This new feature is only available for paid accounts, although they are offering a free one-month trial. Adding some basic CRM functionality to LinkedIn is not quite what I would have expected. However, LinkedIn wants its users to spend more time on the network.

You can already “tag” people into groups in the basic connections screen, although I don’t know too many people that use or understand this feature.

If you aren’t already using a CRM, the light-weight features in the profile organizer might be a welcome addition to your sales or research process. It allows you to store personal contact information and notes outside of the basic information that the connection has stored on LinkedIn.

But the question is whether this feature along with the limited number of InMails and deeper search results is worth $300 per year. I would say that this is a nice addition if you are already a paid account member of LinkedIn, but not enough to convert free accounts into paying accounts. To their credit, it is nice to see LinkedIn developing new features.

More details are on the way so stay tuned…

No wonder they feel overwhelmed. Here are two quick tips to make this simpler.

Don’t Try to Drink from the Fire Hydrant

Whether it is Facebook or LinkedIn or Twitter, don’t try to read every single post there (a.k.a. Drinking from the fire hydrant). Yes, you will miss things, but that is okay.

If you are on Facebook, just scan down the latest news feed and check your inbox for messages, notifications and updates. The first time it might take 10-15 minutes, but then you are caught up and it will take 5 minutes. I typically do this twice a day, once in the morning and once before the end of the work day. I usually update my status once a day, although sometimes more from my iPhone if I’m early for a meeting or stuck somewhere. I like to post comments to other status updates

On Twitter, just scan down the first page or two of posts for people that you follow. Remember that Twitter is “real time” and once something is more than a day or even a few hours, the value drops. I also use Twitter search to follow particular keywords about my interests.

Use a Timer

Whether it is a desktop widget or a kitchen timer, set one. And while this may seem very simple and you will give me the, “I’m too smart or disciplined or whatever to use a timer,” line, this very simple solution will help you enjoy the social networks without feeling like you are flushing your time down the drain.

Here is the simple strategy. Set the timer for 10 minutes. Open Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn. Go to town until the timer rings and immediately close the browser (tab) when the timer goes off.

So no more excuses. Use the social networks to build your connections between people, but don’t drink from the fire hydrant.

And I’m finding myself using it less because of that. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of LinkedIn and I consider it the best business social network. But the latest changes have less to do with business and more to do with copying Facebook.

The problem is this: if LinkedIn gets to be too much like Facebook, then I’d rather just use Facebook.

So if I were LinkedIn, I’d be looking for the ways that I’m not like Facebook, and amplifying those features. For example, I’d play up the “Answers” section and let the community rate the posts as a way to combat spam and or junk answers. Don’t just let the person asking the question mark answers as best, let the community vote for the best answers.

What are your suggestions?

The story is how we announced the job posting, which started several years ago. It started when I signed up for LinkedIn when it was a very young service.

Over time, I meticulously built my network. I focused on powerful business connections. Some people criticized me for not connecting to everyone, but I had a standard which I adhere to for those connections. (I use other networks, like Facebook and Twitter to connect with more people.)

And important to this puzzle, I remain visible. I don’t hide. Rather, I saw LinkedIn as an opportunity to share my knowledge, help people where I could, and write testimonials where my words could be powerful.

So the other day, we posted a job on LinkedIn. Within minutes, the flood began.

I reached out to my network, and the people reached out to their respective networks.

The quality of the applicants that we received proves the point.

Afterthought
If you are a recruiter or in the staffing business and you are not yet embracing LinkedIn, you are very late to the party. Here is your invitation to start now.

Afterthought #2
Businesses are now playing catch-up to try to leverage the value of LinkedIn. I saw its value and started building a little at a time several years ago. Perhaps you should ask me what I’m building next.

Using LinkedIn to Promote Your Business

Is it 12 or 73 invitations that you have received from LinkedIn so far? You have either ignored them or perhaps created an account. So now what do you and you 4 connections do next?

