Your Linkedin Profile

Your Linkedin Profile is the most important ingredient for successfully using this social networking program.  Here are three reasons why you want to put time and energy into the profile component of your Linkedin program.

Your Internet Billboard

Your profile is your billboard on the internet highway.  Like billboards along the freeways, you never know when someone is going to take notice of your billboard.  No matter what purposes you have for using Linkedin, getting noticed by others is essential.  Your profile needs to be constructed in such a way that it becomes a billboard that others will notice as they travel the internet highway.

How People Buy

You are always selling on Linkedin.  Whether you are looking to advance your career, looking for a new job, looking for business resources, or looking for new customers for your business, you’re selling on Linkedin.  The fundamental rule of selling is that people buy from people they know, like and trust.  Your Linkedin profile is where people get to know you, get to like you and get to trust you.  Construct your profile, not only to show your business expertise, but also your personality as well.  Remember people buy from people not a business.  You want your personality to be expressed in your profile.  People buy from people they know and they like!

Building Your Brand

Your Linkedin profile is the marketing expression of your brand.  (I will talk more about branding later).  Your brand is the expertise you bring to your customers.  It’s the special something that connects with your customers.  It’s the one idea that expresses what they can get from you that they cannot get from your competition.  If your profile is like every other profile from others in your industry, why would a person want to be part of your connections?  Your profile offers an opportunity to establish your online reputation that will draw others to you.   You don’t want to overlook this opportunity.

To be continued, your comments are welcomed…

Al Hanzal

You want Linkedin to serve your small business.  Not your small business to serve Linkedin.

Spending too much time on social network programs like Linkedin is a fear of many small business owners.   By putting your Linkedin efforts into an overall marketing plan for your business, you will eliminate this fear.

If you do not already have answers to these basic marketing questions, take time to answer them.  This will be a step forward for your business and for making Linkedin more effective for your business.

Basic Marketing Questions

What is the target market for your business? Who are these people?  What are their buying preferences?  How will you convert them from prospects to customers?   How many of these prospects and customers do you need in your business on a monthly basis?

What is your brand? Can you describe in one sentence what makes you attractive to your customers and different from your competition?

What are you offering to your customers? What is it?  How will the customer benefit from your product or service?  How much does it cost?  Why should they believe you?

What are your current marketing efforts? Identify each effort, the time and the dollars currently being spent on each effort.  On a scale of 1-10, what is the effectiveness of each marketing effort?  What are you using to measure the effectiveness of each effort?  Which of these efforts are you going to drop to put time and effort into Linkedin?

Applying Marketing Answers to Your Linkedin Efforts

These may seem like simple questions.  Studies show the businesses that have a written marketing plan are 30% more successful in their business.

Neither Linkedin nor any other social networking program can make up for a poor marketing plan.  Throwing a new marketing effort into a confusing mess will only make the mess bigger.

As we go through the various Linkedin tools, you will see how…

• Having a clear focus on your target market
• Knowing your business brand
• Having an offering beneficial to customers
• Measuring your marketing efforts

…will help you use Linkedin more effectively.

To be continued, your comments are welcomed…

Al

Linkedin is a social network program.  Whether you’re looking for a job, wanting help with your business or using Linkedin to market your business, you must maximize your connections you make on the Linkedin program.

Chris Muccio, David Burns and Peggy Murrah are the authors of an e-book called 42 Rules for 24-Hour Success on Linkedin. They suggest you expand and enhance your network by using their “CAP” method.  As they describe it, you want to be more than a “billboard in a jungle”.  You want to become a “Linkedin Magnet.”  Here is their CAP approach.

C equals Content.  People want new, they want unique, they want original.   While there are standard formats and tools in Linkedin that does not mean you need to be boring.  Be as original as you can be.

A equals Awareness. Make you self known to search engines, RSS feeds, other social networkers and fellow bloggers.  Publish your URL address every time you make a post.  If you are not going to promote yourself, who is going to do it? You are competing with millions of other people outside and inside of Linkedin.

P equals Passion.  Participate properly and consistently.  Otherwise you will become the “movie of the week” and then totally forgotten.

These are simple and powerful reminders on how to make Linkedin a tool to maximize your business and professional goals.

To be continued.  Your comments are welcomed…

Al Hanzal

The Linkedin Mindset…

Let me share with you a story to illustrate the mindset that will make your Linked In experience more successful.

For five years I was associated with the business networking group, BNI.  I participated as a member, served in various officer positions, and even performed as a regional ambassador to other BNI business networking groups.

Over these five years, I learned the basic rules of effective business networking.  Here are the basic:

•    Networking is about building relationships
•    Find the right group suitable to your business goals
•    People need to know, like and trust you before they refer to you
•    You need to build your credibility within the group
•    You need to show up to the meetings
•    You need to participate and  assume responsible roles within the group
•    You need to give more than you get
•    Business networking is not a quick fix or magic bullet

Doing these basic will help you be an effective traditional business networker.

