Open Thread: Are you getting clients on LinkedIn?

photo credit: smi23le on Flickr

We’ve talked before on FreelanceSwitch about ways to find new clients. In last year’s Freelancer’s Survey, a growing portion of freelancers indicated they’re finding more clients using social media. There’s a lot of choices to choose from: Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, etc. LinkedIn has always struck me as unusual that it specializes only in business and professional social connections. Combined with last year’s survey numbers, that got me curious: how many useful connections have you made on LinkedIn? Is LinkedIn a good resource for freelancers?

A few interesting statistics to get our discussion started!

• LinkedIn boasts 120 million members world wide. 950,00 members use the word “freelance” in their job title.
• Over 8.3 million LinkedIn members list themselves as “owner” of their current business.
• 482,000 list themselves as self-employed.
• 57,782 members list themselves as a contractor.

Do you find LinkedIn a good social media tool for freelancers? If so, do you have any good tips or success stories?

Photo credit:smi23le on flickr.