Group Discussions on LinkedIn.com are some of the most important strategies you can use on the internet. You have access to 30 million high end executives all in one place. With groups you can communicate and interact with hundreds of thousands of them at the same time.

Why would you want to waste your opportunity to make a first impression with “please add me to your network?” Is that the best you can do? Is that the most value you can add to the network? I know! You want to add thousands of people to your network and don’t know what to do and this looked like a quick and easy way to add a few more contacts.

Don’t do it! It only shows you are not a seasoned networker and looks amateur.

Remember you can participate in 50 total groups on LinkedIn.com. You can join 50 in total or choose to start your own. If you start your own you can start a total of 10 groups.

This means your discussion posts will have a lot of visibility and go to many people. LinkedIn mails discussion to group members daily or weekly. Imagine if you have 50 groups with an average membership of 10,000 people. Your discussion could go to 500,000 people… WOW!

So what can you do on group discussions to add more people to your network? The answer is: “Be Unselfish”. Think of what others would like to hear, to read or to learn about. If you are unselfish and think of others in your post you will always get great response. Write something of value. Write an article, a story, a joke or something that will help others in some way. At the bottom of your great post invite people to join your network. One good post can add hundreds of people to your network, not to mention spark a discussion that might get attention and plenty of responses and give you even more attention as an expert in your field.

Don’t forget to sign up for our LinkedIn For Marketing Newsletter to get free videos, audios and strategy once per week.

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New Group “LinkedIn For Marketing” Teaches How to Use LinkedIn For Sales, Marketing and Sales Promotion   Are you using LinkedIn for sales, marketing and sales promotion? Are you getting thousands of visitors to your blog and closing new leads everyday using LinkedIn?

Start networking with people that are using LinkedIn For Marketing and join the LinkedIn For Marketing Group on LinkedIn. The purpose of the group is to network and learn from each other on how to use LinkedIn for promotion, PR, sales and marketing.

Let’s all learn about how to use this social network for promotion and advancement. The value of the network is that every member is a high earning well educated executive. I always like to say that it’s like an internet within an internet. An internet just for executives. The other advantage is that you can find people and information easily as everyone has their details in their profile. Who they are, where they work, what they do there, what they want and what they can offer. Wow, this is a lot of great information.

The problem is how to get connect and communicate with all those people. Maybe not with all 30 million but let’s say with 200,000 of them, or 500,000 of them. Or why not, even one million.

This is why the group is here. To help you communicate and traverse the social network for professionals called linkedin.com.

Start networking with people that are using LinkedIn For Marketing and join the LinkedIn For Marketing Group on LinkedIn.

Join the group at http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1788316

Don’t forget to sign up for our LinkedIn For Marketing Newsletter to get free videos, audios and strategy once per week.

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Learn how to get 4,000 + contacts quickly to help get a great job, expand your business or close $100,000 worth of business

Last week we awarded a $100,000 deal to a company who posted a question on LinkedIn. They didn’t even contact us. They just used one of the 4 steps we will list here today. LinkedIn has 25 million members. Learn how to tap this great Web 2.0 Social Network Resource.

We were also contacted by another firm looking for $800,000 worth of powdered baby formula. All this came after adding almost 4,000 people to my network with a reach of more than 35 million people in just a few weeks. Find more ways to be an expert at self promotion wiht the book www.UnselfishPromotion.com

I recently started using LinkedIn.com, a professional social network. For the first few months I just joined and had my 20 contacts, then 40, then 50 and got stuck at 50 contacts. Most of these contacts I uploaded myself.

I didn’t really understand the power of LinkedIn or what the big deal was. After all, you can’t invite people you don’t know. You can only invite your contacts and try to make contacts with people they know. For example, if you are looking for a job and one of your contacts knows the hiring manager at the place you want to work, you can ask your contact for an introduction. That’s very helpful but I’m an entrepreneur, I haven’t been an employee in many years.

Here I sat on my LinkedIn account with no activity. No new contacts and no activity. Then we decided we were going to look for Venture Capital for our new age beverage business, Liquid Brands Management, and for some reason I went to LinkedIn and typed in “Venture Capital” in the search box. Wow! I got more than 500 connections. How can this be? I only have 50 people in my network. Well, turns out that one of my connections knows one venture capitalist. And that one person has a decent network of venture capitalists, and those people know more people, so now I had access to all these new people.

Now I could see the real power of LinkedIn. The problem was I could not ask one person to introduce me to 500 people. I needed to learn how to grow my network, how to have people in my network, how to be connected directly with everyone. I found out how to do that and more! I also added people to my mailing lists, people that asked to be part of my list that came from LinkedIn. Wow, I was able to do this after only a few weeks…

Here are 4 Quick Steps to Supercharging Your LinkedIn Network.

