My Love Affair with LinkedIn

While the world frets about social media monetization (certainly a long-term challenge for the industry), I am getting great, real world value out of a number of social sites. Here’s the history of my growing love affair with LinkedIn.

I set up my account on LinkedIn sometime in 2006 and paid very little attention for a long time. I wouldn’t even call it dating, just a casual connection. I have been very careful to only connect with people I know well. Around the time that my network eased through the 100 person threshold, our relationship really took off.

• I found our VP of Community after spending $125 for a job posting. I received more than 70 qualified resumes in the space of two weeks. Who needs Monster?
• I used the Q&A service to locate a free compensation study that has been incredibly helpful in structuring compensation policy at SchoolPulse.
• My connections have provided helpful feedback as we have played with designs and features for our site. I was surprised to learn that Google is far and away the most popular online calendar with my network.
• Just tonight I asked my network for introductions to reputable mailing list brokers and yet again, LinkedIn came through.

I’ve fallen in love with LinkedIn because she is making a my real life richer.  I now have 228 solid connections (and I look somewhat skeptically at those super users with 500+ contacts — can they really know them all?).  If I had to quantify the value I’ve gotten (for free, no less) it would easily be in the thousands of dollars. If LinkedIn came to me tomorrow and said I have to pay to maintain the relationship, I’d do it in an instant. Sad to think that I’d pay for love, but in this case, I would.