The Top Recommended People Group on Linkedin™ AND Its Members are Nothing Short of Amazing!

The numbers of people contacts that have come to me from all over the world over the last 9 months are simply incredible. The group has now grown to over 1,425 members!! That is 1,425 people, each with over 10 recommendations (14,250 separate recommendations minimum)! Of course, many members have more than 10.

During that time, the depth and breadth of my personal network continued to expand.

Top Recommended People member Sean Nelson has willingly provided Linkedin™ strategy information on his blog for over 2 years free of charge.  His blog can be found at: http://socialmediasonar.com/, where he also promotes the Top Recommended Group via a link. He asked me help to advertise his blog because he was in a blog-off competition. In doing so, I realized my “reach”, as Sean would call it, was easily in excess of 500,000 people, that is I could directly contact that number of people either in an e-mail, or in a discussion item posted in the groups I belong to. The “reach” number was actually much higher than that, however, Sean and I share many of the same groups. I gladly reached out to help Sean. Sean also owns the Edulinktion group on Linkedin™: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=1834863.

Sean also manages Top Recommended People member Nathan Kievman’s Linked Strategies group: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1245667, as does fellow Top Recommended People member Randy Schrum (more on Randy later). Nathan or Nate as his friends call him has been providing Linkedin™ knowledge free of charge to the greater Linkedin™ public via his webinar’s for some time. Join Nate’s group and attend one, you can’t go wrong.

Then, all of a sudden I started getting many 1^st level connection requests. Since Sean’s “reach” is much larger than mine, I assumed they were coming from a comment I posted on Sean’s blog-off blog calling myself what Sean describes as an “Alley Cat”.

Sean describes himself as an Alley Cat saying, “I still only send invitations to people I know or people that I have a specific reason for connecting to.  What changed is that I now accept invitations from just about anyone.  There is value in knowing your connections but there are also unexpected opportunities that develop from establishing new connections, known and unknown.”

This post can be found at: http://www.communitymarketing.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/12/are-you-a-lion-turtle-hounddog-or-alley-cat-whats-your-linkedin-strategy.html

Please add a comment of your own, the blog-off ends tomorrow!

I responded to Sean’s blog post by commenting:

“Sean,

I guess I’d call myself an Alley Cat. I don’t solicit too many 1st level contacts, although I do accept most. I do send out invitations to join the Top Recommended People group on Linkedin™ for those individuals having 10 or more recommendations. The group has grown to 1,400 members today, with people like you.

Sean I want to thank you for your exceptional blog posts, for being a Top Recommended People member, and for being a terrific 1st level contact of mine!

Ross”

Sean’s response to my comment was “Ross if I remember correctly you were part of the discussion that led to me defining an Alley Cat. Thanks for the comments and for creating the Top Recommended Group on LinkedIn. It’s been one of the top groups I’ve interacted with.”

Then Randy Schrum labeled me a “Super Connector” on his blog My Corporate Media along with 13 other people other Top Recommended People including Sean, Nate, Mike O’Neil, J.D. Gershbein, Lori Ruff, Dave Maskin, Steve Burda, and of course Randy himself (although not really in the list, he should be).

The post can be found at: http://mycorporatemedia.com/2009/12/07/linkedin-superconnected/

My response to Randy was:

“Randy,

I just had Khan Ozol request a 1st level connection with me because of this blog post. You are the Super Connector my friend, and you should have been at the top of the list. The value you add to the greater social media community through your group Twitter Strategies which I am a member of is simply amazing. You pulled me into the Twitter space while I was growing the Top Recommended People group on Linkedin, of which of course, you are a member.

I am honored to be 1st level connected to you Randy, and able to engage with you on an ongoing basis. The social media space would not be the same without you…..

Thanks,
Ross”

Randy responded,

“Ross thank you for your kind words, I must say your idea to start and maintain http://www.toprecommendedpeople.com is amazing. What a GREAT idea!

~Randy”

Randy owns the Twitter Strategies Group on Linkedin™ and has helped me grow my Twitter following substantially. Any person interested in Twitter needs to join his group at

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1935280

My whole point to this post is that Linkedin™ has provided a medium for Top Recommended People to connect, and provide value to each other.  I am excited at what lies ahead in the social media space, aren’t you? More to come for sure…..

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