If you have the opportunity to build yourself a fantastic social media sphere, from time to time your contacts will come looking for your connection to someone. This happens in the case of referrals between friends for contractors, home improvement, lawn care and more. It also happens, even more effectively in the business world. Here’s a quick tip that I use when I get the request to make connections. I use Facebook to write a short post person 1 meet person 2. Here’s why I am connecting you…
It’s quick, it’s easy, and it saves an email.

Just another way that social media really is such a time saver!

One of the best ways to share information about companies you know, like, or recommend is to do blog posts sharing the story and then linking over to the other company.

It is also a great idea to create a resource page for your customers who may be interested in related services. Do more than just list the names and links, write a little bit about why. What benefit can someone expect from each of the people you recommend? What makes them special? Why do you choose to share their information with your readers?

Paying it forward with testimonials, kudos and recommendations is the key to building strong connections online.

Who can you recommend?

In our LinkedIn training session on Friday we covered many different ways that businesses can use LinkedIn to further their goals and relationships with people to make powerful connections. By networking online with people, LinkedIn allows us to connect with so many people around the globe, that we should be able to find a connection to just about anyone, in any industry that we are looking for. A local business person I know looks for strategic connections on LinkedIn and sets five new (local) introduction appointments a week through the system. It’s not about setting an appointment to make a sale, but it is about setting an appointment to get to know someone new. By finding more out about each other, we are able to help everyone reach their dreams and goals.

Here’s a short video about LinkedIn:

I’d love to hear some of your linked in strategies, success stories and more. What have you found to be the best part of using the service? What are some creative ways that we can further connections with each other via LinkedIn?