Excellent article on the WSJ FINS site titled Has LinkedIn Killed the Rolodex?

I thought it was going to be an article showing that yes, indeed, LinkedIn makes a rolodex obsolete.

It wasn’t.

It talked about LinkedIn as the tool that it is, but not as a real relationship tool.  Some points of differentiation:

LinkedIn is not a customer relationship manager (CRM) or personal relationship manager (PRM).

I’ve argued in the past that I hope then don’t become one.  Why?

First, because they should just buy JibberJobber and integrate it (while allowing people to use either OR both) :p  Yes, I’m biased

Second, because they have enough product issues that they need to resolve before they jump into trying to do CRM.  Based on what they’ve done with their system so far, I’m not convinced they, as a company “get” what relationship management is all about.

LinkedIn does not, cannot and should not replace real networking.

In the article it is referred to belly-to-belly relationships.  You get in front of your contact, and actually have a real face-t0-face conversation.  They say the new belly-to-belly might be email, phone, etc., but it’s more than just connecting on a social network and then not doing anything with the connection.

Read the article, it’s short, and excellent.  And then, if you are hiding behind ANY technology, get out and meet and talk to real people.

Viva real human interaction!

Wait… what then is LinkedIn?

It’s an amazing, powerful tool that helps you (DO A LOT OF STUFF — how would you fill in this blank?)

Check out this post on Recruiting Blogs by Jim Stroud on how to post to multiple LinkedIn Groups at the same time. (watch on YouTube here)

Can you do this?  Youbetcha.

Should you do this? Um…. well… um… what do you think?

Deb Dib, a JibberJobber Partner, pointed me to this post on Mashable about the importance of social tools…

Wondering about the importance of LinkedIn, and other social tools, for your business, career management or job search?  Read this article: What Job Seekers Need to Know in Today’s Digital Market

Some highlights:

“36% of companies surveyed are using social media for recruiting. In today’s competitive market, recruiters look for the most current information on candidates, which is readily and easily available on social networks.”

Are you making this information readily and easily available?

“Social media enables us to stand out, to be more noticeable, to differentiate ourselves from the masses and to tell the whole story behind and beyond a one-page resume.”

If everyone does it, how is it differentiating?  I’ll tell you: not many do it well  I’ve done enough LinkedIn Critiques to know that there is a lot of room for improvement!

“Additionally, every field has its own industry thought leaders broadcasting on Twitter.”

I wouldn’t say every industry, but you can certainly find people to connect with and follow and network with in many industries… probably even your industry!

“More companies than ever are cutting their job advertising budgets, opting to channel their recruiting efforts through referral hiring.”

Is the hidden job market becoming less hidden?  Interesting…

This is GREAT! Click on the image to see full-size…

This is really, really funny.  But in my experience, so true!

I first looked at it from the top down, but let’s look at it from the bottom up:

Google+ … “Do you want anyone to actually see it?”  If NO, use Google+  Ouch.

Foursquare… “Are you in a bar?”  if YES, use Foursquare Ouch.

LinkedIn… “Is it boring?” If yes, post on LinkedIn.  Ouch.

Facebook and Twitter… “Are you addicted to ‘Likes’?”  Ouch.

I like it… sums it up really well.  Thanks to my buddy Steve for sharing on Facebook…

Check out this quote, from a TechCrunch article:

“I don’t think you can take for granted that any social network is going to be here 10 years from now.”

Who said that? Read the short TechCrunch article here.

A guy who had a very successful site in 2002, that was made irrelevent by another site (not myspace):

Heiferman started the photo sharing site in 2002 and says “it (Fotolog) became the number one social network” in several countries. It eventually sold for millions of dollars. However, Heiferman notes Fotolog’s top status eroded when Flickr hit the web and it made Heiferman realize that no company is totally secure against competition.

Will “the big three” be around in 10 years?  5 years?

Tools are tools.

I’ve received emails from my first degree connections for a while. I am always curious to know how people do this.  In the early days I had a note in my Summary that said something like “If you connect with me, I’m going to put you on my newsletter.” I’d then export my contacts and import to iContact or ConstantContact.

Then, I got smart and changed it to say “click here to sign up for my newsletter,” which made it “opt-in.”

Then, I got tired of paying for the newsletter services, and changed it again to say “join my LinkedIn Group, and I’ll send you periodic newsletter-like emails.”  This is where I’m at now.

But you can do something more direct to your first degree Contacts.  Check out this post: How to Use LinkedIn Mail to Connect With Your Contacts. Linda Coles breaks down the process, and some pros/cons, of using this tool.  The biggest con is that you can only do 50 at a time.  If you have 1,000 contacts, you will have to do this 20 times to reach all of them.  Yuck.

At the same time, if that limit wasn’t in place, your contacts might be overly eager to spam you all the time.

The easier it is, the more it might be abused.

So it’s not easy, but it works.

Have you ever tried it?

One of the most famous references on how to use LinkedIn is Guy Kawasaki’s Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn.  I still see people point to this post, today, more than four years later (LinkedIn was almost 4 years old when it was written).

