My 18 year journey on LinkedIn

Celebrating my Coming of Age on LinkedIn

On April 18th, 2022 I will be celebrating my coming of age on LinkedIn. It will be my 18th anniversary! What a journey have I been on during these 18 years. It is always good to take a look back at the past to pave the road toward the future.

Time to celebrate the Porcelain Anniversary

Why did I join again?

I do remember exactly why I joined LinkedIn! I was a heavy user of the software called "Plaxo". Plaxo was an online address book that launched in 2002 and somewhat of a networking site. In 2004 LinkedIn crossed my path and I saw the opportunity to take my networking to the next level.  For the record

“I am member #488.825!”

Joining LinkedIn started me on a journey that made LinkedIn not only a relationship-building tool but it also became an integral part of my job, daily routine, source of information, and, of course, a source of income. An additional benefit, I have made some great friends from all over the world along the way.

The milestones on my journey

Unlike many people, I was not invited by someone but started my free subscription from a curiosity point of view. Over the years I have reached milestone after milestone. Some might see these milestones as vanity numbers but for me they really demonstrated that I am networking with a purpose. Here are some of the more interesting milestones.

Milestones:

🥇 1st Connection: Zoltan Bus (Alliance manager at Gartner at that time)

📆 50th connection: Hugo Lobyn (a co-worker at Unisys)

🥇 100th connection: Tim Nagels (then at our communication agency and now a big shot at Microsoft)

📆 250th connection: Hendrik Deckers (CEO of CIOnet)

🥇 500th connection: Jan van de Zande (Then Oracle and now Cronos)

🏆 1000th connection: Benny Peleman

📆 2500th connection: Toon Poppe

🏆 5000th connection: Tom Sweetlove

🌡️ 7500th connection: Anja Driesmans

⭐10,000th connection: Jan Vermeesch

In the course of 2021, I switched to Creator Mode thus slowing down the growth of connections but kickstarting the growth of Followers. Today I have crossed the 14.5K milestone of connections and nearly have 19K Followers. 

More than ever I concentrate on the fact that LinkedIn is not a vanity numbers game but a relationship-building tool where I keep to my mantra: “ I only connect with people I have had a conversation with (face-to-face, conference call, phone call, emails, Twitter, or other digital channels)”.

Over the last few years, together with the growth at LinkedIn, my network growth has increased as you can see from the charts below

So here is the growth path

My networking landscape

As you reach various milestones, it's always good to look back and make an evaluation. It must be said that my focus has been on my home country which reflects connections.

LinkedIn gives you insight into your network (1st, 2nd, and 3rd degree). Looking at my network, here is how it shapes up.

This means that every connection has approximately 150 connections. Of course, everyone brings a different amount.

Over the course of the last year, my network has evolved more towards sales and recruitment and my legacy contacts from the ICT industry are less prominent. When I slice my network by the industry it is even more widely spread across industries and functions. 

Over the years, the industries have been pretty stable except for IT that keeps shrinking to make place for other industries.

I have taken a look at my target audiences and here is what the top looks like....

And finally, I also took a look at the seniority level of my 1st-degree connections

 How well do I know my network?

I pride myself not only to post every day (for the last 3+ years) but I also keep my network warm with messages. 

My first post dates from October 5, 2009, and talked about “Tools that make social networking simpler and more efficient.”. In the meantime, I have shared over 15570 posts on LinkedIn in the last 4500+ days. Over the last 3+ years, I have limited my posts to one per day.

I wrote 175 articles. The first article (dated: October 30th, 2014) was titled “Social Selling is like dancing with elephants” about the fact that everyone was a social selling trainer or consultant. The subject is still very much valid today when talking about LinkedIn trainers and consultants. Look out for an updated version of the article that will be talking about the “Cowboys in the LinkedIn Far West”.

On January 1, 2022, I started my first LinkedIn Newsletter.

I have exchanged over 104K messages on LinkedIn which boils down to more than 7 messages per LinkedIn connection on average over the time we are connected. I sent out 51K messages and received 53K messages

So what does LinkedIn think of me? Well, there is a file for that which in my case says:

·      I am a small business owner (correct of course)

·      I am for 56% a marketer

·      I am a recruiter (no way and have never been – Okay I do recruiter training)

·      More disappointing: not a sales nor senior leader (having been CxO and International sales manager most of my career)

What lessons have I learned over these 18 years?

I have made mistakes for sure but I have benefited from great advice from peers and others and after 18 years these are the lessons that come to mind as I head for my 20 years on LinkedIn:

• Rule #1: Continue to connect after having a conversation to create value-add relationships for both parties and maintain the conversation myself.

• Rule #2: Connect with my target audience (and their influencers) or people that can introduce me to them keeping rule #1 in mind. If they do not accept withdraw the invite.

• Rule #3: Continue to use introductions to reach the 2nd-degree connections even more.

• Rule #4: Continue to engage on content from my network and start conversations from there.

• Rule #5: Continue to share my knowledge and experiences through posts, articles and newsletters. Do not worry about the algorithm. Good content gets read and acted upon.

• Rule #6: Never forget my objectives for using LinkedIn!

“You and I will meet again when we’re least expecting it, one day in some far off place, I will recognize your face. I won’t say goodbye my friend, for you and I will meet again.” – Tom Petty

I look forward to that moment! In the meantime, let's keep track of each other thru