The Real Estate Analogy (The Waldo Factor, part 22)

I was talking to my friend Roger Dunbar of Industrial Medium (http://www.industrialmedium.com) today about an upcoming presentation for the Northern Virginia Tech Council (www.NVTC.org). We were discussing  the particulars of what I should speak about.

The general topic was leveraging LinkedIn and Roger made an interesting analogy, one that really resonated. He said, "Using LinkedIn often reminds me of real estate agents. About 80% of the listings go to about 20% of the agents."

BINGO! What a great analogy to illustrate the point of standing out on LinkedIn.

Regardless of where you go in the DC area, and probably across the country, in every piece of turf, be it a county, city, but a defined region, you will see a small group, of realtors who seem to dominate the listings. When I drive around Howard county in Central Maryland, there is one dominant player, a strong (but small) second tier, then everyone else.

The same is basically true of LinkedIn. While no one "owns" the market, certain players in each business niche tend to stand out because they have figured out how to leverage LinkedIn. From what I see, less than 10% have figured this out.

The main way you see these people is in the groups. Group discussions are open to all group members but used only by a few, and those that use them well stand out and stand well above the crowd.

The more value each of these people add in the discussions, by posting pertinent information or commenting on ongoing discussions, the higher they become on the radar of that group.

Name recognition, standing out from the crowd, should be one of the goals you have on LinkedIn.

So what is your level of activity?