Linked in is a great community especially for those work from home business providers.Facebook however has become more effective, it has a wider audience and even can match particular market segments. The best thing to have is a fan page nowadays.

www.lrchance.com

Social media can be a great tool for entrepreneur's if used correctly. Social media will not necessarily lead to more revenue right away but it can greatly help build your brand. Sites like facebook and twitter, can give your brand further legitimacy and create a community for your clients. This community allows for intimacy with the product and should lead to new customers.

http://franchise.homecareassistance.com

LinkedIns cap has hurt entrepreneurs - and itself.

I connected with Steven Burda before the cap and he has been the one individual in my network of 200 real world friends that will appropriately and consistently make introductions. He hasnt tried to take credit for it or expect[ed] anything in return.

Since the cap, my employees and sales people cant connect with Steven and thus their time/efforts expended on LinkedIn are less effective/reliable than mine.

Steven isnt a good networker, he is a great one; and its naive to think that quantity and quality cant co-exist. It is also wildly inaccurate and unfair to suggest that he has a method that cheapens and dilutes the experience. Steven has lots of methods and theyve greatly increased involvement in the network and definitely helped LinkedIn.

Bad profits are those earned at the expense of customer relationships and that undermine growth. Ironically, the best customers often get the worst deals. If you are a patient, loyal user of your telephone company, your mobile phone provider, and your Internet-service company, chances are good that you are paying more than disloyal switchers who signed up more recently. (see The Ultimate Question, Fred Reichheld)

The people at LinkedIn are smart enough to realize this; thats probably why they dont want to comment.

Steven is arguably LinkedIns best customer (at least promoter) and entrepreneurs inability to connect with him definitely decrease their ROI of networking through LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is a good network. Lets hope they wise up before users become apathetic, or worse, detractors.

I think the real issue here has more to do with what some people feel they are entitled to regardless of what the rules are. If Linkedin were to offer free membership for anyone with up to XX number of connections and then charge for memberships based on incremental increases I can guarantee Burda and others who constantly complain about these limits would not be willing to pay for an increase. They all seem to think they are entitled to any and everything they want for free.

Linkedin is a business and although they do allow free membership it would be within their right to stop having free accounts and people could either pay or move on. It is their business you either learn to live within the rules or move on to another site. They owe members NOTHING!!!

A person can have both quality and quantity up to a certain point, but after that quantity will kill quality off. Recruiters and sales people alike can use a vast database and most of those are willing top pay for it. Those not willing to pay should stop complaining.

I have seen the emails you have sent people Steven, asking them for an endorsement in exchange for an introduction or for passing their resume on to someone you claim will be able to help them. Once they endorse you they never hear from you again and those that reach out to you again get the exact same canned emailed you sent them the first time. Or such as is the example below where you write a short sentence to endorse someone else who you have JUST connected to so you can follow up with the following:

Steven Burda, MBA has endorsed your work as (position and name of business)

Dear (Member Name),
Ive written this recommendation of your work to share with other LinkedIn users.

Thank you for being part of my network on Linkedin. If you could, would you please write me one too under "Business Partner" at Burda Consulting (my non-profit)? It would only take a minute or two of your time by would help me and others in my network. Direct Link to write it: (personal information has be redacted) and enter e-mail: (personal information has be redacted). Just in case, my goals are found here: (personal information has be redacted) and philanthropic involvements and profiles is here: (personal information has be redacted). My keynote presentation on networking: (personal information has be redacted) and (personal information has be redacted). Thank you.

Hmmm, what was that you said about they asked you what they could do for you? Sounds to me like you were the one asking. How can you endorse anyone you connected to five minutes ago?

So yes there are limits set on linkedin and it is because of people who are nothing more than connection whores that those limits had to be imposed. The groups were open and people could have as many as they wanted at one time, then those interested in collecting names rather than networking joined all those groups and spammed them with requests to connect. Members had to wade through all those spam posts just to find the real discussions so linkedin limited them to 50.

The groups are intended to network with people that have similar interest, those that join them just to connect to others are abusing the groups. The limits linkedin imposes do not stop anyone from networking or helping others. If you cannot reach someone directly or are too cheap to pay for inmails then use introduction requests. Those are free and you can use them over and over again.

Bottom line, you have a free account if the limits bother you start your own networking site and cancel your free membership at linkedin.

As a side note to your comment about those that are a second or third degree connection not commenting, many of us that are second or third degree to you used to be connected to you until you began forcing people to connect or recommend you in exchange for sending on an introduction or passing on a resume. We removed you for good reason. You are simply too self absorbed to recognize that or even notice when people remove you.

