Building a business in this economy isn’t easy. Having a superior product or excellent business model simply isn’t enough. The cornerstone of any successful business, especially in this economic climate, is the ability to reach and communicate with potential customers efficiently and often.

Thanks to technology, businesses are able to do just that. Networking should be a part of every business person’s strategy and online social networking sites make it as simple as the click of a mouse. However, with so many different social networking sites out there, it can be hard to know which sites are worth your time and which sites are strictly for personal enjoyment.

For business professionals, sites such as Facebook and Twitter can be a good way to stay in contact with friends and family, but it can’t help you to increase your bottom line the way LinkedIn can. Here’s why:

LinkedIn brings the separation gap from 6° to 2°. Like other social networking sites, LinkedIn allows you to connect with people you know. However, it has one distinct benefit—it also allows you to see the degree of separation between you and others with whom you are not yet connected. This allows you to discover who your connections are connected with, and many times they’re just the people you need to know!

LinkedIn is primarily for corporate professionals. Sites like Facebook mainly cater to people looking to have fun, post pictures, take quizzes, etc. After all, the site was created by college kids for enjoyment purposes. Most people do not use Facebook as a business tool, and most members aren’t on there to network or build their brand. However, LinkedIn was created for business professionals. Almost everyone on LinkedIn is a member of the white-collar business world, which not only helps you to reach a large audience, it helps you to reach your target audience.

LinkedIn can lead to quality introductions. When you are trying to land a big account or grow your business, sometimes all it takes is an introduction to the right person. LinkedIn addresses this very need. It has a unique tool that allows you to ask people you are connected with to connect you with people they know in a professional way. A quality introduction like this is a great way to get your foot in the door and gives you more credibility than a cold call would.

LinkedIn can help you reconnect with alumni and colleagues. LinkedIn has an extensive and comprehensive search engine that will allow you to locate and reconnect with past colleagues and peers. Who knows what company your old roommate from college works for, or what quality connections your long-lost coworker can offer you? These old relationships can be revived with LinkedIn, helping you to network and build your brand.

LinkedIn is a professional site. Because it was designed specifically for the business professional, LinkedIn users follow good business manners. Unlike the other social networking sites, you won’t have to weed your way through party pictures and drunken status updates in order to reach your target audience.

Building a bigger client base in this economy is no easy task, but thanks to LinkedIn, you can do so from the comfort of your desk.

Comments:

This is a great article and I couldn’t agree more about LinkedIn but if you know how to use Twitter and Facebook for business, then it will and often does lead to more traffic as well as more business.

I do agree that LinkedIn is a great place for business professionals though and I look forward to connecting more there. I’ve had great success with twitter and facebook.

I wonder what the stats look like for business owners who can actually say that they have increased their bottom line with LinkedIn.

This is a major plug for Linkedin, but I do agree that in B2B marketing and social media Linkedin is great. I think twitter and facebook are still important but for different purposes. Now that google is pulling live twitter results into search it makes active twitter use around important topics all the more important.

Cannot agree more. I guess with the current trends and usability, it is the best available option for businesses to be connected and create value.

An interesting piece but I believe it makes doing business on LinkedIn sound easier than the reality; and that it’s an error to write off Twitter.

First, LinkedIn. Reid Hoffman, founder and chairman, has stated that LinkedIn is NOT about about connecting to people you don’t know.  And the site offers little to broker introductions to valuable new people who have an explicit need for what it is you do.  In fact, you can get restrictions placed on your account if you try to do just that and your advances get rejected.  It’s a community of 50 million business professionals, many of whom make purchasing decisions every day and many of whom sell every day, but where most people use it to build yet another connection to people they already know.

Don’t make the mistake of seeing Twitter as another social network, like LinkedIn.  It’s not.  It’s a messaging network.  Anyone can post on it and anyone can read those posts.  And an increasing number of ‘tweets’ are people asking for recommendations for products or services—sales leads for someone with matching offerings, in other words.

I invite you to come and try our Twitter Sales Leads tool which extracts the leads from the 27 million tweets a day, helping you build valuable new relationships with people who have a real need for what it is you do.

After all, networking is not an aim in itself, but a means to an end.

Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz

I agree entirely.  I use LinkedIn for business networking and Facebook for personal networking.  In my opinion, LinkedIn and Facebook seem to be the best at what they do.  Twitter seems messy to me.  In the end, I hope that either Facebook or Twitter emerges as the sole personal networking site of choice.  I know there are websites that will update all your networking sites, but that just clouds the issue.

One of the two best clients my business has and a MAJOR source of my income came from Linked In.  We have never met face to face and have worked together for almost a year.  I think FB and Twitter have their place but obviously I am a HUGE fan of LI.

Well done article.  LinkedIn is organized to make networking far less painful than it is with cold calls.  Making any of these services a regular part of an efficient routine is the first step to effective networking.

As a new comer to social media, I am fascinated and overwhelmed at the same time by all the different tools available.  I see the benefit where I thought there was none, Twitter for example and everyday I come across information like this article.  It gives good content to investigate and learn what works for our business.  I’m too new to have formed a valid opinion, but thanks for this information and the dialogue that comes with it.

Linkedin and Twitter are the key social media platforms I use to connect and have conversations. Twitter is a doorway in fact to connect with ppl on Linkedin. These tools, in my opinion, are core to building your professional network.

Thanks for posting this Steve!

Not the best advice to say “Forget Twitter and Facebook...” LinkedIn is not the best B2B strategy for ALL businesses.  Twitter has been extremely valuable to me as a means of connecting with some of the best leaders in areas of business I need to be most successful and learning through sharing from experts in their field.  Since you didn’t talk about Twitter at all, seems as though you don’t have a good understanding of how you can customize it to meet your needs.  LinkedIn does have a true benefit for B2B, however, it is not “King”...none are.  A presence and complete understanding of all is where to be to achieve any Social Media goals.

One of my clients said that because they could pre-screen each other, on Linkedin, before their first meeting. The first meeting was like the third. That is money in the bank! Out of 40K hits on Google my Linkedin profile still comes up 3rd!

-Martin Brossman

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