I got an email last week from someone who administers a group I’m a member of on LinkedIn. He had a simple question: What could he do to get me to be more active in his group. It was a good question, and one that deserved an answer. So I told him the truth: I don’t have time. Most of my personal social media activity, I told him, was confined to Twitter and Facebook and I simply didn’t have enough time to also participate in LinkedIn groups.
Nonetheless, I still find a lot of value in LinkedIn. It helps keep me connected to hundreds of professional contacts and gives me an easy way to reach them even if I’ve lost a phone number or email. It also keeps me in touch with people who are probably not going to be on Facebook or Twitter or other social media sites for quite a while. Sometimes LinkedIn seems to be the social media site for those who feel uncomfortable with the whole idea of social media.
But the biggest thing about LinkedIn is that it’s an easy way for me to keep in front of people. I hear from people all the time “I see you on LinkedIn,” which means they see my status updates on LinkedIn. The one thing that I do pretty faithfully, usually at least five days a week, is update my LinkedIn status. That simple action keeps me popping up in front of others when they log into their LinkedIn account. One update a day – about two minutes – and it unobtrusively but effectively keeps my name in front of lots of contacts.
What’s my point? Sometimes even a minimal, but consistent, use of social media can be effective.
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