Social networking: boon or bane of your existence?

Facebook is all about cheap thrills, like finding out that your 9th grade social date (who moved away the following summer) is still cute or that 20 years later, the popular kids are more than happy to "friend" the formerly geeky. But how does it work in the business world? I've been testing the bounds of LinkedIn for promoting my business, J&J Marketing, and my own writing and editing career.

Last month, I used the "ask a question" function: The subject was "How to you get referrals" and the question was "How do you entice colleagues, clients, and friends to send you referrals? I'm looking for fresh ideas for an article/white paper." I sent the question out to all of my LinkedIn connections (about 150) and got more than 30 responses. And what I got was an interesting mixture. The majority sent back thoughtful ideas on generating leads and goodwill. A good portion assumed I was asking about getting recommendations/testimonials from coworkers and clients, which is part of it, I guess. And handful thought I was fishing for recommendations and complied by posted kudos for me on my LinkedIn page (thanks!). Julie and I are writing a white paper which will compile all of the creative methods I received and will post it soon.