Learn to use LinkedIn to improve your reputation online:

• Create powerful connections for business networking
• Give and receive recommendations
• Promote yourself by answering questions
• Create opportunities for new business

What: Guest Speaker, Dinner & Networking
Date: Thursday, June 26, 2008
Time: 5:30-8pm
Location: Pyramid Club, 1735 Market Street, 52nd Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19103-2921
Cost: $35 advance registration/Pyramid Club Members; $40 at the door. Cash bar.

• Build Your Network Before You Need It

Ed Callahan, one of the panelists, talked about the value of a connection. For Ed, connecting should be meaningful. Yes, he has lots of connections, but he talked about how he has actually met and talked and connected with every person in his contacts. Ed is a very powerful connector.

The discussion reminded me of something that I had previously posted…

3. Only invite people that you know and trust.
If you would feel strange about calling someone on the phone and having a conversation, perhaps you shouldn’t invite that person to connect.

4. Just because someone invites you doesn’t mean you have to accept.
If you don’t know the person well or at all, perhaps you shouldn’t connect. Call the person wanting to connect and schedule a time to have coffee or something to strengthen your relationship.

A few people mentioned that it is useful to have a couple of these “LIONs” in your network as it can sometimes help in the sales process. You simply have access to a larger database. But if the connection is fleeting at best, what is the ultimate value?

A good suggestion that I learned from the event was to add your old email addresses to your profile even if they don’t work anymore. LinkedIn uses these addresses to help make connections with people that you know. This way if someone actually knows you but doesn’t have your new email address, they can still connect with you just by knowing an email address that you once had. Obviously, keep your primary address as your current address.

I just added a couple of old addresses (some very old) and found a few invitations from people who had tried to connect to me but didn’t have my latest (5 years?) email address.

Which blogging tool would you recommend and why?

I recommend WordPress for several reasons:

1. Hosting Support – many hosting providers have one-click installs or stated support for WordPress. If not, WordPress is a very straight-forward installation to do if you have experience.
2. Developer Support – there are tons of developers that have written plug-ins for added functionality to extend WordPress.
3. Designer Support – there are tons of themes available for WordPress and many designers know how to customize themes.
4. Active Open-Source Community – the WordPress code has been consistently updated with new features, so you shouldn’t be worried that the open-source code will get stale.

All of this combined means that you can make your blog do exactly what you want and make it look exactly how you want. Once you have things rolling, you can change the themes and plug-ins as appropriate. WordPress also has importers from other major blogging tools, so it is a win in all directions.

1. Keep it professional.
The goal is to make you look good in a professional networking environment. So don’t be a troll. No one likes trolls. (Except, perhaps other trolls.)

2. Do not add your entire contact list.
LinkedIn has tools for importing your address books from a variety of software and services. Don’t do it. This generates a huge amount of junk mail with your name on it. Unless you are a recruiter and depend on a HUGE database of names or loose connections, you don’t need to connect with everyone you have ever gotten a business card from.

3. Only invite people that you know and trust.
If you would feel strange about calling someone on the phone and having a conversation, perhaps you shouldn’t invite that person to connect.

4. Just because someone invites you doesn’t mean you have to accept.
If you don’t know the person well or at all, perhaps you shouldn’t connect. Call the person wanting to connect and schedule a time to have coffee or something to strengthen your relationship.

5. Don’t be a stalker, or even a little bit creepy.
Use Facebook or MySpace to look up old friends. Once you have rekindled a trusted relationship, invite the person to LinkedIn if it makes business sense.

6. Recommend people and get recommended.
If you have done business with someone and would recommend that person to a friend or client, write a nice recommendation on LinkedIn. We know how lukewarm testimonials sound, so don’t write one unless it is meaningful.

7. Answer questions.
LinkedIn’s Answers section provides an opportunity to show your expertise. Answer with the intent to provide useful information. The person asking acknowledges good answers and you can receive added credibility to your profile.

