“Jesus” is the least connected word on LinkedIn.  How did Dan Zarella, author of “Zarella’s Hierarchy of Contagiousness,” arrive at this interesting but seemingly apropos of nothing conclusion?  As usual, he studied the data.  (The method is less important than the result.  I trust Mr. Zarella’s methodology only to a certain point.  I believe his pseudo-scientific approach allows him to identify correlations, from which he makes logical conclusions.  But that’s as far as it goes.)

The blog post where he published his findings (which I’ll divulge shortly) is not completely clear about the meaning of “connected words.”  What I think he means is this: Words that appear in the titles and summaries of LinkedIn profiles and how they correlate to the number of people that person is connected to.

At any rate the conclusion about the word “Jesus” is no surprise, given the purpose of LinkedIn.  What’s more surprising is the most connected word, which is “recruiters.”

Besides the fact that it’s plural (go ahead, imagine using it in a sentence) I find it interesting that LinkedIn holds fast to its original roots of being a place to network for job opportunities.  When I joined in 2004 I did so because I was considering looking for a full-time job.  I ended up changing my mind about job hunting and didn’t use my account for several years.

Somewhere around 2007 or so it started to get more press as a professional networking site I started using it again.  In 2009 when I was promoting my business, Avarra Solutions, I started using it heavily and seeing it’s real value to small businesses as a professional social networking tool.

Go ahead and look at the infographic Dan posted.  Look at the top nine words on the Most Connected Words list.  Four of them have something to do with job hunting.  Three are related to networking.  So still after all this time, the most heavily connected people on LinkedIn have something to do with looking for employment.

So if you’re looking for work, or if you’re thinking of hiring someone in your business, LinkedIn is definitely still the place to be.

Last week I met with one of my clients, Accounting Solutions.  This is a small accounting firm in Fredericksburg, VA run by two women, Anne and Michelle.  They have a perky, smart part-timer, Tanya, who is basically the office manager and does everything from filing and answering phones to (now) social media strategy.

That’s it.  That’s the whole company.  Just like millions of other small local businesses out there, this firm is solid and service-oriented, with a loyal client base.  They work like dogs during tax season, have a little breathing room during the late spring and summer, and then start gearing up again.  It’s a very common story.  There are thousands of firms just like this all across the country.  Actually let’s be real – all around the world.

This meeting was a Q&A session.  Tanya had attended my E-Marketing 101 workshop earlier in the year and the partners wanted to start implementing the concepts she’d learned.  Tanya had gone through her notes and came up with a list of discussion topics to go over.

Many of the questions were semantics and clarifications.  What does this mean?  How should we do that?  What options do you recommend for these areas?  But the real struggle was the social stuff.  They don’t get how to use LinkedIn to help them generate business leads.  They don’t see the value of using facebook.  They don’t want to write blog posts.  The more ethereal concepts like social bookmarking weren’t even on the radar.

I find this to be very common, and completely understandable.  I have long since stopped telling small business owners why they should use social media.  First of all, it doesn’t help them.  I might as well try to explain to them why they should fly to the moon.  As I see it, there are two options: 1) do it for them, or 2) use other internet marketing methods that make better sense to them.  If it makes sense to them they’re more likely to get on board with it.  And that means it has a good shot of being successful.  An ideal solution would be a hybrid approach, and this is what I generally shoot for.

So, if you are a small business owner who is contemplating (with dread) the idea of using social media, fear not.  There are many other things you can do to get exposure for your business on the Internet, and they work just as well.  Post a comment or email me privately if you want to learn more.

In the meantime, Anne and Michelle (via Tanya) will be using a hybrid approach.  We decided to steer clear of facebook and opted for some more comfortable (but also highly relevant) options.  So if you are one of Accounting Solutions’ competitors, watch out.

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Recently it’s become popular to create group discussions on LinkedIn where people can post their Facebook page link.  In theory this seems like a good idea, but the hard-core truth is that it’s just another spam invitation.

I discovered one of these last week and thought, “hey that seems like a great idea!”

Not.

What I ended up with was scores of people who “liked” my business page, just so they could spam it with a link of their own.  My business page filled up with these promotional messages from all these non-relevant businesses.

What a waste of time.

I had to shut down all wall posting from anyone but me.