 100 actual views per week.
I got no emails from the result. My impression was that I got people cruising the profiles who searched for something like “PMP”.

Scenario 2 (the way my profile as of 2 months ago):
Ok, my profile still needs some major tweaking (on my to do list), but I’ve simply changed the subject heading, which is what people searching will see to this: “IT Solutions Project Manager (PMP) in the Industrial, Oil & Gas and Construction sectors”.
Now I show up in about 50 searches per day, I’m lucky if I get 25 people looking at my profile per month, and I typically get 1-2 email inquiries per week.

cheers!

Scenario 1 = lots of hits with 0% follow through

Scenario 2 = questions via email (i.e. real contact), 2 interview requests, 1 coffee meeting to brainstorm/share knowledge

You make the call… I think it depends on what you’re offering though.
Scenario 1 seemed to be the equivalent of putting marketing fliers on windshields… it showed up everywhere (and I’m sure there are benefits for some people for this… recruiters for instance?).

Scenario 2 seems to be better at attracting, and speaking to individuals and making a connection.