Posts Tagged ‘boulder new media breakfast’

Boasting an undeniable wow factor and an awesome community, Boulder is a great place to do business.  Doing business just got a little better with the Boulder New Media Breakfast series generously hosted by Metzger Associates, one of the area’s premier PR firms.

Today’s inaugural breakfast featured LinkedIn impresario and the tremendously successful CEO of Integrated Alliances, Mike O’Neil.  Here’s a quick rundown of his top tips for making the most of LinkedIn:

The demographics. LinkedIn is “MySpace for grownups” and is one of the most powerful social media hubs on the Web.  The average user earns more than $100k annually and is 41 years of age.  36% of all LinkedIn users are decision-makers in their business.

The to-do list.  Anyone wanting to make the most of LinkedIn should start by fleshing out their profile to be a fabulous marketing document, then move on to increasing their network (bigger = better), utilizing searches to their benefit, communicating through messages and introductions, and leveraging LinkedIn for sales.

The numbers.  Mike recommends a profile with upward of 500 connections (he has a whopping 19,000!).  Why is bigger better?  Because you can generate more prospects, more inbound calls, more respect, and more social capital.  Smaller networks work better for execs.  Mike recommends that users join 20-30 groups and connect with the super-connected (known as “lions” or “toplinkers”).

The predictions.  Mike’s looking forward to the aggregation of today’s panoply of new media tools in a new browser or website form…in the meantime, he thinks Microsoft, IBM, or another big player will acquire LinkedIn soon.

The takeaway:  Build your social network while you’re employed.  It might seem like a big investment of time, but it pays to get it while the getting is good.