Communications

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5 Tips for Getting the Most Out of LinkedIn

March 18, 2010 in Communications, HootSuite, LinkedIn, Technology, social media, tweet, twitter by gtaylor | 2 comments

You’ve signed up for a LinkedIn account because you heard that was where the professionals mingled, and now you don’t know where to begin. Using LinkedIn effectively may require some extra time, but the benefit in the end is well worth the effort.

With over 60 million members, LinkedIn has proved to be a viable network.  A b-to-b social media strategy wouldn’t be complete without recommending using LinkedIn as a medium to communicate.  But, most people fall short of getting the most out of LinkedIn. Here’s a five tips to point you in the right direction.

Setup a Company Profile

Every company needs a profile.  There’s a large number of business owners that are active on LinkedIn, yet fail to have a company profile.  It’s nice that a link to your website is on your profile, but people want to know what your company does immediately after they see your profile.  Take a few minutes to setup a company profile, write a paragraph or two about what you do, follow the rest of the prompts and be sure to include your blog feed for the ‘news’ section.

Use Third Party Applications

Apps like HootSuite and TweetDeck are perfect for monitoring your LinkedIn network activity.  If you use HootSuite or TweetDeck to monitor your Twitter account, adding the extra tab, or column, is worth it.  Not only are you able to see status updates, but you also see what questions people in your network have asked, what groups they may have joined, any articles they submitted and what new connections they’ve added to their network.

Get Involved

If you are serious about social media, then you need to get involved.  Look at what groups people in your network are involved in, or, search for groups relevant to your business and join them.  Participate in the discussions or start a discussion of your own.  Don’t be afraid to use LinkedIn’s Q&A forum. You’ll be surprised how many people are willing to give you some advice.  Looking for blog ideas, browse through some group discussions, you’ll never know what you may come across.

Network in Person Too

People get so caught up in social networking that they forget about going out and meeting people.  Use LinkedIn Events to find out what networking events are coming up in your area.  Contrary to what you may think, people do attend these events.  If anything, it’s fun to see how many people recognize you from your LinkedIn profile picture.

Follow People

When LinkedIn added Twitter updates to their list of features, they quickly added a ‘follow’ option.  You can choose to follow people the same way you can on Twitter.  It’s a great way to keep in touch, and see what they are doing if you don’t use the available third party applications.

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Are You All Blogged Out?

March 17, 2010 in Communications, Google, blogging, twitter by gtaylor | 6 comments

All bloggers have been a victim of writer’s block at one point or another. Keeping up with a blog is hard work. Giving your readers fresh, interesting and unique content can be a struggle at times even for the most dedicated writer.

But, what do you do when you are all blogged out?

Sure, you can skip a day or two, but as attention spans grow shorter each day, you run the risk of your blog eventually being forgotten. Each day, the pressure increases to either create, or find, the most interesting topic and broadcast it to your audience.

Here’s a few tips on how to overcome your writer’s block.  If you’re new to blogging, bookmark the links below, you’re going to find them extremely helpful in the near future.

Make use of Google Reader

Reader allows you to subscribe to a RSS feed for a particular blog, or website.  You can search for blogs by keywords, or subscribe to a couple of your favorites.  Reader also allows you to keep up with the most popular news stories and also keeps track of what you’ve read so you are always looking at fresh content.  The more you subscribe to, the more ideas you’ll have.

Set up Google Alerts

Alerts are email updates of topics you choose to follow. You can set up an alerts to monitor a developing story, keep an eye on the competition, keep up with your favorite celebrity, etc.  You don’t have to wait on an email to check your alerts. Alerts can be checked, modified, or deleted at any time.

Browse your LinkedIn Groups

You joined the group for a reason, now is the time to use participate.  Whether it’s the discussions or the submitted news articles, LinkedIn Groups are filled with content.  Make sure you are a member of active groups.  No one benefits from the group if there’s no activity.

Look to  Twitter Search for guidance

People talk about everything from needing a 9V battery to their favorite type of jelly on Twitter.  It’s a given that you’ll find something interesting to blog about relative to your audience.

Search for a guest blogger

Don’t let your blog ego get the best of you. Ironically, a blogger enjoys writing for other blogs more than writing for their own.  All you have to do is ask.  It’s amazing how quick a guest blogger will send you a post.


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Twitter’s @Anywhere Will Change the Way You Tweet

March 16, 2010 in @anywhere, Business, Communications, blogging, social media, tweet, twitter by gtaylor | 1 comment

Shortly after Twitter CEO, Evan Williams, decided to break the news about Twitter’s @Anywhere platform yesterday at the South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) festival, multiple tweets were sent and followers went retweet crazy.  @Anywhere is going to change your Twitter strategy, and make it easier for your readers to follow you.

For Twitter, @Anywhere is nothing new.  @Anywhere has been a registered username since 2007 and if Twitter has had this in the works for over two years, it’s bound to be a success.

@Anywhere allows Twitter users to broadcast tweets all over the web.  It allows you to not only send tweets, but also follow other users without having to log onto Twitter.

