Use LinkedIn? What is your experience?

I had invites to be involved in LinkedIn, joined, and basically only responded to additional invites to be buddies. Otherwise I wouldn't even know it exits nor care. For me Biznik meets whatever needs I would otherwise to LinkedIn to meet. However, Biznik is for independent business people primarly and if I were not in business, another networking group like LinkedIn might be more attractive.

Have used linkedIn for quite some time and found it to be moderately useful. Facebook is something I am looking more heavily into, especially with the large selection of widgets to customize. Am currenltly using egonest as an intranet/networking platform which allows me to keep in contact with suppliers, distributors worldwide (similar to Ning except with more resources). Aesthetics need work but it has promise.

I manage difficult technical projects (infrastructure, software development, implementation) and my clients are medium - large businesses.

So, LinkedIn really works for me. I use it to research prospective clients before I meet with them, stay connected with clients that have moved on to new positions, find jobs for friends and business colleagues. One of my clients found me on LinkedIn - a month after I updated my profile and added a bunch of new connections.

Hi, Yes, if you have a specific niche community you are trying to develop (as Biznik is working so well with indie business folks) you can fairly easily (if you're somewhat tech saavy)) setup and customize and very full featured (public, private, invite based, etc) FREE social networking site. Each person gets their own profile page (you choose the questions) and personalized blog, music and video player; the group gets a forum, sub-groups, easy photo/video/music upload and sharing embedded in the site; shows latest activity; add whatever text or interactive widgets you'd like; fully customizable; and more. You can check out my example here, 90+ folks have already joined in the last two weeks and it is buzzing with activity. I'm available for consulting if you want to get something like this going for your group and/or I was thinking of doing a biznik event about how to set one up.

Tribe.net is also an option for creating your own social network. I like the interface a bit more than Ning. I just started getting serious about LinkedIn, but I figure it's a while until I start seeing results.

I agree with Elizabeth that it is hard to figure out how to use LinkedIn but thanks for Michael's positive comment and Viv's referral to the "10 ways..." I too jumped in when I saw how easy Biznik is to use. This will be my network #1!

Like many other folks, I'm listed at LinkedIn. About twice a year I go in and surf for connections. But in all the years I've been there (since it started) I have only used it once for networking.

I've been a member of Biznik for a few months and I am in here almost every day.

I keep a listing at other sites as a kind of placeholder. And now I'm thinking I should add my biznik link to those listings!

Molly So great to have you answer me! You know I am one of your devoted fans!! I bought your book "The Accidental Entrepreneur" and highly recommend your ezine to everyone (hey everybody, google Authentic Promotion for Molly!). Yes, I find LinkeIn so abstract and the energy is somehow daunting or forbidding whereas this Biznik is so fun, so easy, so accessible and really feels like community. I invited many people to join and some have. Now I am branching out to other cities. Found a really cool contact in SF Biznik yesterday. Thanks, Molly!

Facebook is good but has an ambience of informal and perhaps trivial. The pages can be very busy but fun nevertheless if you are into that sort of thing. LinkedIn might be useful for people in the corporate world, but as a self-employed person developing a business, Biznik is where I am everyday. Biznik allows you to do so much more without upgrading compared with say LinkedIn, so that you can try and experience it before upgrading. I doubt if I'll try any other site in the near future. Well done and thank you to Biznik!

I use LinkedIn, but I see it more as a resume tool and networking site. To me, it's not as much for small business owners and "Indies".

LinkedIn is the new way to cold call. For that reason, it works. For making friends, there are better options. Biznik feels more like a community of people who actually want to support each other. That's my take!

That's how we describe it too! LinkedIn is a tool for managing contacts. It works very well for job seekers looking for corporate contracts.

Biznik is a community for small business people using sonline social networking technology to support the offline face-to-face interactions.

LinkedIn is an excellent tool for corporate alumni. Biznik's community is primarily made up of what the US Census refers to as, "personal businesses" - companies of one, who are here to support one another in growing their businesses and becoming more profitable.

The questions and answers section of LinkedIn has a different kind of community feel (but I would still argue it is a community), based mostly on the fact that it most members are communicating across the nation rather than in person at events (ala Biznik style). You can also find more communication in the groups and business pages of LinkedIn, which are unfortunately hidden under some navigation issues.

The number of users though is pretty interesting (20 million or so). I've actually formed some great friendships through the LinkedIn bubble effect, which I find to be far more beneficial to business growth rather than social growth (which at many times is hard to differentiate at the indie level)

I wrote 123 Guide to LinkedIn on Tuesday, which is a little bit of an intro to LinkedIn methods and madness, and will follow-up with a more advanced business developer version next week.

I would also recommend that anyone using LinkedIn and Outlook downloads the plugin for Outlook I mention in that article, it makes updating your contacts far easier.

Viv,

I feel the same way about LinkedIn. I am a member (free level) but nothing they are doing is making me want to become a paid level member.

Also, if I pay for a membership, I need to be sure I have the time to participate enough to make my membership worthwhile. Not sure at this point in my life I have enough of those precious minutes to spare!

While I haven't been really successful with either on meeting new people to network w/, I really like Biznik's articles - they are very helpful for me.

Thanks for posting that link to the Common Craft presentation, Viv. I am giving a presentation tomorrow and this video is a perfect thing for me to include.

I find linked in fairly useful. It's seems to be a bit broader than biznik, and if you answer questions on the Q&A forums you can sometimes get some business and also help other people out, similar to these forums

honestly, i find linkedin a little dry for my liking, though i'm listed there. it's great for heavy corporate functioning (i worked in finance, so it's perfect for that) i like facebook and myspace for younger crowds. it really depends on your demographic and tech savvy. i find this space the most user-friendly, as i'm not bombarded with useless applications or unwanted spam. that's just my opinion. hope it helps. :-)

Yes its great also consider plaxo.com, xanga.com and pexmon.com. All helping you to connect your business and yourself....

i like plaxo too (great suggestion!) however, i did have some issue with their calendar deleting appointments, so just a word of caution. (especially for those of us who are insanely busy and can't keep track without an electronic organizer.

I find the question and answer section useful as a knowledge base for a secondary field. Since tax is my field, I would not expect useful results from Linkedin in a tax related search or from posting a specific tax questions. Since I am not an SEO expert, Linkedin is useful for me to search for answers to SEO questions or to post a specific SEO questions. Plus, it's probably worthwhile just to have your profile set up on such a widely used site.