Let me swallow big and come clean on something.

Dave Courvoisier has been egregiously ignoring LinkedIn, and CourVO is the loser.

As part of my preparation for the VOICE2010 presentation I’m making with Terry Daniel on Social Media, I agreed to take on the section on LinkedIn.  Terry admitted he was a lightweight on this particular online tool, and I was not far behind.

In the last two years, I’ve been quietly amassing more than 11,000 “connections” on LinkedIn.  Mind you…if I wanted to meet most of them in person, I’d have to go to Mumbai, India…but that’s not important right now.

What’s important is that I’ve rediscovered this important social media networking site, and I’m here to tell you, you should too.  Actually, that’s not fair.  I see many of you on LinkedIn, and apparently I need to do some serious catching up.

ONLY PROFESSIONALS NEED APPLY

LinkedIn is billed as the PROFESSIONALS Social Networking site.  Not for gadflies satisfied with 140 characters, or for your Aunt Gladys to post pics of her grandchildren.

Probably THE best feature of LinkedIn is the ability to join groups of like-minded folk.  There are a number of active groups on LinkedIn catering to the business of voiceovers, and they’re mostly populated by seasoned and fairly serious peers in the business, discussing timely topics.

Here’s a list of a few of them:

VOICEOVER PROFESSIONALS
VOICEOVER UNIVERSE
VOICEOVERS
VOICEOVER GIGS
VOICEARTISTS CONNECTIONS
VOICEOVER JOBS
LA-BASED VOICEOVER PROFESSIONALS
WORKING VOICE ACTOR GROUP
VOICEOVER VISION
ELEARNING VOICEOVER GROUP
SAVOA

….and many more.

Not satisfied that there were already that many LinkedIn VO groups, I promptly created another one: “SETTING VOICEOVER RATES“.  I’ve noticed the high interest in this topic whenever I blog about it, and already two discussions are gaining momentum under this heading.

ACCEPT MY INVITATION?

Here’s your invitation to join that group…if you’re already on LinkedIn, and have room for any more group memberships (50 is the limit), please click on the link above and join us.

As far as that goes, I’ve ALSO noticed a number of voiceover professionals on LinkedIn are second generation connections to me.  I’d like to make them 1st-generation connections, so look for an invitation from me soon, and hopefully, you’ll approve my request.

If you want to send me an invitation…here’s my e-mail address:  [email protected] (you’ll need that to prove you know me).

Also, here’s my the link to my LinkedIn profile:  http://www.linkedin.com/in/courvo

Also, I am digging pretty deep into LinkedIn’s newly revamped interface, and have some great suggestions for you at the V2010 Social Media General Session Friday morning.  I hope you’ll plan to attend.

This stuff is fun!

CourVO