I posed this question on Twitter: "How do you use @LinkedIn?" and wanted to continue the conversation.

Where is the value in LinkedIn? It seems valuable to having a complete profile, but where's the value past that? Finding jobs, possibly. Past 500 connections, its hard to sort and find them and stay in touch. I'm nearing 2,000 connections on there, but still am not quite sure of the value after two years of a complete profile...

I think it is because I haven't needed to look for a job...maybe that is where it comes in handy. I also find I don't really check it very often. It doesn't have the same appeal to me...like Facebook/Twitter. I dislike the site design too.

I keep it mainly as an address book of people I've worked with that I don't really chat with. Good to have if I'm looking for a new job, otherwise I'm hardly on it.

I keep it for professional contacts that I am absolutely sure I will deal with. This way I can reduce the amount of contact bloat. Great for side projects when I need to bring in extra help, and great for keeping in touch with recruiters that get results.

I generally use it to keep professional contacts separate from personal contacts. For instance, I usually won't friend a coworker on Facebook, but I will add them on LinkedIn.

And as I said on Twitter, it is great if you are looking for a job (scope interviewers, find connections to company, see where future coworkers came from / what their experience is) or if you are hiring (scope applicants, find shared connections).

I cannot say if it helped me get my new job, but I would have felt uncomfortable not having it up to date when I was applying.

I "research" people I meet for the first time to see if we have common ground.

I can't say I find much day-to-day value in LinkedIn, and I've been dismayed by some past incidents. Three things that keep me from killing my profile:

1. Being present. Most of my work is through word-of-mouth, and that's what got me in the door with a big, financial services client. I later found out that my LinkedIn profile, and recommendations there, helped close the deal.

2. Finding help. In desperation, I have searched LinkedIn for web developers to hire, and one of my most reliable contractors is someone I found and hired based on her LinkedIn profile.

3. Quick research. New acquaintance? Request from a new client? I might hop on LinkedIn quickly to check out their background.

I've ceased otherwise checking in.

I've had a LinkedIn profile for 2 years now. I've had it complete since the first week. I got a job off of it, contacted by many recruiters, 2000+ contacts... But from a day to day, I still don't see the value. The "social" aspect just doesn't seem to be complete. I've shared posts, but never get feedback (where Twitter I get 10-20 RTs and replies). The groups aspect doesn't seem to be complete or active (at least the ones I'm in).

I'm looking for the day to day value in LinkedIn. Why should I login every day to check it like I do with Facebook or Twitter? Or is the value in just having a profile setup and seeing if a recruiter contacts you?

LinkedIn is about who you know. How do you meet new people then?

> LinkedIn is about who you know. How do you meet new people then?

That's a very different thread. I use Twitter for that. Constantly, daily. I rely on Twitter for my water cooler, for finding people to work with, for staying on top of industry and general news.

I've been pointing out to people that my browser history no longer includes websites outside of my client projects and business tools. Everything comes from Twitter or RSS, and goes into Pocket or something similar. Twitter is where I network.

I did find another potential hire more recently on LinkedIn...And moved the conversation over to Twitter/email. LinkedIn is a search tool.

Mark: But if LinkedIn is a "professional connections", shouldn't it also be a place for networking? Yes, I too use Twitter for networking far more than LinkedIn. But it seems that I should be able to get introduced to people easier, meet people easier on LinkedIn and build a network not around who I know offline, but also by meeting people online and adding them.

At one point, you could set up your LinkedIn profile to show your Twitter posts. This was great for me to communicate with my connections without them having to be on Twitter.

However, with the recent changes to Twitter, LinkedIn cannot do that anymore, and so I think LinkedIn has lost some of its day-to-day value in that regard.

I think what LinkedIn was trying to be is the hub of your professional life. But without Twitter (which I - and a number of my colleagues - only use professionally), it is going to lose some of that momentum, and become nothing more than a resume and rolodex.

I would respond that I "should" be able to trust Twitter, after 5 years, to not change gears and become a mass media tool rife with ads. That I "should" be able to trust I'll be able to continue to rely on accessing my stream in 3rd party apps where I can apply mute filters to make the service usable.

