Not long ago I noticed that my LinkedIn contacts had grown to over 500 and LinkedIn boasts that I can request an introduction to over 12 Million people. Many of my clients and colleagues are successfully leveraging this new social business network frontier, though the majority of businesses out there are still trying to come to grips with how and why they should invest time in LinkedIn and other social networks. At StartUpSelling, our LinkedIn groups have over 2,000 members. The largest of our groups, Insurance Agency Lead Generation (http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Insurance-Agency-Lead-Generation-2823318?trk=myg_ugrp_ovr) has 1,000 members. Our Virtual Business group (http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Virtual-Business-Virtual-Marketing-Lead-2948539?home=&gid=2948539&trk=anet_ug_hm) is growing and now has 200 members. Groups are just one of the methods that can be used to leverage the power of LinkedIn, there are many others. It is a worthwhile investment for salespeople, marketers, managers and business owners.
On March 22nd LinkedIn reached a major milestone, eclipsing 100 million members worldwide. That’s a pretty significant number, one which according to LinkedIn is now growing at “roughly one million new LinkedIn members every week, the equivalent of a professional joining the site at faster than one member per second.” LinkedIn sent me an email, noting that I was member number 356,048, an early adopter according to their email. If you haven’t joined, you likely should.