By: Tyler

As facebook slowly eats away at the networking need of LinkedIn (at least in the startup world), LinkedIn actually has one valuable (guerrilla marketing) tool that facebook doesn’t….Answers.

LinkedIn Answers is a Q&A system much like Yahoo Answers but with the business slant. LI Answers is great because the responses you get are truly helpful which is rare in open forums. Using LI Answers I have been able to:

• Sell products
• Introduce new services
• Conduct marketing research
• Product development
• Setup meetings when traveling for business

There is a trick to taking full advantage to LinkedIn Answers and the most important part of this post. DO NOT SPAM THE SYSTEM. It doesn’t work. Spamming never works. You have to know how to take advantage of the system in a way that helps the other members.

For example, when someone asks a question and my product could provide the solution I will respond with, “Have you looked into (insert product here). It (feature here). Good luck in your search.” That is all I need to write. Three sentences that are a recommendation. There is no need to “sell” the product. I just need to make them aware that the product exist.

Don’t be confused by the name of the blog “Startup Hustle”. All startups need to hustle when they are new, but that does not equate to doing it in a spam like fashion. Hustling in the startup world does not mean taking advantage of potential customers either. A true startup hustler can do it with professionalism and class.