Young Entrepreneurs: 5 Reasons Why You CAN & SHOULD Leverage LinkedIn!

• Tweet

• Tweet

Today’s blog post is one that I created for Bradley Will, a self-proclaimed “gnarly entrepreneur” who is also the leading voice for empowering a new generation of young entrepreneurs.  If you haven’t read his blog you need to check it out.  The blog post that I did itself you should read on Bradley’s site here.  But I wanted to give you some background about the post because it explains two important things about Windmill Networking (which will be detailed further in my book to be published in August).

1) Windmill Networking is About Creating Virtual Networks of Real Pay-It-Forward People

I have never met Bradley.  He lives in Chicago, I live in Los Angeles.  So how did I meet him?  I was introduced to him by Joe Stampone, a NYU (read= New York University, where my father graduated!) real estate student and entrepreneur.  Joe lives in New York, and I’ve never met him either.  It all happened on Twitter.  Joe was the connector: he followed Bradley and me.  Bradley, a true embracer of Windmill Networking and extremely intelligent in utilizing social media, reached out to his followers looking for someone to provide a guest blog post on LinkedIn.  Joe spotted it and recommended me.  And the rest is history.  After one Skype chat with Bradley, we both agreed that it would be mutually beneficial to work together, and one week later the blog post was published.  Things happen fast in social media.  And there are a lot of pay-it-forward networkers like Joe out there, providing value in connecting people.  I created the concept of Windmill Networking to help convince those that still don’t embrace social media that they are missing out on a lot.  And networking is natural for humans because we are all social animals. This is just one example of how one simple “tweet” created a solid relationship between Bradley and myself.  We are already looking forward to our next collaboration!  And needless to say I now have someone to look up next time my connecting flight is grounded at O’Hare

Have you created meaningful relationships through social media yet?

2)  Windmill Networking is NOT about Millenials or Gen X or Baby Boomers.  It transcends generations.

A lot of people brand themselves as being attached to a certain generation.  I played around with the idea of becoming the “Gen X Social Media Personal Branding Expert”, but as I was writing the blog post for Bradley, I realized something else about Windmill Networking.  It is for all generations, because anyone can leverage social media for their benefit depending on their objective.  Read my blog post.  Yes, the first few paragraphs are framed for the Millenial Generation.  But the advice on LinkedIn Answers or LinkedIn Groups shows the value that LinkedIn has for everyone.

Are you still afraid to completely embrace social media?

OK.  I’ve talked a lot about Windmill Networking without actually defining it, but hopefully you are starting to get a feel for it.  I will be releasing a crisp definition of it when I release my book, tentatively scheduled for next month (August, 2009).  In the meantime, just remember that:

• There is tremendous value in virtual networking through social media

and

• You are neither too young or too old to be leveraging social networking sites like LinkedIn or Twitter

If you are on Twitter, please make sure you follow Bradley and Joe.  Thanks!  And stay tuned!!!