LinkedIn Tip: Follow Through on the Questions You Ask!

There's no doubt that LinkedIn is an effective social networking tool to complement traditional networking. As LinkedIn has grown, so have the LinkedIn "experts" who help people use the tool most effectively.

Tips from experts include asking and answering questions to create visibility for your profile and your expertise, updating your profile frequently, and focusing on building quality (rather than quantity) connections.

If you're asking questions on LinkedIn, you really should research and provide the answer to the question you ask. After all, if you're using LinkedIn to underscore your professionalism, you should include answers to indicate your commitment to follow through.

Consider the following example.

A few weeks ago, after ordering some Girl Scout Cookies, I posed the following question in the "Guerilla Marketing" category: "Girl Scout Cookies. You're limited to buying only ONE BOX this year. What flavor do you order (and why)?"

About 35 people responded to the question. As their responses rolled in, I got curious about the Girl Scout cookie "industrial complex". I reached out to a PR contact in the Girl Scouts of Gateway Council (Alex Gornik) and asked her about sales. Being responsive and eager to evagelize about these sweet treats, she sent me information relevant to my question.

I've featured the information below, but the point of this post is to convey that after receiving this information, I sent a personalized email to every individual who responded to the initial question. I thanked them for responding and repackaged the information I received from my Girl Scout contact.

That's following through. A valuable bit of advice for LinkedIn users.

Here's the information I received from my Girl Scout contact:
Some stats from Little Brownie Bakers (one of the two national bakers that provide Girl Scout Cookies) are: Nationally Thin Mints and Samoas make up 50% of all cookies sold; Do Si Dos, Tagalongs and Trefoils = 30%; and all the others = 20%.
The Girl Scouts of Gateway Council (covering 16 counties in North Florida including Jacksonville) have similar stats (2008 sale):
* 31 Mints
* 25 Samoas
* 14 DoSiDos
* 8 Lemon
* 7 All Abouts
* 5 Trefoil
* 5 Choc. Chip
* 5 Tags

Girl Scout cookies both support local Girl Scout Troops and programs and camp to keep costs low so every girl can have the opportunity to participate regardless of her family’s ability to pay.

So two actions-to-take from this posting:
1) Follow through on the questions you ask on LinkedIn
2) Enjoy your Girl Scout cookies (especially Thin Mints)!