Every once in a while I get that Request for Recommendation from LinkedIn. I’m sure you get them too.

While I am genuinely flattered that somebody values my opinion about them enough to ask me for a recommendation and I love giving them, sometimes that request leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

Such was the case just this past week and this particular one was a double no-no.

Here we are at the 1st of December. Just a few short weeks from now we will be saying goodbye to 2011. I hope it has been a good year for you as it has been overall a good year for me except for a few minor health hickups.

Considering I haven’t even had as much as the “sniffles” for the past 8 years and I am really  a lousy patient when I do get sick, I sure hope for a very healthy 2012 for my family’s sake.

But back to the subject…

For the very last time this year I have the privilege and the immense honor to highlight the…

The first of November logically always follows the spooky night of Halloween. Did you have many trick or treaters knocking at your door? It seems like every year we get less and less here in our community. Not even all of our neighbors’ children visited … or maybe I just didn’t recognize them in their Halloween costumes.

The first day (or first week) of the month is also traditionally the time when I acknowledge and say thanks to my top commentators. At least it’s been like that for the past year or so.

I am very honored to have been nominated for the Versatile Blogger Award by my friend and fellow blogger Stacy Claflin. Thank you so much, Stacy for thinking of me!

To be quite honest with you, I had to look up the word “versatile” in the dictionary as I had no clue of its meaning. Cross-checking various online dictionaries as well as my trusted Harper Collins German-English dictionary I came to the conclusion that it means…

1. Capable of doing many things competently. 2. Having varied uses or serving many functions.

Pretty cool!  Now that I know what it means I’m even more delighted and only too happy to pay it forward.

This weekend I was just leisurely glancing over my fellow bloggers tweets in Hootsuite, when I noticed a tweet by my friend  Adrienne Smith. I can’t remember exactly what it said but it definitely caught my attention. As it turns out Adrienne had come across a great new resource for bloggers, a free directory for dofollow blogs.

Always on the lookout for high quality blogs I couldn’t resist clicking on Adrienne’s tweet and boy am I ever glad I did.  I would have missed a big one.

Today I need to get a couple of issues off my chest. Honestly, I really don’t like writing this post, and have been avoiding it for quite some time. But it has become necessary for me to step up and address these issues. So here it goes…

First: Faceless Blog Commenting

I have addressed this issue before in my post “Invasion of the Face Snatchers,” but it’s time to do it again.

Blog commenting is one of the best strategies I know for not only getting quality backlinks but to build profitable and long-lasting relationships with like-minded people as well.

Wow! Another month has gone by and the calendar on the wall is starting to look pretty darn skinny. Only a few more weeks to Halloween, then Thanksgiving and we all know that between that feastful  (if that’s not a word it is now) holiday and Christmas the time only flies by even faster.

Well, for us adults anyway. For the children it may still seem endless before they will be allowed to unwrap those shiny presents underneath the Christmas tree.

But let’s not get to far ahead of ourselves … Back to September.

This is really cool and I couldn’t wait to share it with you.  Rapportive, a little app you install in your Gmail account, gives you instant information on the person who’s email you are reading and helps you build rapport. Everything is right there in your Gmail inbox.

Have you ever wondered what the person who’s email you are reading looks like? Where they live? If they are on Facebook, Twitter or any of the other major social networks?

Well, wonder no more!

Well, as you know, I took a little break the past two weeks. While I was hoping I would be able to stay away from the online world completely and immerse myself in a good book or two …

Well, I didn’t really manage to do that.

It seems when you are involved in an online business there’s ALWAYS something to do, ALWAYS something new to learn and at my age, learning goes a little slower. Those old gray cells don’t pick things up as fast as they used to. Maybe I should buy some of those video games for seniors they advertise on TV. Maybe those would help stimulate my brain and make things easier to comprehend and remember.

The spotlight is on the top commentator award winners for the month of July. Is it just me, or is every month passing by faster than the previous one? And for some reason the closer it gets to years end the faster it goes. Hold on to your britches J

In any case, I am thrilled to have the opportunity to write this post of appreciation today as this is one of my favorite topics to write about.

Normally I highlight the top 3 commentators for the month unless there are more who earned the top commentator award. This month we have five individuals who have achieved this.

 With all the buzz about Google joining the social media scene lately, the subject has been on my mind quite a bit. And then the other day a headline on my friend Elmar Sandyck’s blog caught my eye. It read…“Can You Recall When Social Media Started?”

I couldn’t really recall when it started, but I was amazed to find out that the first email was sent 40 years ago. Can you imagine it’s been FORTY years?

Wow, that totally blew my mind.

I have been a member of LinkedIn for years, but I really didn’t know how to use it effectively to build my business. It wasn’t until a couple of months ago when my husband came across Linked Influence that everything changed.

Up to that point I had been totally overwhelmed by LinkedIn and kind of had discarded it as a tool to build my business.

BIG mistake!

LinkedIn quietly grew to 100 million strong in the shadow of Twitter and Facebook and is now the 3rd largest social network. If you take into consideration that it is also a network of professional business people with an average household income of around $110,000 then it’s a no brainer that if you want to connect with professionals you really should be on LinkedIn.