I wanted to revisit Guy’s post and speak about each of the points:

1. Increase your visibility. More true than four years ago.  Many professionals are seeing their LinkedIn Profile in the first few search results on Google.  And, with LinkedIn’s growth since then (they had just a few million signups), now it seems like everyone is on LinkedIn (they aren’t, but it seems like they are).  It has become more important than what it was four years ago… definitely being on LinkedIn (and hopefully having a strong profile) will help you increase your visibility.
2. Improve your connectability. Guy says to put your past employers in your Profile also, so people will be able to find you if you worked for them.  Definitely true.  Lonny Gulden, a recruiter in Minneapolis, says to also include old names from past employers (because of an acquisition, merger, etc.).  Another trick is for people to put in the maiden name, so if someone who knew you from pre-marriage is looking for you, they can find you.
3. Improve your Google PageRank. PageRank is not the same now as what it was four years ago, but the idea is to be found in the search results.  LinkedIn carries weight with search engines… you can tie into that.
4. Enhance your search engine results. It seems like #1, #3 and #4 are saying pretty much the same thing… it’s all good.
5. Perform blind, “reverse,” and company reference checks. The point here is to use LinkedIn as a research tool to learn about the people you think you want to work with (based on their Recommendations).  Definitely a good idea.  Not only can you learn more about them, you’ll see who they are connected to, determine if they are good networkers, etc.
6. Increase the relevancy of your job search. An interesting idea posed here is to search for your skills and see where the people who come up work.  Not a bad idea… it should give you ideas on how to make your own Profile better (comparing it to theirs), what companies they work at (which you might not have known about), see what Groups they are members of, etc.
7. Make your interview go smoother. He suggests knowing more about the person can give you stuff to talk about… where did they go to school, etc.  Learn stuff about them from their Profile, and then you can easily say “I saw on your LinkedIn Profile that you ________.”  It’s a good idea to research a bit on who you are going to talk with, whether it’s a networking interview, a job interview, or whatever.
8. Gauge the health of a company. He suggests talking to people at your target company, or better, talking to people who have left the company, since they might divulge more/better information about their former employer.
9. Gauge the health of an industry. Find people who are in the industry you want to get into and talk to them.  Find people who have failed in that industry and talk to them (to see what they learned, what they would do differently, etc.). #8 and #9 are excellent ideas leading to informational interviews, where you want to (a) get information, (b) brand yourself, and (c) ask for introductions to new contacts.
10. Track startups. Guy is the startup guy, so of course this goes on his list.  It’s funny he suggests to search for “stealth” to see who’s trying to be, well, stealth.  LOL.  It worked though, I just tried it and found over 7,oo0 results of people who have “stealth” in their Profile, many in their title.
11. Ask for advice. Guy says “LinkedIn’s newest product, LinkedIn Answers”… COOL.  So they launched this sometime in Dec/Jan 2011?  I tried to find an announcement on their blog but I couldn’t.  Anyway, yes, use answers.  He says to use it to get advice… but I have other, more important, reasons to use Answers.
12. Integrate into a new job. As suggested by Vincent Wright, who taught me a lot about LinkedIn and networking, he says to study Profiles of your new coworkers.  Great idea…. don’t stop networking once you land a new job!
13. Scope out the competition, customers, partners, etc. Do competitive intelligence research on your competition… definitely a good idea, if you pay attention to your competition.

So there you go – all 13 points are still relevant… and good reasons to use LinkedIn.  I hear people say “LinkedIn doesn’t work for me,” but what they are really saying is “I didn’t do anything, and got nothing in return.  So it’s broken, right?”

I won’t appease them… they need to understand the tool, use the tool, and then they will get value out of the tool.

What value?

Any of the 13 things above.

Alison Doyle, job search expert at About.com, wrote Don’t Waste Your Time on LinkedIn.

She’s right.

Don’t dabble, or tinker, or wait for reward.

Get in there, do it right, set up your Profile well, be proactive, make networking connections, and do good stuff.

Use the tool!

If you are complaining about not getting any value out of it I bet I could figure out what you could do to get value out of it.

Read Don’t Waste Your Time on LinkedIn, by Alison Doyle, here.

LinkedIn finally announced they have 100 million people who have signed up for their service.

These are not 100M users… but people who have opened an account (less the duplicates, of course).

Congrats to LinkedIn – that is a great milestone!

(check out the cool image at the bottom of this post that shows some neat stats…. two that jumped out at me are (a) less than 45% of signups are in the US, and (b) there are over 20M groups!)

John O’Connor runs a small outplacement firm (small compared to the multi-billion dollar competition) in North Carolina and has recently been blogging a lot about social stuff in a job search.

Here’s a post I just found which is actually pretty profound: Delete Your LinkedIn Account.

I kind of agree, almost.

I think you should have a LinkedIn Profile, and have it done well, and then you can kind of walk away from it, but if you are going to tinker, play around, goof off, etc. with LinkedIn, and show yourself as a goofball, it’s better to not be there in the first place (maybe).

Read John’s post, and the (as of right now) two comments, and then ask yourself: should I delete my LinkedIn account, or can I do it right?