But, like LinkedIn, Twitter is steering the ship.

Asking where LinkedIn's value lies is different than stating what a valuable LinkedIn would be to you. Twitter's value for me seems to be lost on Twitter the company. LinkedIn has not focused on being a communication & networking platform. They made it a tool for collecting baseball cards, basically, and then filled it up with ads and content.

I disagree, Sean. I think LinkedIn could gain momentum and be a social hub for professionals. However, automating your tweets to go to LinkedIn isn't very "social" or encouraging engagement. Anything automated isn't very "social". If I automatically sent a text to all my friends saying "good morning" every day, that's not super social anymore. If LinkedIn can become some place to build your professional reputation, build connections, get answers to questions, etc. then it becomes a place to check regularly. The "answers" section may do that".

Mark: Yes! I agree... "collecting baseball cards" is a great summary of how I feel about LinkedIn. I'm trying to discover where the value to LinkedIn lies on a day to day, not just something you check every few months or when you get a message from a recruiter...

And maybe there isn't an answer to the question I'm looking for. Maybe there isn't value in twitter for the average Joe like me who isn't looking to hire anyone or actively looking for a new job. Maybe it is just something for adding connections that I may never do anything with and leaving it at that.

Timothy,

I don't disagree. However, the issue is inertia. I already spend my time on Twitter, following people I know. I am not going to follow those same exact people on LinkedIn. And I doubt those people are going to post the same content on LinkedIn.

What the auto cross posting allows is for me to stay where I am, but start showing up in the feed of those who do not follow me via Twitter. I would bet LinkedIn's goal was for my contacts to interact with me there, instead of Twitter.

I mean, what did you do here, but move the conversation from Twitter to Branch? If you had been auto cross posting, you could have pointed us to the already existing LinkedIn link (with commenting ability), rather than Yet Another Service(TM).

If I had been auto cross posting, my 20 conversational posts on Twitter would have shown up as 20 different posts on Twitter. ;) Plus I've been trying out Branch. That's besides the point, though.

I've shared quite a few things to Twitter over the last few years. And I think I've gotten only 4 likes and maybe 1 comment on those posts. Very, very little engagement.

Twitter I can sort people into lists and follow the content of those lists. LinkedIn its difficult to follow conversations when you get very many connections IMO.

I am at my current job because of LinkedIn. I have had 5 cold call interviews from it in the past year.

I tend not to get to many social gatherings in my field so LinkedIn has been a great help for me network. I don't find it a good place to converse or gather information. Plus I don't need another site to constantly check up on.

For me LinkedIn has landed me several clients and several creatives that I collaborate with. All of these situations and been 100% positive experiences. I do grant that it does seem a bit like gathering baseball cards and a lot of folks there don't interact.

But I have had many that do and have networked with them and garnered some gigs because of that.

It has gotten very very spammy as of late and that turns me off but I think in part it's what you put into it. Perhaps it's a different platform for different people depending on their situation.

Also their are several folks their that I compare notes with that don't use Twitter or FB or any other platform.

Branch for me holds promise in some way. I have already had some very rich conversations here.

LinkedIn has actually been a great way to keep an organized resume without having to do all the layout myself in say Photoshop or Word, etc. It has also led to connecting with prospective clients/jobs. Although one thing that annoys me is having recruiters who obviously don't look at your profile contact you about a job that is either irrelevant to what you do or is the exact same thing you do now at a lower position. : )

Overall though I find it a good tool.

On a related note, I added this exact question to Quora and the answers have been fairly comprehensive.

Many years ago I dug into LinkedIn and the free Outlook Toolbar in order to work out a repeatable process that would take minutes per day but offer something tangible in return.

After much testing and honing, I landed on a process that Monday through Thursday took 10 minutes of my time followed by around 15 minutes on a Friday.

The results? By following the process I netted 7-figure revenues for my business over a 3-year period. And this was all before the onset of the highly-spammed LinkedIn 'Answers' section and the (mis)use of Groups.

My method was entirely spam-free - I knew everyone I connected with personally and sent no unsolicited messages.

So for me, LinkedIn has proven to be high value with low cost of entry.