American Express Open Forum®, a community for business owners to interact and grow their business has now joined hands with via the LinkedIn API to allow LinkedIn members to participate in discussions that were once only available to card members. While over the past 7 months or so, this has been an “exclusive” membership, the audience share was ready for expansion and LinkedIn members now reap the rewards!
, Vice President at American Express OPEN:
“We created OPEN Forum, American Express OPEN’s online community for business owners, to provide them with a place to connect and exchange insights that could help them build their businesses. We initially designed the site just for our business Cardmembers because we felt this “credentialization” as a business owner could help minimize the clutter that befalls some other networking sites. But, when we learned that LinkedIn was looking to open up its platform, it gave us an opportunity to extend the platform for many more business professionals while still maintaining the standards that our members are accustomed to.”
As an active member and engager on Open Forum, I have found this platform to be one of the most valuable as it relates to growing a business as well as the information shared. The discussions asking questions to the members or posting a snippet of a blog with a link that is useful to the community.
In addition, LinkedIn members via oAuth, will have access to the blogs posted by Open Forum Experts through the Idea Hub. The experts are very well known in their fields and post blog articles with extremely useful information (note: posting of blog articles is not open to the general public however commenting is). The blogs and discussions are categorizing through their topics: innovation, lifestyle, managing, marketing, money, technology and the world.
I cannot say enough about how valuable Open Forum is. As a member of the American Express “family” I have enjoyed this platform. The expert blog posts which many have seen via Twitter streams never disappoint and the opportunity to interact with other members has proven to be successful.
I welcome all the LinkedIn users who do come and join the family/community and see what MY fuss is about.
Are you a part of the AMEX family and experienced Open Forum? How has it worked or not worked for you? Is this a good idea to open up access?
photo credit: Daquella Manera
