How to keep in touch with your connections

Okay, you've got 500 connections, now what?

(I checked quickly and about 80% of my 1,154 Linkedin connections have over 500 connections).

Well, now is the time to communicate with them.

A good way is to use an email service like ConstantContact.com, it's affordable at $30 per month for 2,500 emails. I've been using it for more than a year.

A FREE tool is www.ymlp.com, good too but fewer functionalities.

So anyways, WHAT information should you share with your 500+ connections?

Here's a hierarchy that you can use as a rule of thumb:

1. Actionable information
2. Useful information
3. Interesting (facts, stories, etc.)
4. Inspiring information (young Charlie Simpson)
5. Entertaining information
6. Titillating information

For example, in this post, I shared with you the www.ymlp.com link, so that's actionable info: you can go to the site, register in 2 minutes, and start inviting your connections to opt in (if they are interested in receiving news for you).

An example of useful information (not immediately actionable) is if I were to recommend to you the book The Mystery of Capital, by Hernando de Soto, which explains VERY SIMPLY how capitalism works.

That info is useful (in the long term) because after reading The Mystery of Capital, you will have insights about how to use Linkedin strategically, and in fact will view Linkedin as a powerful tool for playing better at the game called Capitalism.

An example of INTERESTING INFORMATION, is that I recently created an enterprise specializing in strategic AI (artificial intelligence) services to maximize the strategic advantage of select individuals and corporations. A quick way to explain this new company, is that I design and build a sort of "Deep Blue" -- the supercomputer that defeated world chess champion Kasparov -- for citizens, companies and countries. I will keep you posted on developments.

Actually, I don't know if that info is interesting to you, but it might be given the fact that the global economy is moving more and more toward knowledge, symbolism and cerebral processing. If you are currently an employee working for a corporation, you are not yet fully leveraging the computing power of your PC; you cannot yet program your PC to work for you.

Indeed, the mantra for creating wealth in the global, Internet company is: "Code your work, and work your code."

It is not surprising that Bill Gates became the richest man in the world: he worked and lived by that mantra.

Anyways, back to our hierarchy.

INSPIRING INFORMATION, could be the story of 7-year-old Charlie Simpson, who raised over $100,000 to help Haiti by having and implementing the idea of biking to raise funds.

My point, throughout this post, is that it's important to keep in touch with your connections, but not by sending them irrelevant information.

Use the hierarchy above, and you'll be able to know WHAT information to send to them, and ensure that your connections view you as an active, valuable and trustworthy resource.

Keep your connections informed with this FREE mailing list service

I use ConstantContact, which costs about $30 per month, to communicate with thousands of people, but I just discovered this FREE service you can use to keep in touch with your Linkedin connections:

www.ymlp.com

The following restrictions apply if you choose the FREE option (as opposed to the paid option):

Free accounts can only collect contacts by adding a signup form to their website. The "Add/Import Contacts" page to add contacts manually is not available.

• Free accounts can send up to 1,000 emails per month.
• Maximum number of contacts: 1,000
  Free accounts with more than 1,000 contacts will not be able to send newsletters until they are upgraded to a paid plan.
  However, further subscriptions will continue to be processed as long as the account remains open.

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Now, you might be wondering, what exactly are the benefits of using a mailing list service, even if it's free?

Well, the problem is that on Linkedin, you might have lots of connections (say, 500+) but you're too "shy" to send them emails. After all, you don't want to spam anybody, right?

And yet, if you don't write to them, then you are merely a faceless, unknown connection (among their hundreds or perhaps thousands of connections).

The solution is to ask all your connections to simply fill out a form (which can be created in seconds at the above site), IF they want to receive news from you.

That way, everybody wins: your connections win because they CHOSE to receive news from you; you win because you get to share your news with those who want it. You won't be spamming anyone.

So let's say you have 500 connections, and 200 opted in (that is, they entered their name and email addresses, in order to receive your news).

Then, you know you have 200 people who are interested in going further with you, and have accepted to receive your news. These are the people that you can, over time, build a win-win relationship with.

In the next post, I will write about the type of news that you can send out to those 200 people.

Using Linkedin Groups to grow one's direct connections

I was researching the Groups on Linkedin when I saw this:

SAP Freelancers(membership only for direct contact to sapguroo@gmail.com)

you need to be a first degree contact to be able to join this group send invite to sapguroo@gmail.com For SAP Freelancers to exchange knowledge and opportunity, freelancing,ERP freelancers,Freelancers.(membership only for direct contact to sapguroo@gmail.com)

Yesterday’s Activity: Jobs (1)

Owner: Krishna Badarla | 6,767 members | Share

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Now, THAT is interesting. The creator/owner of this group requires that you be DIRECTLY connected to him, in order to access this group.

I don't know what ERP or SAP are about, but I know it's a fairly important function in business, so I'm assuming that Krishna (the Group Owner) is cleverly leveraging the promise of that Group in order to get more direct connections.

Having more direct connections, is always a great thing.

Linkedin is a bit like the medieval days, when there was a King and then feudal lords who, in exchange for land, promise to be loyal to the King.

Linkedin Group owners are like feudal lords. By creating a Group and growing it, they are indeed growing their influence, often in multiple countries.

Now, why is it important to grow one's list of Linkedin connections?

After all, if you are like most Linkedin users, you are then an employee -- not an entrepreneurs selling and trading in the open marketplace.

However, something is happening that is NOT being reported by the mass media. It's what I call the rise of intellectual capitalism.

More and more people around me are turning their knowledge, experience and expertise into "intellectual capital," like an ebook, and they are selling it worldwide.

Even those who have not written an ebook of their own, are thinking of getting a copyright license (or a business license) in order to sell the creative work of others.

In both cases, a person needs to have a BIG list of Linkedin connections, and I mean more than 1,000 connections.

Making money by selling intellectual goods via Linkedin, won't interfere with your regular daytime job. But it will impact your bank account positively because we are talking about passive income here.

The secret to make extra mone on Linkedin, is to focus on the List, the Liquidity and the Letter.

The Liquidity, is simply something you can sell to a great number of Linkedin users.

I will talk more about the List and the Letter.