Evan Brown on the latest This Week in Law podcast makes some good points about LinkedIn. At about 11:50 in, Brown describes LinkedIn’s “sweet spot” when it comes to social networking:
[LinkedIn] purports to be and indeed is professional. So, for that reason, folks who aren’t necessarily early adopters … they feel safe joining in there. You know, it’s like, any place where a professional can go and it’s okay to wear a tie, they’ll think, oh, well this is okay. At least I’m not going to stumble and fall and do something that I shouldn’t be doing. I’m not going to embarrass myself. I’m not going to, you know, be falling into some pitfall. You know, the word “pitfall” is something professionals love talking about – lawyers especially – all the “pitfalls of social networking.” You know? There’s very few pitfalls at LinkedIn. So, you know, because of the sweet spot that it’s in, it has this ability to draw in somewhat of a mainstream adopter kind of crowd. And that arises just as much from the fact that, you know, it’s boring there. You don’t go to hang out on LinkedIn.
Well said.
