Back on 7/30/08, we wrote about LinkedIn and its recent surge as a great business tool. After getting LinkedIn fever, I spent about an hour a day for a week or so, building my profile, importing my address book, sending out 177 invitations to connect with colleagues, clients, vendors, family, and friends.
And here's two more reasons to jump on the bandwagon: First, it drove 8.9% of our website traffic in July. We're able to track referring sources to our website and LinkedIn referrals grew 378% from June to July. It's a major eyeball channel for awareness of our company overall and did bring in two inquiries so far.
Secondly, it turned into a effective networking tool to begin our recruitment search for a new account executive. With LinkedIn, plus a database of unsolicited resumes we've collected, we were able to eliminate any need to pay for a recruitment ad or headhunter.