I notice that several people around here are also represented on Twitter and LinkedIn, and I would imagine use them for vastly different things from Social Networking, general and sporadic ranting (guilty), and also Professional Networking.

I don’t know many 'real' people in Twitter land and my LinkedIn profile is looking lovely and connected but ultimately like a chocolate teapot. SO I wonder if anyone has any tips or success stories for using Twitter et al for Professional Networking, making industry contacts, and generally making it useful and work for me!

....Go!

 

Hi Pete,
I don't tweet, But I do use Linkedin with great results. I have joined several of the groups where I have either great interest , or expertise. I have actually gotten three new clients as a result of my activity in these groups....and not the groups you would imagine. For instance, I got several useful leads from guys in the guitar players group. Another contact came from the Mensa members group. Neither group is a targeted business group (which I also joined). I think the Groups feature is the most powerful networking feature of linkedin.

 

Hi Pete,

My colleagues and I use LinkedIn to keep in touch with other professionals. It certainly doesn't replace a CRM system, but it serves it role as a common ground for messaging and networking. Certainly not as popular as Facebook, but personally I don't want every customer knowing where I'm going on Saturday night or knowing too much about my personal life. Facebook for family friends and LinkedIn for career networking.

LinkedIn has been great way for me to keep up to date on what others are doing in the industry. I have Discussions fro Interest groups summarized and emailed to me once a week. I can also see knows who, often I find that my customers know each other and that's always neat to find out.

We also have a Twitter account, which was originally set up for SEO purposes (inbound linking). I've added it to my LinkedIn so whenever I update our twitter, it automatically updates my linkedin. Also our FB page updates our Twitter, so it may be redundant, but I'm all about working smarter not harder

P.S. I've also received RFQs through these efforts, but keep in mind you reap what you sow. If you post garbage or don't message or write anything worth while to your contacts on LinkedIn or Twitter, you probably won't get much out of it. So post something interesting and share with the world!

 

Hi Pete,
A good question! I too set up a FB, twitter and LinkedIn account for SEO mainly. I treat it all as company marketing - so no tweets about toast and the weather....

I have made some interesting contacts through twitter - I do work for Philips and another division followed me and said hi. You never know... but I think twitter is very difficult to quantify in terms of usefulness. Just in case you come up with an answer twitter me at cambridgedesign

LinkedIn has been great - lots of old contacts that have proved very useful. I find a lot of networking opportunities as long as you put the time in. Even had a small design job from it! Fabbersmarket has also been very handy - have got talking to industrial designers in Italy and Chile!

All of the above along with blogs etc. mean that as a small business I can quickly produce press releases on new projects and get noticed. Very powerful stuff (unless you are too busy doing the projects). I have already got a couple of interviews/articles from an editor reading a blog post.