If Ron Bates Ain’t Getting Biz on LinkedIn, Who the Hell Is?

Just finished listening to this podcast on The Connections Show, hosted by Stan Relihan, with Ron Bates, the top connected LinkedIn user with over 40,000 connections to date.

I’ll let the Podcast stand on its own - but the big takeaway for me is that Ron has had no direct business as a result of his LinkedIn activities. None. Zero. Nada.

This is the TOP LinkedIn user, fer cripes sakes.

In fact, Ron was almost apologetic near the end when he said “I don’t mean to say that LinkedIn isn’t a useful tool…”.

If Ron Bates with 40K connections isn’t making dough directly as a result of his LinkedIn Connections, how in the hell does anyone?

Not to scream that the Emperor isn’t wearing any clothes, but LinkedIn is nothing more than an online database for marketers and a data store for resumes. Period.

To call LI a “business social network” is simply lazy and on its face stupid - because there is little interaction that takes place on LinkedIn, and hence, no social networking at all.