1: Be an Open Networker
An Open Networker accepts invitations and wants to grow their network. They accept invitations to connect from anyone. This sounds very simple but it is not. Many people are still afraid of networking online. This defeats the purpose of growing your LinkedIn network. To be an open networker make sure you:
-Complete your profile and add your photo, websites, interests and business experience
-List your email in your profile as this will allow people to invite you to their network
-Write “Open Networker - All Invites Welcome” so people are not afraid of adding you to their contacts
-See my profile as an example and invite me to join your network. You’ll have access to all my contacts http://www.linkedin.com/in/jorgeolson

2: Join the Open Network Group on LinkedIn
-Join at http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/977707
-This group will keep you up to date on all groups that have open networks
-You will receive lists of thousands of open networkers helping you grow your network
-It will send you tips and tricks on how to use your network in your job, for marketing and business.

3: Join 50 Groups
-LinkedIn allows you to join 50 different groups
-Each group can have hundreds or thousands of users
-When you join a group you have access to all of the groups’ contact information
-Participate in discussions at least once per month. They are emailed to all members giving thousands of eyeballs
-You make it easier for more people to find you and invite you to connect

4: Ask Questions
-LinkedIn has an “Answers” section where you can ask questions or answer them on every topic you can imagine
-These questions are visible to thousands of people interested in your topic
-LinkedIn members can answer your questions and email you directly
-More people find you and ask you to connect

These 4 super easy steps will send you on your way to LinkedIn Social Networking success. You will grow your network with people in your field of interest or business, make relationships, and use LinkedIn for your Job, for marketing or to get more business.

If you would like to be an expert of self promotion read my book “The Unselfish Guide to Self Promotion” and you will supercharge your career, your business and your life. Visit it at www.UnselfishPromotion.com

Do you need help with your LinkedIn account? Contact Me to see how you can add thousands of connections to your account, get from 2,000 to 5,000 visitors to your website from LinkedIn and many more LinkedIn Marketing Strategies.

This is a link to my network in LinkedIn. Add me as a connection and you’ll have access to all my contacts http://www.linkedin.com/in/jorgeolson

Don’t forget to sign up for our LinkedIn For Marketing Newsletter to get free videos, audios and strategy once per week.

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Join the LinkedIn Group here: http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/977707

The GON LinkedIn group is the center of all Open Networks Groups on LinkedIn. You will be up to date on all other open network groups and open networkers so you can get the most out of your LinkedIn Professional Network.

This is an Open Network on LinkedIn for people who want to fill up their network and learn how to use LinkedIn for business and marketing.

What is an Open Network?
An open network on LinkedIn is filled with members who are open to all invitations. Members of this group will not refuse or say they don’t know a member. If you as a member choose not to accept a specific connection just “archive it” and you are done.

Read the rest of this entry

Like many people, I was not quick to join LinkedIn. As a matter of fact one of my friends invited me and it took me 2 months to accept his invitation and join. I was thinking: “Not another time wasting social network”.When I finally joined the network I added people from my outlook and found that several of them where already on the network, a total of 30. I thought, “Cool, I know some people here” so I added them to my network on LinkedIn. After that I joined 4 different groups that where of interest to me including one on venture capital, one on marketing, another for book authors and the last one on keynote speaking.

Now I was on LinkedIn and had my 30 connections, my 4 groups and I thought I was done. Then I asked myself: “What next?” I already know the 30 people I added to the network I don’t need them to contact them. So what’s the value of this? What’s the difference between this and Facebook, or MySpace, or Hi5? What’s the buzz on LinkedIn?

For months I did nothing, thinking this was a place to socialize with people you already know. One day I was looking on Google the keywords “Venture Capital” as I was advising one of my customers get some funding. I then visited LinkedIn and logged in. Then I did a search on Venture Capital once more. Wow, 50,000 + came up. Quickly I noticed that these where not just company names, I was getting the name and many times email and phone number of actual people, with photo, title, interests, hobbies, all what you would wish for.

The downside of my Venture Capital search is that none of them where connected to me directly so I could not contact them as in LinkedIn it is considered Spam. Nevertheless I started to understand the value of this network. Imagine if of these 50,000 I could have a few hundred connected to me directly. I could call them and ask for advice. I could email them and see if they are interested in my project or ask them to point me in the right direction. Now the task was connecting to them.

I did have some connections at a 3rd level. This means that I know someone that knows someone that knew lot’s of people in Venture Capital. This one person was my friend Gustavo. Gustavo is a programmer and one of his customers is a Venture Capitalists. That one person connected me with 300 people at a third level. If I really wanted to speak with one of those 300 people I could ask Gustavo for an introduction through his customer; but that was not my idea, I did not want just one connection, I wanted hundreds, or thousands.

I played more with the software and did more targeted searches by clicking on “Advanced Search”. I searched by zip code to see the closest contacts to me and therefore the ones I could contact in person. I also searched for keywords like “beverage” and “consumer goods” as the company I was working with was a beverage company. For every search I got great contacts. I thought this could turn out to be my very own private rolodex.

Discover the true power of LinkedIn by learning how to use it for sales, marketing and sales promotion

Don’t forget to sign up for our LinkedIn For Marketing Newsletter to get free videos, audios and strategy once per week.

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