Cut from the piece was my interview with Kevin Lee, Executive Chairman and co-Founder of DidIt.com, an online marketing firm. Lee uses LinkedIn answers to help him form ideas for his weekly column in ClickZ.com as well as researching business ideas, including looking for consultative expertise. He posts questions, researching issues, and gathering expertise from throughout his network.

LinkedIn also has a facility for passing on job postings.  Lee’s firm hired several people this way, both from referrals and direct respondents to the listings. Since he’s got around 4000 direct connections, his postings get a wide dispersal.  Another advantage of using Linkedin over other Job sites has been that the “hit” rate on resumes is greater – fewer bad resumes to weed out. “You can also can see both their resume and their LinkedIn profile to compare them to make sure the person isn’t ‘tuning’ their resume too much for you.”

Lee is also interested to see who’s endorsed them, and might follow up if he knows an endorser. If the person had an endorsement with a fairly senior executive, that may be more valuable than what the endorsement said – Lee figures the existence of an executive’s endorsement is indicative of a person’s ability to create relationships.

I also interviewed author Shel Horowitz, who has written 7 books, including Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers. Not surprisingly, he’s found some very valuable ways to use Facebook, as well as Plaxo’s Pulse connection service, and Social Networks CollectiveX and Ning. His constant posting and cultivation of his social networks have lead him to a guest spot on a business radio show, discussions with a European meeting planner about speaking at his marketing conference in France and even an invitation to consider starting an East Coast office for a well-respected West Coast PR firm.

Networking 2.0 is the new reality. As I note in my article, “There’s no denying that face-to-face networking is still a powerful way to meet and connect with potential clients. But online social networking is becoming more and more useful for doing these same things and more.” How do you leverage both the online and in person networks you have to do business? Comments are open below.

The Social Web TV: The Pilot: ‘Talk to our lawyers… bitch’

In the pilot episode, John McCrea, Joseph Smarr, and David Recordon spend fifteen minutes rapping on the idea behind the show and sharing their front-row perspective on what happened this week at the Supernova conference where the ongoing standoff between Google and Facebook flared back up.

I think they did really well for a first episode.

Today, the NYTimes had the same idea. Congrats to Chuck on the great publicity – he does a great job on LinkedIn Live, and all his activities.

BBC NEWS | Programmes | Click | Identity ‘at risk’ on Facebook

We have discovered a way to steal the personal details of you and all your Facebook friends without you knowing.

The article is worth reading. Wow, good job British hax0rz! I won’t say “the sky is falling” because this has been pretty well-known among the geek-o-rati for a long time. BBC notes MySpace apps run on MySpace’s servers, giving MySpace a much clearer idea of what an application is doing with the data.

Perhaps the media attention this is sure to draw will move FB to a more secure model. One can hope.

Fred, Brad, call me. Let’s do lunch. Who knows how big this can get…

(**Of course I knew this could happen when I became a “fan.” That’s why I’m only fans of products I can endorse. And, I’d endorse Union Square.)

Forward this…and see what happens. Familiar title, no? How many times in the recent past have you received something like this on a social network service? “Forward this and see who looks at your profile the most!” “Forward this and a cute dog will wink at you.” Enough, please.(read more of Forward this…and see what happens)

On hearing about Facebook fatigue, I admit to being somewhat less interested in Facebook thesedays. My primary annoyance being the Superwall posts which are a (futile?) attempt to see who accesses your profile by forwarding a useless picture of something (e.g. a puppy) to EVERYONE on their friends list. Now if this actually works, please let me know, as I haven’t had the guts to spam my entire list of friends whilst admitting my curiousity at the same time.

She also links to a fun video (some words not safe for a formal workplace)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZzP_69ZTFk[/youtube]

which does convey some of the way I feel about FB some days. As a professional social media consultant, I still play along, but after a long day of invites from people I don’t know, the video was wonderful to laugh along with.

Keeping Loose Ties Active
At a recent holiday party thrown by Larry Aronson, I ran into a person I’ve always liked but never spent much time with. We serve together on the board of NYSIA and he’s a VC (I guess this narrows it down). He came up to me and my wife, and, after the usual greetings, said “I haven’t seen you in a while but I feel I know what you’re up to because I follow you on Facebook. I see your twitters, your blog posts, and pictures, and I feel like we’re in touch.”
Well, my wife’s jaw dropped. Here’s someone who has lots of money to invest, works with companies I admire, and just by participating in Facebook I’m keeping him interested. This hasn’t lead to a direct lead, but it validates my strategy.

Shared Interest Leads to A Pitch
Recently I stated I ‘might attend’ the “Graphing Social Patterns” event put on by Dave McClure and O’Reilly. It’s certainly something I’d like to do, but I’m not sure I will be able to swing it due to scheduling. However, it showed in the Facebook news feed of a college friend who I had connected to, but haven’t spoken with in about seven years. He messaged me on Facebook and asked if I was interested in Social Media, as he had been tasked with looking into it for his company. Through a series of messaging exchanges, it has led from a phone call to an opportunity to pitch his company on Social Media Consulting services from my company, the Harbrooke Group. While the contract is still not signed, I never would have had the opportunity to pitch without updating my social status.

LinkedIn Links a client with a Fortune 500 in 4 hours
Recently I was able to do small bit of consulting with the excellent Truman Company from the Boston area. They are working on behalf of a Fortune 500 client who wanted a connection with, of all companies, LinkedIn. After leaving the call, I used my own LinkedIn network to find Mario Sundar, LinkedIn’s excellent community evangelist. Via Mario we got to the correct person at LinkedIn, and had a conference call scheduled in about half a day. It seems obvious, but the networks we build by connecting to people can and should be used to create connections that create value for our clients, our friends, and ourselves.

How have Social Media networks and connections improved your business? Comment or send me a note.

Technorati Tags: marketing, business development, social networks, facebook, howardgr, twitter, blogging

UPDATE: David has blogged this again, and has created a contest!