What's Kevin Bacon and LinkedIn got in common?

When I was 9 years old my entrepreneurial grandfather told me "it's not what you know it's who you know". Not only was he right in the non-digital age but LinkedIn has proved him right in the digital age too.

For those unlucky few, the idea of professional connecting with others on LinkedIn can be equated to an awkward social networking event. Common queries like  "I'm on there, but I have no idea what to use it for” or "All the important people I know have my contact information and work details, so why would I need to grow my LI connections?”. 

For many, like myself who evangelise the benefits of connecting on LinkedIn, however, building your professional network on LinkedIn has become a winning social media tool for business networking, equitable to an invaluable safe vault of gems.

Now known as “the great digital resume/business profile”, LinkedIn’s primary objective is to transform the 364 million member profiles into the 21st century “little black book” that no corporate recruiter or business professional can do without no matter what your business objective, no matter where you are.

For those who say that they have all the contacts that they need on LinkedIn because they are only connected to people that they know intimately I ask the question "Really?".

You can really see into the future and know that only the few hundred people on LinkedIn that you're connected to are the ones that will do business with you? Or be able to help you or you'll want to see views and content from? That they are the only ones who could help introduce you to that next role, that next investment opportunity, that next contact you can help, that next client? The other 364million potential contacts are not relevant or of interest?

Can you have enough contacts? How do you know how someone could help you and how you could help them? How do you know who they know are and how they could benefit you?

Remember the Kevin Bacon 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon game that people used to play? For those of you who don't remember, this game was all about how everyone in the film business was only 6 degrees away from Kevin Bacon. It came about because Bacon claimed to have worked with everyone influential in Hollywood and to therefore know everyone in Hollywood by at least 6 degrees of separation.

It was inspired by the scientific formula/theory that everyone is 6 degrees away from any other person on earth. For degrees read connections on LinkedIn. For the world read the business world.

I remember playing a version of this game on a Marketing cruise in the late 90's and realising that just within the circle of people in our group that we knew someone who knew someone who could  reach the President of America, the PM of the UK, the Australian PM the list went on.  That was based on 3,4,5 degrees of separation.

Now with LinkedIn you are much closer to more people. 2nd and 3rd connections are now touchable. With my 23,000 followers on LinkedIn I can reach tens of millions of professionals. Makes you think what the opportunities are with that many professionals within a couple of degrees of separation not six.

If you are looking for a new job or win a new client it’s not good enough to send in your resume to a recruiter anymore, or exchange a business card in hope of feedback. If you want to keep up with the times, you need to have a viable social media presence in a business context.

Gone are the days when recruiters would check your facebook profile to scan your photos in hope of dissecting your personality. They will though check out who knows you on LinkedIn. Those 2-3 degrees of separation kick in again. The same applies in business for clients. Easiest thing in the world for a client to check which mutual people you have in common and then ask them what they think of X, what was their company like to work with, did they deliver etc.

Synonymous with the age of social media is also the age of professional social recruitment/new business generation (it's all the same thing just using the data on LinkedIn in a different way) and LinkedIn provides the “real stuff”- the recommendations, experience, endorsements, YouTube Videos, profile updates, your opinions, associations, awards, past jobs and other such valuable information that would provide them with an accurate representation on your work ethic, who your professional personal really is, your company, you clients etc depending on the context of someone looking at your profile.

The value of business and even social networking on LinkedIn comes across in obvious ways. While many job sectors have arduous/enjoyable (depending upon your viewpoint) face-to-face networking opportunities built into the evening drinks, other businesses leave people isolated from their peers and colleagues sometimes for months on end. Other places are just too cold to network, I'm lucky that I live in Singapore where you can network outside 365 days of the year. I used to live in London where you couldn't!

LinkedIn fills this gap by providing numerous ways for users to discuss ideas and simply connect over conversations and posts every minute of every day. Whether you are trying to grow your reach, find content, explore opportunities, looking for investment/people to invest in or recruit talent/find new clients, this virtual meeting place is for many the first and last stop.

Some interesting facts for professional networkers on LinkedIn:

According to the Pew Research Center, LinkedIn usage is especially high among the educated (bachelor’s degree holders and up), and high earners (those making USD$75,000 a year or more) — exactly the types of people with whom you would like to connect with in a professional manner.

It is also the only social networking site Pew measured that showed higher usage among 45-64 year olds than among those ages 18-29, which means that those with more professional experience and potentially owners or hirers of businesses, are on the site. This is where the entrepreneurs are.

Additionally, 98% of recruiters and 85% of hiring managers use LinkedIn to find candidates, says Viveka von Rosen, author of LinkedIn Marketing.

If you want to be the Kevin Bacon of LinkedIn and your business community you can by working as hard as he did at networking but you can do it virtually as well as physically to speed up the whole process. Who will be the first to be 3 degrees of separation from everyone else on LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is your new "little black book", don't forget it and keep growing it. You never know where opportunities may lie whatever your business objective. Remember "it's not what you know, it's who you know".