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It's Networking but not as you knew it

I was a bit in the dark about LinkedIn. As with anything new it’s easy to be a little skeptical. Is it really as good for business as people make out? Should business owners invest the time and effort in establishing and managing a site, when they’re already hard-pressed to get everything else done in their business?

A few minutes with Linda Coles should wipe away any doubts.
Coles, who operates a website advisory and social media training company under the name of Blue Banana info@bluebanana.co.nz, admits she’s on a crusade to educate Kiwi business owners that social media (she prefers to call it ‘online networking’) can be a powerful tool for developing business. You just have to go about it the right way. Her personal goal is to educate 10,000 New Zealand businesses on the merits of social media by 2015.

So what exactly is LinkedIn? Coles describes it as the largest business-to-business networking site in the world. It has been around since 2003, is free to join, and at last count had more than 55 million members with 170,000 in New Zealand.

Read the full article here at NZBusiness

NZBusiness article in pdf format

Gill South: Linking up online - now it's about business, not just pleasure

When you returned to your desk in the New Year, your email probably included a few invitations to accept new "connections" to the business social networking site, LinkedIn.

So far, LinkedIn may be something you have done the bare minimum with. Your name and photo is up there, a few career details, but that's it. As for Twitter, you are yet to get to that. Facebook, you worry, is a bit personal, while TweetDeck or Twickertape are things you've probably never heard of.

Read the full article here

Linda Coles: CEOs, Trust and Social Media

CEOs can no longer ignore the potential of social media sites like LinkedIn and Twitter to support business growth. A company's policy regarding these sites can be the difference between engaging staff, customers and prospects and leaving them cold. Are you missing out on sales and staff retention opportunities by limiting your staff's access to these sites or, worse still, giving them access without knowledge?

Read the full article http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article

 

Can you afford to ignore LinkedIn?

Basic networking principles apply online, so when you connect with someone, do all the things you would normally do when networking in person. I recently had a chance meeting with Craig Rispin, the American business futurist and innovation expert, and asked him how CEO's and business leaders can benefit from becoming more familiar with the business-oriented social networking site LinkedIn.

Read the article http://unlimited.co.nz/unlimited.nsf/technology/can-you-afford-to-ignore-linkedin

 

 

 

 

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