I keep my network mostly relevant to the domain I work in, which means it's highly interconnected.

Content: Purely from the way LinkedIn operates, anytime I publish something several people in my "target audience" find interesting enough to "Like", a bunch of other professionals with similar interests will then see these posts. I tend to get many new followers this way. Some become avid readers, some then become clients.

Networking: This is where a lot of the value of LinkedIn lies. It's a way to have good conversations with people up and down the industry. I had no need for in-person events this year in order to network - it was there every day.

Business opportunities: I started getting more serious about posting consistently when I co-founded my company - it takes deliberate effort to be consistently interesting to an audience. But it does pay off.

In my view, LinkedIn plugs a useful social gap, a way to maintain professional relationships over time.