A Practical Social Networking Idea You Can Use Today

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The other day I got an interesting message from Larry Genkin who runs the Thought Leadership Marketing Group on Facebook.

His message offers a very practical social networking idea that utilizes the power of LinkedIn (LinkedIn, for those who may not be aware, is a social networking site for business professionals, but in other respects is similar to MySpace and Facebook).

One of the distinguishing features of LinkedIn is that it enables one person to recommend another. Recommendations are sort of endorsements based on your experience with that other person. Because it is a business professionals' group, LinkedIn members are evaluated by the number and quality of their recommendations.

That said, here is the message Larry sent to me:

Gaining credibility and developing messaging "allies" are critical factors in reaching Thought Leader status. Here's one technique you can do today to help in both areas:

Go into your LinkedIn account (if you don't have one, go to www.linkedin.com and get set up asap) and endorse some of your contacts work with a SINCERE recommendation that comes from your heart. (Do NOT blow smoke...this is a blunder many of the uninitiated make that will completely backfire on you.)

Don't ask for permission and don't tell them after you've done it. Once you've done this a few things will happen:

1) You will be elevated in their opinion of you
2) You will activate the reciprocity principle and they will feel like they "owe you one"
3) Many will likely reciprocate and endorse you, giving you genuine testimonials that you can use in your marketing to demonstrate your competence and expertise
4) This endorsement of you, by them, activates the commitment/consistency principle where they will be more and more inclined to recommend you to others because they've already gone on the record stating something positive about you
5) They will be more likely to become a messaging ally of yours and spread the word about you

Make this a regular practice. Do a few of these every day and see what happens after a month. Report back into the group with the results.

If you are on Facebook, I encourage you to join Thought Leadership Marketing Group. I also urge you to visit Larry Genkin at http://www.thoughtleadershipmarketing.com/.

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COPYRIGHT © 2009, Charles Brown