Content Matters

Sitting at a conference last week, I had a discussion with a few colleagues about the value of business social networking sites, particularly LinkedIn.
The general consensus was that LinkedIn was moderately useful, though none of us were raving fans of the service.  Then today, I stumbled across a post by Jeff Atwood, called Opting Out.

Jeff has some pretty strong feelings about the lack of value he has gotten from LinkedIn, and the fact that LinkedIn gets inherent value from its 7 million members.  Seeing no value from the service, Jeff is right to opt out (and is rightly frustrated that there's no easy "remove me" button).

That being said, I think that services like LinkedIn do add value, though the value is perhaps a bit more nuanced than LinkedIn might want you to think.

First, we should all understand that social networking in the business world is very different from social networking for teenagers.  When you're a teenager, gaining a new "friend of a friend" might be compelling in itself.  When you are measured by the size and status of your social networking, almost any addition has value.

In the business world, the value of a distant online friend is minimal and could even be a negative.  I use LinkedIn as an online tool to help me understand the network of my offline contacts.  In other words, if I am trying to find a contact at CompanyX, I'll use LinkedIn to see who in my network knows someone at CompanyX.  Then, I'll typically call that contact to discuss a possible introduction.  My goal is not simply to increase the size of my network, but rather to identify the potential reach of my existing network.  And, LinkedIn helps me do that.  Without it, I'd end up sending emails to all of my peers asking "Do you know anyone at CompanyX?"   

It's true that I get about a request a month from someone who doesn't know me to link to them.  Many of them are simply link collectors (you can see them listed with 500+ connections in their LinkedIn Profile).  In most of these cases, I politely decline, letting them know that I only share access to my network with people whom I've met.  I also have my profile configured so others cannot simply browse my connections - they only see the link when it's part of a relevant search.

But for me, LinkedIn does create value, certainly enough value to make it worth keeping my profile up to date.  If it doesn't create that level of value for you then, like Jeff (and Robert), you should opt out.