For example, if you were reading this blog, you could see our Twitter handle, @SmileyHanchulak, click to follow us, and tweet about the blog post all without going to Twitter.com.

How will @Anywhere impact your business?  Here’s a few possibilities:

Your follower count will increase

Currently, if you do not have a hyperlink to your Twitter account on your blog, a fancy “follow me” graphic or a handy dandy widget, your readers may not know you exist on Twitter.  With @Anywhere, your readers will know you have a presence on Twitter and will have the ability to follow your right from your blog or website.

Your traffic will increase

Naturally, an increase in followers will result in an increase in traffic. @Anywhere allows readers to tweet directly from your blog/website.  Most likely, they will tweet a link to their followers, which will result in some extra visits to your site.

Greater lead potential

As your followers and traffic increase, so does the chance for converting visitors into customers.  Now is the time to monitor your web analytics closely.  A repeat visitor can turn into a valuable client.

Keep in mind @Anywhere is still new.  It’s going to be tested out on 13 sites and rolled out to more in the future.  Pay close attention to how it works.  Twitter hasn’t been building this for years to release a mediocre product.

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Social Media is Pointless

March 15, 2010 in Business, Communications, Technology, social media by gtaylor | No comments

One of the hardest parts of my job is convincing C-level execs that their business can benefit from social media marketing.  The two most common phrases I hear are, “I just don’t get social media” and “Social media is pointless”.  It’s easy to provide them with examples of other companies that have increased profits from social media marketing, but, it’s also very easy to show examples of companies who failed to use social media the right way and wasted their time.  Social media is pointless, if you don’t invest time in building relationships and a quality network.

Social media marketing should be approached just like any other marketing effort.  The content you produce must be intriguing and entertaining to spark, and keep, people’s interest; and it has to be valuable enough that people will continue to come back for more.

Social media is pointless to those who “just don’t get it”.  Building a quality social network is similar to starting a business.  You start with nothing and try to turn it into something that will generate an ROI.  It’s intimidating to venture into a world with millions of people and attempting to convincing them your product/service is valuable to them.  You have to be willing to invest the time and effort into social media in order for it to work for you. Research some of the social media influencers to see how they built, not only their company, but also their personal brand.

Social media is pointless if you create profiles and neglect them.  It’s easy to create a profile, and even easier to forget about it. You can’t provide a service to your customers and ignore them once you’ve made the sale.  When you choose to use social media as a marketing tool, you begin to build relationships and trust.  Your social media efforts are an extension of  your brand.  One bad tweet, or wall post can be a PR nightmare.

Is social media pointless?  It can be if you don’t know how to use it, or show no interest in using it.  However, the right social media strategy has the potential to generate new business and introduces your brand to millions worldwide.

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Marketing Savvy Ala Lady Gaga

March 11, 2010 in Business, Communications, Facebook, Marketing, social media, twitter by MOster | 2 comments

How much can you learn from pop über-diva Lady Gaga about marketing your brand via social media? A great deal, as it turns out.

The past decade has not been kind to the music industry. Lured by digital music products, the convenient and comparatively low cost alternative to compact discs, consumers have abandoned music stores in favor of purchasing music online and downloading it to ever shrinking gadgets like iPods. In the wake of the digital era, many musicians, even the artists whose songs receive a substantial amount of radio play, have discovered that their chosen career path is not as lucrative as it was in years past.

Enter Lady Gaga. The singer/songwriter has mastered the art of leveraging social media to drive sales of her albums and digital singles — $8 million in album sales and $20 million in digital single sales, to be exact. Lady Gaga’s latest venture, as a spokeswoman for her own shade of Mac Cosmetics’ Viva Glam lipstick, has been wildly successful as well; the shade has already outsold any launch in Viva Glam’s 16-year history. Now companies that have nothing at all to do with music or the music industry are tapping her to market their products – not as the “face” of the products, but rather, as the “brain” behind the marketing strategies.

What is Lady Gaga’s secret? It is quite simple, and very contemporary. She has taken the medium that has hounded many of her peers – that is, digital media – and used it to her advantage. Social media in particular has been crucial to her success. The premiere of her “Bad Romance” video on LadyGaga.com generated a Twitter trending topic that lasted a week and a cumulative 110 million views on YouTube to date.

This is because Lady Gaga stays in constant contact with her nearly 2.8 million Twitter followers and more than 5.2 million Facebook fans. Though Universal, Lady Gaga’s label, occasionally supplement’s the singer’s online efforts with marketing firm partnerships, the vast majority of the time the musician maintains a hands-on relationship with her fans and marketing empire.

The lesson: Do not be afraid of the negative impact social media could have on your brand. Take a page from Lady Gaga’s book, and utilize it as a powerful marketing tool. Social media can also be leveraged for crisis management. In the wake of a massive recall, Toyota is attempting to restore its tarnished image via online social networks such as Twitter.

Social media is here, and its presence in commerce is growing. Soon, it could very likely become a necessary part of conducting business. You can fear it, but you cannot outrun it. So why not use it to your advantage?

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