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The following interview is with Dave Gowel, who has been recognized as a “LinkedIn Jedi” by Inc.com and the Boston Globe, is the CEO of RockTech, and author of The Power in a Link: Open Doors, Close Deals and Change the Way you do Business Using LinkedIn (Wiley, December 2011). Gowel co-founded RockTech with Mark Rockefeller to build software tools that help corporations increase productivity through quicker adoption of underutilized technologies. The interview has been edited for clarity.

A lot of people see LinkedIn as a recruiting or job hunting network. What are some of the other ways professionals can put LinkedIn to work, once they’ve landed that dream job?

I think one of the key ways to think about it is really a relationship filter, that when you put in all the relationships that you already have, it allows you to see the ones that you could have more easily, or get information about potential ones...

I have noticed that when the topic of social network is raised, it usually turns to a discussion of Facebook. Granted it is the biggest player on the planet however it is not the only one.

Ok, at some point in the discussion it may get to Linkedin, Google Plus and Twitter (which by the way is a microblog not a network but it is so widely used it surfaces regardless of what topic is being discussed). The reality is, although these are the “Big Four”, there are so many to choose from and depending on “your fancy” or strategy you may want to develop a presence at other networks as a starting point.

Now that I have planted this seed in your thinking, where do you start? There are so many out there – really. So whatever your passion, go and find your network. If it doesn’t exist, hey create one!

Retweets, you have heard about them, you know what they are but you aren’t gettin’ them.

For some reason you just can’t seem to get the engagement you are seeking, desiring and yearning for in social media and Twitter.

You may be new to Twitter and simply don’t know what the heck you are doing, how to get a retweet or why the retweets even matter. This post won’t teach you what Twitter is but provides good tips for tweetable content which you need regardless if you know what you’re doing or not (joking).

Or you may be a Twitter and social media veteran who just wants to boost your ego, increase your Klout score or simply show off for Grandpa this weekend how popular you are on the social waves?...