No one puts social media in the corner! Dell Inc. incorporated a social media team into their payroll in 2006 and they continue to believe that social media is vital for any company and here’s why.

LinkedIn adds familiar features such as likes, follows and group discussions to their network. Do you think these changes will help LinkedIn compete with other social media outlets?

The iPad is still H-O-T, HOT! Apple has sold more than three million devices in the past three months. How many of you want the iPad and for those lucky enough to already own one, what’s your favorite feature?

Shortly after I read that, I had a really weird, but really cool, six-degree moment. I found a former colleague from many moons ago on LinkedIn and made her one of my connections. Well, one of her connections saw that, checked me out and came to realize we’ve followed the same geographic path throughout our lives. When I was in high school in Kentucky, she was in college there. When I moved to Cincinnati to work, she had too. And now she lives in South Carolina working as an independent PR practitioner and knows some fellow PR acquaintances of mine up in Greenville. And even though we were on parallel life paths, we never would have met each other had it not been for LinkedIn.

Which brings me to my point. Why does social networking work? Because we are all so closely connected anyway. We may just not know it. Social networking makes it apparent. There’s a quote from Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, about social networking “digitizing your social life.” It does that and it also makes it more efficient. Instead of hearing about a friend of a friend and having to remember them or make a mental note to call them when you need their service, now you can always be connected online with all their info. right at your fingertips and their Web site or email one click away.

It is a small world after all.

It seems lots of us get hung up on “how many” when it comes to social networking, but I’ve noticed a lot of discussion going on about quality versus quantity when it comes to connections.

As I am experiencing, when the numbers get too high, these tools start becoming less helpful and more overwhelming. On Twitter, for instance, it’s tough to really engage in much of a conversation when you have some 180 people you are following “tweeting” all day long. And on Facebook your newsfeed becomes tough to stay up to date with because there is so much activity.

So what’s a gal to do? I’m tending to agree with the folks who say stick to connecting with people you truly know and whose content will be meaningful to you. Then you aren’t wasting time paying attention to things that aren’t relevant and are truly honing in on the conversations that are.

Here’s the story of one man who culled the people he follows on Twitter from 1000 to 600 and the result. 600 still sounds crazy to me! Check out the comments, as well.

What are your numbers?

Add to your to-do list weekly to check these sites for questions that relate to your expertise. Wherever you feel you can contribute a meaningful answer, do so. This is a great way not just to get your name on one more site, but to get it in a place that demonstrates indeed you know what you’re talking about. This is one thing I try to offer my clients — not just a way to get your name out there in any way, shape or form, but in a strategic manner that reaches your target audience with the right message. All this goes a long way toward positioning yourself and your company in the way you choose.

Many of these sites will also let you set up RSS feeds based on certain key words. This can make it even easier to check your feeds once a week and answer any appropriate questions. I know you’re just full of answers, so get out there and start helping!

First off, I used the fairly new Q&A feature that lets you ask a question of your “connections.” I was looking for a person who could help me plan a small event and asked for recommendations. I got a lot of really helpful responses and ended up choosing the person I hired through one of those recommendations.

What I found interesting here was that some of these people who I sent my question to on Linked In I probably would not have felt comfortable emailing for some reason. They aren’t people I converse with regularly, but are my colleagues in the industry and somehow it seems OK coming from Linked In, a little less intrusive or something.

But the most amazing benefit to me was that a potential client from INDIA(!) found me on Linked In. I am still pretty floored by that. I also have a colleague who got a new client from Linked In recently. It was someone he had worked with previously who found him there and ended up hiring him to do some work with the person’s current company. Pretty cool!

I recently read another blog post about how to really maximize the use of Linked In and she makes the point that you really have to actively use its “introduction” feature. Look through your connections’ connections and see if there’s anyone you’d like to know or who looks like a good prospect and ask your connection to “introduce” you. Much easier than a cold call.

Anyone else out there had a good experience with Linked In? Please share!

I first saw it as a way to align yourself with other well thought-of business people and do a little online networking. Then I got a message from a “connection” who asked me to “introduce” her to one of my connections who was connected to someone who lived in a city where she was job-searching (are you following me?). I thought that was a pretty smart use of the site; however, since I don’t plan on closing either of my companies anytime soon and looking for job, not really of use to me.

I’ve read that taking advantage of the recommendations tool where you can recommend someone and they can recommend you is one way to maximize its use. Haven’t gotten that far on it yet to do much of that. Though, the other day someone recommended me and I must say I was pretty thrilled.

But now LinkedIn has gotten smart and added some really useful tools. Like Facebook, they’ve now added a microblogging component where you can update what you are working on from minute to minute. That at least gives you reason to go there more than once a month to update what you’re doing and see what others are working on.

Again, like Facebook, you can now join groups with other professionals who share the same interest. Once again, more reason to go there and engage in dialogue. AND like Yahoo Answers, you can now go on and ask a question and answer questions, which is great to establish your expertise in a given subject area.

Things seem to be working for LinkedIn — recent statistics comparing social networking usage from 2007 to 2008 showed LinkedIn had the largest growth (271%) above both MySpace and Facebook, though it still has a way to go before its number of members matches those.

Check out my del.icio.us page for more articles on using LinkedIn for marketing.

And, uh, feel free to “recommend” me .

I also saw a story on FOX News this morning about two long lost friends who found each other on Facebook. It turns out one of them was in need of a kidney and as soon as the long lost friend heard about it, he offered his. Wow, the power of Facebook!