8. Remove stale connections.
Once a month, browse through all of your connections. Consider removing people that you simply cannot remember. LinkedIn doesn’t alert the other user, so the other person probably won’t notice at all since they probably cannot remember who you are either.

9. Make connections part of your referral process.
If someone gives you a good referral, part of your thank you process should be connecting on LinkedIn. And if you give a referral, ask to connect on LinkedIn.

10. Share your connections.
Those that are connected to me know that my connections are trusted, not flimsy. So if they need an introduction, they know that I can facilitate not just online, but in the real world.

Using LinkedIn to Promote Your Business

Is it 12 or 73 invitations that you have received from LinkedIn so far? You have either ignored them or perhaps created an account. So now what do you and you 4 connections do next?

Learn to use LinkedIn to improve your reputation online:

• Create powerful connections for business networking
• Give and receive recommendations
• Promote yourself by answering questions
• Create opportunities for new business

More information to follow about registration will be posted on their site. Hope to see you there!

In the real world, none of that is physically possible, which brings to mind Dunbar’s Number.

Dunbar’s number has been popularized as the supposed cognitive limit to the number of individuals with whom any one person can maintain stable social relationships: the kind of relationships that go with knowing who each person is and how each person relates socially to every other person.

In simple terms, you can really only maintain a stable relationship with about 150 people. Beyond that, you need help.

The power of the social network is that you aren’t looking for anything beyond casual contact, so the temptation is to add everyone you have ever met to your social network. (Wow! I’m popular now!) And depending on what you are using the network for, this is totally fine and the network database supports this.

LinkedIn is different. It is about reputation, trust and building permission. When you connect to someone on LinkedIn, you are granting and expecting trust and permission. If you abuse that permission, you will get yourself into trouble. Unlike most social networks, LinkedIn seems to embrace Dunbar’s Number at least to me. It is not about quantity, rather quality of the connection.

Perhaps that is why LinkedIn is getting very popular in the business community.

That said, I frequently hear, “Okay, so I have an account and a couple of people have connected to me. What can I do with LinkedIn?”

Recommendations – start by recommending people in your network and then ask to be recommended. You control what appears on your profile, so nobody can bash you. It’s about making others look good and asking for the same in return.

Prospecting – if you are trying to make contact with a particular company, you can search for people who might have connection with a person the company. Once you have created enough connections, you will often find that you are one or two connections away from a potential client. You can then request an introduction or go all old school and pickup the phone to your contact and ask for a referral.

Questions and Answers – LinkedIn has an active Q&A section where members post questions and others reply with answers. Answering questions is a way to show your expertise, as members can mark the answers as “good” or “best” which earns you some LinkedIn “street cred.” I’ve actually gotten some business opportunities for myself and some colleagues as a direct result of answering questions.

Groups – there are a whole bunch of professional organizations, alumni groups, former employee groups, etc. that provide another way to link to members. I prefer this method over trying to connect to everyone on the planet. The groups feature in LinkedIn is still maturing, so keep watch for what happens here.

John Jantsch from Duct Tape Marketing recommends that you can build your own network and he is probably right. However, there is something very simple about BNI that makes it a good logical step for most business professionals. BNI (and other flavors like LeTip and other leads groups) has a structure that is designed to educate other members to find referrals for you and keeps members accountable for the group.

Here is the synopsis of my term as president. The chapter was a mess and probably close to folding. We got everything back on track, worked hard to rehabilitate or weed out members that were not being productive to the chapter, and then grew the chapter. My goal was to build the chapter from its low point of 18 up to 35 members and at the end of my term we reached 36. I learned a lot about referral marketing and I learned a lot about leading an organization.

The reason I disagree with John is that creating a referral network is collaborative and without an established structure, you will find yourself bickering with other members about the little details. Using an existing structure allows you and the other members to move past the organizational minutia and focus on building the relationships.

Having just pinch hit as the Vice President, my next challenge is extending our BNI chapter into the online world of LinkedIn.