Even though, Linkedin is an internet based social networking group, the same networking rules apply to be successful.  Linkedin is a conduit for building relationships and communicating with others.  It is not a magic bullet.  It requires a commitment of time, and participation.  It requires that you build a trust level with others and give more than you get.  It makes you choose the right groups with whom you want to participate.

Follow the basic rules of business networking in your Linkedin program.

To be continued, your comments are welcomed…

Al

I have written in an earlier blog entry that I believe the new social networking programs will make a huge dent into the traditional business networking programs like BNI.  I currently belong to a traditional business group, Circle of Connections, (COC).  We meet at a local church on a weekly basis to share business experiences and share referrals to each others business.

We have a website for the members of the group.  We are now in the process of installing our own COC blog on the website.  We are using the free Google’s Blogger program.

Adding a Circle of Connections blog brings another dimension to our networking group.  Each person in the group will be given “Author” status which allows them to write their own articles or share articles from other author with the group.  They can also “comment” on blog entries.  Each member can use the blog to share events or special promotions from their business.

As members of the group, each will be asked to create their own signature file and to join in the Google Atom feed (Google’s version of RSS) which automatically lets us know when another post has been made.

The COC blog is our effort to combine the best of both worlds.  This combines the physical nature of our weekly group business meetings and the new power of internet social networking.

What results do we anticipate?

Each of our individual businesses will get greater visibility.  Google searches blogs and signature files.  The additional content we add on this blog will enhance our individual business websites rankings and efforts.

We anticipate that our group’s blog will be a good advertising tool to bring in new members to our weekly group.  This is an ongoing need for physical group meetings.

The networking we have in our group can now expand to people and places boarder than our physical meeting place and time.

The COC blog is an opportunity for group members to keep in touch with other members between the weekly meeting to build stronger relationships which leads to better referrals.

And it’s all free!

There is a lot of upside to adding the blog with very little effort.  I will keep you posted on the progress of this innovation and the results being achieved.

Your comments are welcomed…

Al

Here’s a short article on several ways you can use Linked In to help your small business.  Enjoy and as always, your comments are appreciated.

LinkedIn for influencers

by Barbara French on 02/14/2009 04:09   2 comments , 206 views
Categories: Marketing, Lead Generation, Sales

LinkedIn is one of several tools that can help influencers pursue their passion for gathering and sharing knowledge. Here’s some insight from my own experiments as well as conversations with influencers:

Starting with basics, treat LinkedIn as a directory for being found. Create a complete profile. Write every section of text for fast, easy reading — and with a eye for search engine matches. Many people will find your profile by searching the web.

Next, consider using at least 2 of the new profile widgets: displaying your blog feed, and a SlideShare or Google presentation. These make your profile stand out from other experts with similar credentials and networks.

Judicious participation in Q&A is another tactic for giving people a sense of you and your style. Likewise, consider giving and receiving recommendations to partners, clients and colleagues.

More and more influencers are joining LinkedIn Groups, and those able to devote the extra time are creating and promoting their own groups.

Up until now, the emphasis has been on sculpting an online profile that conveys something of you in human terms, on top of a standard cv-style profile. Some steps also take you into the shallow end of the pool as a participant in the LinkedIn community.

This brings us to the final point, and it is strictly personal: contact settings. This determines how LinkedIn members can contact you — through referrals, or directly through LinkedIn’s InMail.

Look forward to your thoughts and experiences. Please share!

In today’s “Deeper Look” we are going to enjoy a great tip
from Dr. Mani and then dig-in to see what other nuggets we
can pull out of it.

Empathy Builds Your Twitter Following Fast
Remember, Twitter is about ‘them.’ You’ve must post your
tweets with that in mind all the time.

- What do your followers want or need?

- Why are they in your network?

- How do they perceive you as being helpful or
valuable to them?

Ponder over these questions. Find the answers. Then keep
providing solutions for your followers. Do that well and
consistently, and you will be flooded with followers.

Dr. Mani: Excerpted from “How to Profit From
Twitter” a special report on the intelligent use of
Twitter for marketing.

And here’s a deeper look…

Ah Twitter, I love it!  But, IMHO, MOST marketers get Twitter completely wrong.

Well, not “wrong” exactly. Twitter can really be a lot of
things to a lot of people, but for me, Twitter is about
deeper relationships.

Twitter provides a way for you to develop relationships with
other business people in your market, with your customers,
with your prospects, and with your friends and family.

Does Twitter drive targeted traffic? Heck yeah.

Can you make sales on Twitter? Heck yeah.

Can you find joint venture partners on Twitter? Absolutely.

Can you build a brand on Twitter? Chyeah!

But all of those positive marketing outcomes are just side-
effects of the of the r-e-l-a-t-i-o-n-s-h-i-p-s you build on
Twitter.

Now, relationships are nothing new to business — it’s
always been about people, their needs, and those who wish to
serve them — but Twitter makes it possible to have
relatively deep relationships with LOTS of people.

The Twitter platform is, to me, about helping people build
relationships and know one another in a very efficient way.

I’m not alone in this opinion, of course. Dr. Mani has long
been a proponent of using Twitter in a more personal and
intimate way.

