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You may be on LinkedIn, but are you really using it to its full advantage to win new business, raise your profile, and make more money?

If not, you'll want to join me on the inaugural call of my brand new Smart Networking Inner Circle coaching program where I'll be kicking off our monthly expert interview with LinkedIn expert Lewis Howes, author of: 

Date: Thursday, August 13^th 2009

Time: 8pm Eastern (5pm Pacific)

On this lively, content-packed interview we'll discuss:

• How to position yourself on LinkedIn to capitalize on *extraordinary* opportunities
• How to identify connections that will generate remarkable additional contacts for your business
• What the actor Burgess Meredith (yes, The Penguin in the old Batman tv series!) can teach you about diversifying your network
• Top 3 strategies for LinkedIn newbies 
• How much time should you REALLY spend on LinkedIn to get the most out of it?
• How to integrate LinkedIn with your face-to-face networking activities
• The most UNDERUTILIZED features that could help you win more business
• And much more!

This call is FREE for members of my Smart Networking Inner Circle coaching program.

Not a member yet? Learn how you can get a two-month trial and get access to monthly expert calls, monthly open Q&A calls, CDs of the calls, one-one-one laser coaching opportunities and other members-only benefits.

About Lewis Howes

Lewis Howes (@lewsihowes) helps professionals and companies achieve greater return on the time they devote to LinkedIn and other social networking through his acclaimed training seminars, one-on-one coaching sessions, and corporate consulting programs. He also creates opportunities for online connections to gather face-to-face through his live "LinkedWorking" events around the country.

Learn more about Lewis at:

www.lewishowes.com --- personal website

www.sportsnetworker.com --- site that connects sports professionals in the industry and features articles from top executives in the industry

www.rippleresults.com --- partnered business that helps drive clients' businesses through internet marketing and social media

www.linkedworking.com  --- link to more information and to buy Lewis' book LinkedWorking 

CLICK here to learn more about the Smart Networking Inner Circle coaching program

As one of the first guys to talk about online networking with the release of The Virtual Handshake in 2003, Scott Allen is someone I listen to very seriously when it comes to social media. So when he wrote 5 Reasons You Need LOTS of Twitter Followers NOW on his blog last week, I sat up and took notice.

I've always believed in growing your network organically, connecting with people with similar interests and not playing a numbers game of collecting business cards and Facebook friends. Granted I don't know all 2460 on my friends list. Only a small percentage I invited myself, and of those, most were people I knew personally while a small number were those I knew of but had never met. The Pied Piper of Facebook herself, Mari Smith, is a great example of the latter. You need to be connected to Mari if you want to learn anything about Facebook.

The rest of my friends were people who invited me to join their networks--those who had bought Smart Networking, who had heard me speak somewhere, or who saw me on other friends' lists and wanted to connect.

Twitter had been the same way; I've been growing that organically for the past year. I'd follow people whose names I knew, and would look at the profiles and tweets of those who had chosen to follow me first before deciding whether I would follow back. It was a time-consuming process that I thought kept the quality of my Twitter network high, albeit small.

Scott made a pretty compelling case for me for why it's crucial to get more followers. LOTS more followers. So I bought the special report he recommended, Brute Force Twitter, whose author Richard Bryda (@BigRichB) has nearly 78,000 followers and put it to the test.

On Friday at 9:07am ET, I had 1352 followers, exactly 48 hours later on Sunday morning, I had 2249 (a net add of 897) and as of Sunday evening as I'm writing this, I've added another 386 followers for a total of 2635, nearly double (my follower count literally keeps increasing by the minute, so by the time you read this it will probably be even higher). All of this for about 30 minutes of work each day following only some of @BigRichB's strategies.

So here's the true test...Now that my Twitter network has doubled, has the quality decreased? The surprising thing is I don't believe it has. I've gotten a lot of retweets and @replies from the new people I've added. They seem as willing to engage and support me as the people I so carefully hand-selected.

I've always preached quality over quantity when it comes to networking. Could I be wrong in the case of Twitter? Does quantity EQUAL quality? At least right now, that seems to be the case. If I ever get to 50,000 followers, you can ask me again.

If you're interested in testing this out for yourself, Rich is selling a limited number of copies of Brute Force Twitter so if building your Twitter follower base is something you think would better support your business model, for $97 this program is worth checking out. Get more info or order it here.

Oh, by the way, if you're not yet using Tweetdeck to filter your Twitter stream, you're going to want to set that up before your followers pour in.

Let me know what your experience is with this. I'm quite encouraged and amazed so far.