FollowLast week I wrote a post on why I “think” I regret becoming an open networker on LinkedIn. I had an enormous response. So thank you everyone for the support. The thing I love about social media is how responsive people are if you ask for help. Jason Ball from Good People Japan, a networking group, kindly wrote a detailed comment about how he manages his LinkedIn activity and his group. He had such great tips for anyone wanting to use LinkedIn, I thought I’d feature it. Essentially Jason has used his LinkedIn group as a platform for meeting offline. Over to Jason!.
1. I closed off my connections for browsing.
2. I invited all the people in my local area to join a closed group for business to business development in my local area of Tokyo. This eliminated recruiters, financial planners/appointment setters, Network Marketers, and people touting business to consumers (who see everyone as a potential customer). I kept it local to Japan unless people were referred to me and had some connection to doing business in Japan.
3. My concept is about meeting in person in small groups around proposed subjects of interest. It’s also about me introducing my network to each other.
4. I became a moderator then administrator to another large group called “Business In Japan”, which had 11,000+ members world wide, and 4,500 Japan based members. So now when people from overseas invite me as a contact, if they have taken the time to make a personal approach or have an interesting profile for doing business or working in Japan, I recommend they join “BIJ”. If they’re in Japan and fit the profile for my group I recommend we meet up in person some time, or even at an event. There I may mention GoodPeople Japan and the BIJ Group.
5. I focus on engaging with people through all channels, including into Twitter. I may soon include Facebook.
6. I focus on spending 20% of the time in person being very clear on how people can help me and 80% of my time understanding and suggesting how I might help others.
All this means I’m busy yes, but I’m busy with “real” people who are the people behind connections, followers and “friends”.
Other than that, I’m still learning how to best engage people, how to best help people and how to and define where I’m going, all while having a whole heap of fun!
Thanks again, fellow Aussie “LinkedIn”-er! (This Aussie uses LinkedIn)
Jason
Connecting GoodPeople
http://jp.linkedin.com/in/goodpeople
@GoodPeopleJapan
http://www.goodpeople.jp
Karalyn is the Founder of InterviewIQ and chief champion for all her clients. Get personal coaching to make 2023 your most successful year yet. Check out our job search booster services here>>Give me smarter ways to find a job .
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I too have been experiencing frustrations with LinkedIn Groups. I have joined and actively participated in several, and have started Japan Electric Motors (2 years ago) as well as the active KdL Web2.0 Social Media Group: a networking group for people in Japan or with business connections here, for people who intend to “actually” network: meet face-to-face when possible, and through our Twitter list http://www.twitter.com/osakasaul/kdl to support each others’ projects, blogs, career/business initiatives. In LinkedIn, we are at http://bit.ly/9PFJ1N – and are at 211 members for our first 6 months. Dozens of meet-ups so far, and one of us is now working for another KdLer (something I was able to initiate, so I still see a glimmer of hope for solid value in what I mean to do with KdL).
My blog entries for March and June will give you a sense of my frustrations, but you might enjoy the read nevertheless: http://saul.thoseinmedia.com/
For what its worth, Jason/GoodPeopleJapan is a KdL member, and along with his generous contributions to our discussions in KdL LinkedIn, I scour his tweets for those he would likely want to be promoted the farthest (events he is involved with, charitible (beersforbooks, heroinforhookers – ok, the latter of those two might be my attempt at levity) events/projects, his own writings, or even a question that he needs answered). I do this for Jason, because he is interactive. Communicative. My frustration lies in that while I encourage this to people before and after they join, blog about it, and am quite overt in practicing cross-promotion via LinkedIn (5%), KdL members’ blogs (5%) and Twitter (90%), I find that most people just TAKE.
“TKVM,” is about all you get. A scant few (Jason is a notable exception, and in fact, we have a few “occassionally-involved” KdLers) do this.
Finally, we could SKYPE on this if you like, of ocurse, I would love to hear your stories, share my own, as for Japan and KdL, and other things, and you will find me in Twitter/SKYPE/most networks: osakasaul
Lastly, the ‘K’ of KdL used to represent Kansai; we were “Kansai De LinkedIn.” I opened up to all those with Japan business interests, and in fact, we are more in Tokyo and California than Kansai – but this is because, alas, we do not seem to have a social media/entrepreneurial/networking community in Kansai.
For the life of me, I have dug under every rock, promoted the hell out of KdL, but find a scant few interested people in Osaka or Kansai. Quite frustrating, since I wold like to be involved with the start-up movement, and BarCamps, TEDosaka, etc. It is for this reason that I relish every opportunity to learn from people like you, Jason, @mqtodd – in hopes of finding effective ways to use my time to get things actually happening.
Hope to hear from you, Karalyn,
Saul
Thanks for your comments Saul, I really appreciate them and I will add my thoughts to your blog.
@GoodPeopleJapan #LinkedIn #li #networking How to make the most out of a linkedin group http://interviewiq.com.au/how-to-make-th…
@InterviewIQ Thanks very much Karalyn! That’s a RT on overdrive! #LinkedIn #in #networking http://interviewiq.com.au/how-to-make-th… #b_i_j #gpj
#LI #recruiters Recruiters! How to make the most of a linkedin group http://interviewiq.com.au/how-to-make-th… @GoodPeopleJapan
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