I started this journey of blogging almost a year ago (nudged on by my good friend, Jeremiah – thanks, buddy!) and here I am less than a year later embarking on another journey – this time as community evangelist at LinkedIn!
Jeremiah Owyang interviews Mario Sundar (this was right when I started at LinkedIn)
I’m really excited at this opportunity to convert my preaching into practice. My immediate goals are pretty simple:
1. Help our users understand LinkedIn better
2. Help LinkedIn understand our users better
To accomplish that, my goal is to engage with the different communities of LinkedIn users out there; whether it be in the blogosphere, at discussion forums, or physical events with a goal of listening to their feedback.
Blog Focus?
The focus of this blog will continue to be centered around customer evangelism and community marketing; both of which I’ve been talking about ever since I started this blog. Moving forward, you’ll also see some examples of implementation, lessons learnt, social media experiments, etc…
Subscribe
To get uninterrupted access to my marketing thoughts, feel free to subscribe to the RSS feeds:
My Thoughts – Marketing Nirvana (subscribe)
My Career – LinkedIn Profile
My Photos – Flickr (subscribe)
My Email – mario.sundar@gmail.com
Thank You
I’d like to thank my fellow bloggers with whom it’s been great learning and sharing ideas — Damon Billian, Noah Kagan, Mack Collier, Karl Long, Ann Handley, CK, David Armano, Chris Thilk, Eric Kintz, Paul McEnany, Mike Wagner, Anand Iyer, Easton Ellsworth, Mukund Mohan, Debbie Weil, Will Pate, Tracy Sheridan and Shel Israel. (Have I missed anyone?)
The journey continues…
Filed under: About Mario Sundar, Business Blogging
Mario Sundar's Speakeasy 
Congrats! And I was half expecting to hear you were taking a job at Podtech. Sounds like it will be a great journey with a great company that has a promising future.
LikeLike
Thanks, Cameron, for your kind words and best wishes.
LikeLike
Yeah brutha, good luck! I’ll definitely be looking forward to new posts on community engagement
LikeLike
Thanks, Mario!
Of course, more community, more evangelism…Can’t wait for your blog, tho! 🙂
LikeLike
Very cool Mario! Congrats and let us know what you are doing to evangelize LinkedIn, I love hearing about the ‘behind the scenes’ stories 😉 Congrats again!
LikeLike
You are amazing. Congrats!!
LikeLike
All the credit is due to you, congrats Mario
LikeLike
[…] I informally interviewed Mario on video, you can watch as he explains his purpose as a Customer Evangelist, Congrats Mario and congratulations LinkedIn, you’ll now have a better connection with customers, communicate more effectively and continue to put a human face on your company, you couldn’t have picked anyone more friendly and genuine than Mario. […]
LikeLike
Mario – Very cool. Stay contagious
LikeLike
Mario – I’m already an enthusiastic user of LinkedIn, so this is great news for connection-makers.
LikeLike
WOW congrats Mario! Eric
LikeLike
[…] call him their Community Evangelist. After only a year of experience, Mario Sundar has now taken over the position as a professional blogger with LinkedIn. One year sounds like a […]
LikeLike
Mario, it was great meeting with you at the PhotoWalk yesterday. Linkedin is lucky to have you as a community evangelist and I’m sure you’ll be doing great things for them.
LikeLike
Congrats Mario. You have your work cut out for you. I’ve been in Linked In for several years. I say yes to almost every invite. So far, I’ve been asked to make a connection only once and I’ve never been introduced to anyone through the service.
LikeLike
Hey Mario… I’m merely a friend of Jeremiah’s, but I thought this was great news. I’m a web developer, so I’ve been very impressed with LinkedIn’s use of Microformats and other transportable data lately. Now to see they are getting a community evangelist is another great sign. Best of luck.
LikeLike
Congrats on the new gig – it should be fun, and Kay’s one of the best.
LikeLike
Mario
Rock on man. Well deserved. Its going to be a great gig. I like Linked In. I’ll give you a earful when you get there 🙂
Keep on blogging BTW, dont forget that’s what got you there in the first place.
LikeLike
Sweet, Mario! Keep blazin’ that awesome trail.
LikeLike
Ann, Mack, Mike and Eric,
Thanks for the kind words.
Mack,
You’ll definitely be hearing more on evangelism & community efforts from me. Stay tuned.
LikeLike
Hi Connie,
Good to know and so am I 🙂
You probably are already aware of some of the Yahoo! Groups were LinkedIn users hang out. Here are the big 3:
1. My LinkedIn Power Forum
2. LinkedInnovators
3. Since you’re a blogger, LinkedIn Bloggers
Let me know if you’re a member of other groups/discussion forums?
LikeLike
Congrats Mario and Good luck!
LikeLike
Congrats. You are a great person and LinkedIn is so damn lucky to have you.
