Very nice and quite interesting post. You have very nicely analyzed and presented. Keep on.

Cheers!!!
Yug

I think the time element is the biggest issue for most people. Having said that, I know people who use Linkedin for just 10-15 minutes a day who get great value from it. They invested up front in writing a good profile, and they spend their time reaching out to new connections via referrals or reactivating old ones.

The things that can burn time are the groups and Q&A. They work for some people to generate a reputation and win business – but they can be a huge time sink. You must be careful and make sure you’re getting decent traction from them before investing a lot of time.

Ian

I find it difficult to manage the time I spend on LinkedIn, and as I’m relatively new to it (6 months) I have not seen results (as in “new business”)…yet! But I have definitely made new connections, deepened trust with existing contacts, benefited from sharing the expertise I’ve found in my Groups, etc.

My goal is to limit my time spent to 30-60 minutes a day on all Social Media activity. I tend to lose myself for several LARGE chunks of time each day!

Enjoy your blog….I’ll be back to visit soon!
LA

As for the ROI on marriage/partner – well, your on to a looser (ROI, that is . Atleast I’m But as you say we still do it. Affairs of the heart

My (slightly controversial) point of view is that trying to measure the ROI of social media is misguided. It’s like trying to measure the ROI of using the telephone or the mail or the internet. It’s a tool/technology – not a marketing initiative.

What’s much more realistic is to measure the ROI of a marketing initiative which uses an aspect of social media as a core element.

So just as you might decide you want to use a telephone marketing campaign to try to set up 20 meetings with potential clients which turn into 1 sales of over $10,000 (or whatever) – you can decide you want to get 20 meetings with potential clients based on referrals and direct contacts via linkedin, and you’re looking for $10,000 in sales as a result.

In both cases the technology (telephone or linkedin) is a core tool used in a marketing initiative. You can measure the ROI of the marketing initiative in terms of number of meetings, sales, etc. But you can’t sensibly the ROI of the tool itself.

And if you can’t construct a marketing campaign with measurable ROI which uses social media, then that’s a hint that you may not be getting value from it in the way you’re currently using it.

That’s a simplified view, of course. It becomes much harder when you combine social media with other approaches in a mixed campaign or an ongoing client relationship management programme. Did we retain our clients because we met with them face to face, or because we talked to them a lot on Twitter? You could try testing different approaches but it’s difficult to get a valid test, and it’s too tempting to abandon it once on approach shows slightly better results.

And, of course, there’s nothing wrong with doing something that doesn’t have a measurable ROI. Lord knows what the ROI of being nice to my wife is – but I still do it.

Ian

Ian

I’ve personally been extremely focused on NOT phishing for connections. As I said on my blog post “I’ve followed up every new meeting with a personally edited LinkedIN connection email. “. This took much more time and effort than randomly finding people. It also took alot more time than just sending a personally edited LinkedIN connection email rather than the standard LinkedIn invite.

For me it does matter – it sends out a social media message – I’m real and have integrity.

Many thanks for posting.

On the “high number of connections” front, it can cut both ways. Some people see you as more credible if you have a large number of connections. On the other hand some are wary that you’re just “collecting connections” and won’t be a good contact, or that connectign with you will “open up” their network to your loose network of potential spammers (in their eyes).

Rgds

Ian

Thanks for publishing these useful results.

I’ve recently reached 500+ LinkedIN connections and posted about the benefits and expereinces I’ve enjoyed – http://nickpoint.co.uk/2010/01/15/what-has-linkedin-done-for-you-lately-2/ Many of my findings echo the survey results for both that “Finding new connections” and “Reconnecting with old contacts”.

I also believe that the higher the number of LinkedIN connections an individual has the more ‘well networked’ they seem to be. This is a great persistent message to send out to potential clients who are evaluating you and your company.

I’m sold on the benefits LinkedIN brings!

Best

Nick

The medium sized firm thing puzzles me too. Not really sure why the results are so different. With 44 responses it can’t be just be random variation.

Cheers,

Ian