– After ignoring it for a year, I finally logged back in to my LinkedIn account, updated my profile, and approved the 5 people who have asked to add me to their network (some of the requests were as old as May 2006). LinkedIn is sort of the professional equivalent of MySpace or Friendster. You set up a profile listing your work experience, education, and professional goals, and then invite people you know to join your network, so you can have access to their contacts. You can write recommendations for people you know, and you can use your network to hunt for jobs, business leads, or other professional opportunities. Here’s a link to my LinkedIn profile – I’ve also added a permanent link to it on the right site of my blog, underneath my picture. If you’re on LinkedIn, or if you’d like to join (it’s free) and do some professional networking, I invite you to add me to your network.
Looks like LinkedIn is really starting to take off in Memphis – when fellow blogger AngieDawn invited me to join a year and a half ago, it was big on the East and West Coasts but not so much here. Now it looks like people are really starting to use it to leverage the power of connections. The more people who know who you are, and what you’re looking for professionally, the better the opportunities that will come your way. I still have plans to build a website about passive job hunting to get out of the rat race, and LinkedIn is going to be one of the tools I talk about.
I hope to use LinkedIn to make contacts who can help me learn about affiliate marketing, where I partner with businesses and put their links on my websites – and every time a sale is made through my links, I get a commission. I was going to list my existing affiliate sites on my LinkedIn profile, but then I thought, how “professional” am I going to look if I mention that I run a site called the Tube Top Boutique? I decided to leave that one out..
– Speaking of affiliate sites… people have asked me if I really think anyone who reads my blog will buy anything from my newest site, The Romania Store. No, probably not. The reason I mentioned the new store is so it will perform well in search engine rankings. If Google sees a popular site (like this blog) linking to it, it figures The Romania Store must have valuable content and will move it toward the top of search results. I’ve tried to search engine optimize the site as much as possible, including each county in Romania as a link (and there’s merchandise for each county, so it makes sense).
– I’m going to have to take one for the team today. The Rapscallions have a $25 gift certificate to the Flying Saucer that expires today, so I’m going to buy it from the team and spend it. Dammit… I’m going to have to drink $25 worth of beer. It will be hard, but it’s a sacrifice I have to make for my friends.
Won’t be able to make that sacrifice until happy hour, though, because it looks like I may have a business meeting for the new job, or possibly a phone conversation to go over how existing sites have been built.
– It was good to meet fellow blogger Amy W Sunday afternoon… I passed her on Main Street as she was walking her dog. I think I insulted her dog though, referring to the dog as a Chihuahua when she’s actually a miniature Doberman. Oh well, what do I know about dogs.
– Bored. Think I’ll hit a coffee shop and work from there for a while, maybe Otherlands. There’s a new Memphis Flyer out today, so I’ll see what’s going on this weekend and post if I see anything interesting.