That's what I used to ask myself as numerous acquaintances kept tagging me to be part of their realm of contacts in FaceBook.com or LinkedIn.com. It seemed a nuisance until I sat down with an old contact, Don Tinney from EOS Worldside (EOS=Entrepreneurial Operating Systems). Don is an EOS Implementer whose job is quite simple. He says simply, "We make millionaires out of owners of small to medium size companies". So maybe he has something to say I should know.

I was in both LinkedIn and FaceBook and didn't see the significance. My business was humming along just fine and didn't need the distraction. Don forced my mind open a bit and so I took it upon myself to find out if there was some gold to mine there that I had missed. Like hunting for Morel mushrooms, it went from "none to be found" to being surrounded with all kinds of uses. Here is my quick rundown of uses in the hopes all our business partners can begin to take advantage of these tools.

To begin with, I'm going to concentrate on LinkedIn.com because I find it the most dialed in of the two for "business networking". While I'm in Facebook also my contacts there are almost all personal life related. Sure, we all can use a few friends but the majority of my day is more about business and LinkedIn appears to me to have a larger corner on it.

So if you...

• Are new to LinkedIn and don't know how to use it to help your business and career.
  
  
• Have been using LinkedIn yet felt like you haven't really accomplished anything with it.
  
  
• Are trying to persuade your friends to join LinkedIn and want / need to communicate the value of it.
  
  
• Wondering if LinkedIn type sites can help increase your web site's visibility.
  
  
• Think there's no real value in LinkedIn.

... this is for you!

Here is a small amount I've learned about using LinkedIn, understanding there are millions of users who know a whole lot more about it than I do. This still should give you a starter kit on the value. It will also be a great link section to teach you as much as you can possibly know about this.

Off-Site Factors Enhance Your Web Site's Ranking More than On-Site Optimization

The original criteria the creators of Google used to rank web sites is still the same as it is today. It ranked sites according to the value of the web sites that linked to the evaluated web site. If you have dozens of important sites with links to your site and those sites are related in subject matter to what your site is all about, it will out-weigh many of the things you put (or fail to put) in your site for rankings.

When you have links to your web site in your LinkedIn or Facebook listings, those are off-site links. If you make recommendations for other people in your circle of contacts and include your web site address as part of your signature then you have even more. Make dozens of good recommendations and receive them in return. It's truly a "giver's gain" world there.

Add to this some effective Public Relations campaigns and you can really begin to boost your rankings. Write articles like this to online magazines and make links to your web site part of your signature. It takes some real honest to goodness work but the results can be magic in your rankings. There is more on how all this works in one of our blog articles: The Most Important Key to Web Site Traffic!

Business Development - Marketing - Sales

We all know that strength of a warm lead. All the initial hurdles have been jumped. Linked in contacts can help you get to the right people. Interested in doing business with Acme Widgets? Do a search in LinkedIn for current and former employees of the company. Find out if any of them are connected to someone you know in your circle. If so, ask that contact to give you a formal introduction.

Before you meet that contact look over their interests if posted. Going to meet someone who is President of the company you want to work with? Look them up in advance and discover their interests and background. See who they know that you may also know. Create common interests and connections from that information and start the conversation warmly.

Did you know that ALL 500 of the Fortune 500 companies are represented on LinkedIn? Either the CEOs or the upper level management are to be found there. There must be something to it. Those who are active on it may just be looking for you and who you are on LinkedIn. If you're not there, they may wonder why. This is dang near as good as the Mason secret handshake without all the silly rituals or red beanie cap.