July
10
Cure for Strike Blues: Linkedin
As the fallout from the recent Writers Strike, combined with a de facto Actors Strike, continue to depress the entertainment business, LinkedIn is trying to help. The five-year-old social networking site, which boasts more than 23 million users and was recently valued at $1 billion, is trying to let industry folks know how to use the site to land work, as well as keep their contacts up-to-date.
LinkedIn entertainment marketing manager Rob Getzschman is specifically targeting the needs of entertainment folks by establishing a presence in Hollywood and offering tutorials to anyone who wants them, especially freelancers. The Los Angeles Film Fest had to turn people away from a LinkedIn presentation offering an unpgrade worth $2000. Getzschman is already going around to the guilds and agencies; he says one agency has asked all its assistants to join up. He blogs on the site about a cure for strike blues and offers a strike survivor guide. "If a strike is threatened," he says, "the time to build your network is not when you need it, but before you need it. Then you waste precious time putting it together."
Point is, especially in Hollywood, networking has always been key to finding work, as well as recommending and introducing other people, all functions on LinkedIn. The concept of finding and adding friends is familiar to anyone who has used MySpace or Facebook, but LinkedIn is more focused on the workplace. "It's a passive cocktail party," says Getzschman. "You're always there."
RELATED LINK: The LAT profiles LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman.
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