That’s what I love about Dr. Mani, his heart’s in the right
place, but he also knows that business is about marketing.

Any tool an Infopreneur can quickly and eaily as a way to
deepen their network and relationships is well worth
investing in.

All my best,

Doug Hudiburg
Editor, Daily Marketing Ace
My Twitter Stream (@ message me and I’ll follow you)
Daily Marketing Ace on FaceBook

Here are some free resources to get you started on the more popular social media types:

Free Resources to help you get started in social media networking.

1. http://blog.1429design.com/fort-worth-marketing-social-media-marketing-duct-tape-marketing-twitter-for-business/2008/12/ John Jantech’s free e-book on Social Media for your business.

2. http://www.betterbizblogging.com/ Blog Squad Get Your Free Copy of the Better Business Blogging Report.

3. http://internetducttape.com/2007/03/08/how-to-use-facebook-without-losing-your-job-over-it/ How to use Facebook without Losing Your Job over it

4. http://www.traffic-generation-explosion.com/twittercall.html Free downloads on Twitter:

Jump Start On Twitter: “This Step by Step Guide Is Perfect For The Twitter Beginner”
Accelerate On Twitter: “This Guide Reveals How To Generate An Instant Stream of Followers, Traffic, Leads And Sales For Your Online Business”

5. http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/01/ten_ways_to_use.html Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn Guy Kawasaki.

Conclusions

Can social networking benefit your business? Absolutely. Today more than ever, it is important for small businesses to get exposure to large groups of people that are good fits for their business—groups not bound by space and time. These exposure goes beyond what you can achieve with a website.  Social networking can and will give you a different exposure.   With social networking, you are totally in control of what you say and who you connect with.

One example: you can get six times the response rate from a Tweet sent over an email sent? Why. With an email you must first get the email through the spam checkers; then the person must decide if they want to click on your email from their dozens in their email box; and then the person must decide to click on the link in your email to go to the information you are sending.

With a Tweet, it arrives immediate at your twitter site with no spam filters; it is already opened for you to read so no click is necessary; all you have to do is decide if you want to click on the link that is in the Tweet. One decision verses three decisions involved in emails. What would do you think is going to win?

To be continued, your comments are welcomed…

Al

The Content of Your Messages

Next to your bio, your actual messages are the most important aspect of your social networking process. Your business success on the social networks will depend on the number of followers you have and how predisposed they are to your way of thinking.

People watch what you say. You are always being judged. Here’s a list of 25 ways to make your social comments more powerful and more productive for your business:

1. Make your messages consistent with your bio or profile.

2. Write as you talk and talk at your prospects level. These aren’t sales person to customer messages. It’s important on social networking for others to see you as a human being, warts and all. Stay humble.

Follow the advice of David Ogilvy—the great writer of advertising copy: “I don’t know the rules of grammar…If you’re trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something it seems to me you should use their language, the language they use every day, the language in which they think. Write in the vernacular.”

3. Try to create sparks. Sparks are those little comments that can start huge fires of interest! The comments may polarize people and offend some people. That’s ok, like in any sales situation, not everyone is a good candidate.

4. Use headlines of the day to relate your comments.

5. Provide people with good links to valuable materials. When you provide them with good links, you build a bank account of trust.

6. You can cut and past good thoughts into your messages. When you find an inspiring quotation, use it in one of your messages.

7. Use your own form of language or expressions or techniques that are unique to you and your business—not professional jargon but your own language.

8. Don’t be afraid of saying something bold, or improbable. These are very effective ways to create interest. Be controversial. Have an edge. Believe in what you talk about and have people either love or hate you.

9. People love stories.

10. Let people see you as venerable. It makes you more human and more authentic and more attractive. It’s another way of building rapport with people.

11. Talk to people’s hearts and their mind. Don’t just stress the emotions or just the logic of things. Address both aspects.

12. Use powerful language. Use active verbs. Speak with confidence and authority. People listen to people who take charge of situations.

13. Be overly generous with the big picture of things and less generous with details until a person has moved further along with you.

14 Use the power of second contacts. When someone responds to you, respond back while the iron is hot. This is a great way to establish a follower or friend.

!5. Repackage or resent messages you have received from others.

16. Think out a progression of steps or thoughts and unfold these over time with your messages. Make each one complete and still use them in a sequence of messages.

17. Keep things simple.

18. Be fun. This is not the place to be stuffy.

19. Be remarkable. Get people to talk about you. Wall flowers don’t make it on social media.

20. Be helpful to others. Share what you have. Help and support others.

21. Be resourceful—try to make life better for others. Find tools and ways to make things better for the other person.

22. Be entertaining. This is now a key in the business environments.

23. Ask questions. People will respond. It is also an excellent way to build rapport with others by asking questions.

24. Create curiosity.  It killed the cat and adds followers.

25. Use key works in many of your comments. Search engines look at everything on the internet. Want to get noticed by search engines, use the key search words in your comments.

To be continued, your comments are welcomed…

Al