LikeLike
What a cool job! LinkedIn has found the perfect person for it, too!
Congratulations. If you ever need people for focus groups or whatever, I am more than happy to help.
LikeLike
Rock on & congrats! I think you will enjoy working with the fine folks over there! LI is probably one of the cooler products out there & I think you will be able to make an impact.
LikeLike
Thanks, Shel!
It’s all about the “humanification” of companies 🙂
It’s good to hear of your experience using the site. Please let me know if you’ve any further feedback.
Good luck with the book.
LikeLike
Hi Adam,
Thanks! Have you subscribed to my colleague Steve Ganz’s (Sr. Web Developer) blog: http://steve.ganz.name/?
I’ve just added your blog to my reader.
LikeLike
Thanks, Jeremy.
Yes! It’s great working with Kay.
And, Thanks to Easton, Christopher, Noah (are you gonna be at the web2.0 expo?), Joseph, and my good friend – Damon, for the best wishes.
LikeLike
Mukund,
Thanks! Of course, not. Blogging helped me redefine what my priorities within marketing were.
Talk to you soon.
LikeLike
You rock, Mario! Congratulations!
LikeLike
Thanks, Paul!
I appreciate it, buddy.
LikeLike
[…] Sundar has been hired by professional social networking site LinkedIn as a community/customer […]
LikeLike
I am so happy for you and for Linked In…they lucked out with you. This is amazing and well-deserved. And it will be so fun! So, when do we do a Sake post to this? Much love & luck friend ;-).
LikeLike
Honored to be a fellow learner with you Mario.
LinkedIn will look back on this a wise decision!
Stir things up, bring your wisdom…and keep creating,
Mike
LikeLike
Thanks, Chris, for the mention on Movie Marketing Madness.
Mike,
Thanks for the kind words.
I’ll definitely keep our community of marketers posted on all the exciting developments.
LikeLike
CK!
Long time, no hear. I’m so glad with all the well deserved success you’re having with the book club. Yes, I’m still guilty I haven’t participated yet, but I look forward to the next one and hope to contribute.
We definitely need a sake post or maybe we’ll meet sometime this year for a sake party? 🙂
LikeLike
[…] like to “Thank You” all for your kind words and best wishes. And, of course, to Jeremiah for the video intro. Speaking of Jeremiah, he had a great post on […]
LikeLike
Mario – late to your blogannivesary party but wanted to add my congrats! and best wishes. Looking forward to year 2 and more great posts .. now the important question – Any cake left?
LikeLike
Hi Toby,
Thanks for the wishes. My Blog anniversary is still 2 months away but the exciting news for me is of course my role at LinkedIn.
We should party, so when are you going to be in San Francisco next?
LikeLike
Mario,
Heartfelt congratulations to you! LinkedIn has made a very wise move, and I know you will make a profound difference. Quite excellent.
I’d love to chat again soon!
LikeLike
Thanks, Tracy!
Definitely. My blog should soon have a list of events I’m attending each week.
Just let me know and we can meet. I look forward to chatting with you soon.
LikeLike
Mario,
Congratulations!
Sorry to be so late…just catching up on things.
Best wishes,
Marianne
LikeLike
Thanks for the wishes, Marianne.
LikeLike
I have no idea how I missed this before, but way to go Mario. LinkedIn, let this guy rock your casbah.
LikeLike
Thanks, Will!
I’m still waiting for YOUR major “”cool news”! Can’t wait… Should I congratulate you in advance? 🙂
LikeLike
Thanks for the add, Mario. While I haven’t subscribed to Steve’s blog (it seems that I tend to hear about what he’s saying through others. I’ll be adding, though, to keep up a little better. Curious to see how this evolves. Thanks!
LikeLike
Thanks for swinging by, Adam.
I look forward to more conversations, though 🙂
LikeLike
[…] LinkedIn is one of the early social networks (I evangelized it heavily when people were getting laid off at Exodus) so I know they will harness these tools to build a better experience. This is certainly a second step in the right direction, the first, of course, was hiring Mario. […]
LikeLike
[…] blogs or community marketing) but more importantly since it’s a career blog, it led me to my dream gig. For those of you, who are considering a blog and have time to invest, I’d recommend having a […]
LikeLike
[…] continuation of a super-exciting journey I began at LinkedIn close to 4 years ago (here’s a video Jeremiah took when I just started out here), and boy, what an awesome roller coaster it’s been. The […]
LikeLike
[…] is worth it, so when the opportunity came about for a role to build community; yes, that community that first drew me to LinkedIn (I talk about it here to a friend of mine, Jeremiah Owyang, once I started […]
LikeLike
[…] doesn’t love discovering a music or stand-up act before the world does 2 LinkedIn (2006), Facebook (2006), Twitter (2007), Spotify (2011), Quora (2012) have been products I fell in […]
LikeLike