Sheilah Etheridge

Lubna said on 11/05/09: "Sheilah is right that the true spirit of LinkedIn networking is to help without expecting anything in return. Pay it forward is the spirit of networking here." So, why am I "wrong" then? That is EXACTLY what I do -- I pay it forward and help people as much as I can (and I am not a magician!) in my little free time that I have, without expecting anything in return from them. Yes, I grew with Linkedin and became "known" to many. Anyone who knows me or part of my direct (1st) degree on Linkedin can attest to this. Anyone who is 2nd or 3rd degree away from me should NOT be even commenting, because with me its not just quantity as you see, but quality too! Can a big supermarket like Wagmans Food Markets or Whole Foods deliver quality and quantity of their products, or they get compared and slammed to little moms and pops stores too? If youre skeptical on which side to take, just see my profile before you comment, or this: http://www.cio.com/article/print/470122 and http://www.foxmbasa.com/conference/speakers.html Regarding nearly 3,000 recommendations that I have amassed in the last 5 years, well, when people ask me what they can do to return of the favor, I do suggest to recommend my service (not me as a person, but the service I provided through my non-profit to them) when they were in need, and directed them to post their endorsement under Burda Consulting Co. only if they were comfortable in doing so. 99% of people were. Why is this wrong? I just dont get some people like Lubna or Sheilah criticize me in negative light PUBLICLY and are afraid to contact me privately. My e-mail and number is available in contact section of my profile. Its not about the actual (and newly implemented) 30,000 number that bothers me, but the limit itself. What if the limit would be 50 or 500 and Lubna/Sheilah could not connect to past colleagues, classmates, family members? Would then it make a difference? Remember, Bill Gates back in the 70s that "no one will need more than 637KB of memory for a personal computer" and guess what? EVERYONE needs more than 637KB. Hotmail and Yahoo gave 1MB and 5MB free email accounts -- and guess what? Today Gmail (and others) go into gigabytes. Ford Model T had 20 horse powers and everyone thought that was more than enough. Time will tell -- and I will revisit this blog again. Thank you, - Steven Burda P.S. People who in-favor and support my pay-it-forward philosophy are here: http://tinyurl.com/LinkedinPDF

I have been in communication with both Steven Burda as well as Sheilah Etheridge and can vouch that they are both outstanding networkers who have provided a lot of value to the LinkedIn community. While it is true that a limitation on invitations cant stop people from communicating with each other, it is the way in which it was implemented and the lack of transparency that are of issue here. LinkedIn enacted this restriction with no warning earlier this year. It was unfair to the people, however few there may have been, that had over 30,000 invites at that time. And LinkedIn has never formally announced that there is a 30,000 user limitation. What could stop them from bringing it down to 20,000? 10,000? The problem is that in this new age of social media we are communicating and connecting with more and more people. If you are in sales or marketing and go to a lot of networking events, the numbers can add up quickly. Is 30,000 a lot of people? Of course it is. But it is the act of placing an arbritary limit and then not publicly explaining this that I have an issue with. There is no stopping LinkedIn from further lowering this, and if you use LinkedIn as your primary contact database, it could definitely hamper your future communication. The potential for networking is limitless. Why restrict two parties if they want to connect on LinkedIn, regardless of how many connections they have? It just doesnt make sense to me... - Neal Schaffer http://windmillnetworking.com

On the one hand, I agree with Sheilah that 30K is a whole lot of connections, and that entrepreneurs are not significantly impeded by this particular limit. And certainly, LinkedIn is within their rights to establish limits within whatever boundaries they want, especially since theyre trying to monitize things. I do, however, believe that Steve Burda has a point, in that LinkedIn is going to continue to create limits in an attempt to drive their members towards paying services. One such limit, which I feel is more restrictive, is the 50-group limit. LinkedIn is trying to prevent members from being able to connect *too* easily, which would negate the point of a premium subscription. IMO, they are missing many great opportunities to make LinkedIn totally ubiquitious for business networking. Sure, it is the king today, but there are enough entrants who could pose a significant problem to them before the end of 2010, should they continue to charge prices for the premium service that add little value or functionality, and restrict connectivity options. By now, you should be able to comment on a website using your LinkedIn account to logon just as you can for Twitter or Facebook on many sites. And, the premium services should provide less restrictions on more than just InMails and profile views. How about more groups? How about more invites? Paying 10x the price of a Business Plus account should give you 10x the limits, not the meager increases they currently do. They are so focused on how to make money, that they are not getting how to add real value, and their current advantage could soon be eradicated by a more customer-focused competitor. Naymz, is one such service that could benefit from LinkedIn failing to get it. Lets hope they get it together, and stop creating artificial reasons to go with their over-priced "business" offerings. ASB: http://xeesm.com/AndrewBaker Providing Competitive Advantage through Effective IT Leadership.

Hi Jennifer,
It is a well balanced article.
I think, 30,000 is more than a generous amount of first degree connections that one can fruitfully have and nurture.
Sheilah is right that the true spirit of LinkedIn networking is to help without expecting anything in return. Pay it forward is the spirit of networking here.
I am a LinkedIn member and quite happy with the network opportunities I have had within my limited first degree network of less than 1,000. I have got help from many members and have helped a few others.
As Jennifer sums up: In the end, it probably boils down to your personal view of how online networking is supposed to work. LinkedIn sure works fine for me.
Best,
Lubna