Let’s summary some of our recent posts on the tools you can use within Linkedin to build a social network quickly and easily. The Linkedin program is a social networking program specially designed for business people. It lacks the size of today’s popular social networks like Facebook. However, with 35 million participants it is still very robust. As a participant, you can use Linkedin software to build an on-line network easily and quickly. Here are six Linkedin tools that will save you time and effort in building your digital network. More importantly, it gives you control over the entire process!
Import Your Contact (March 28, 2009) Using the Add Connection icon in Linkedin, you can import your email addresses from your Outlook program as well as email servers like Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo and others.
Linkedin will import a complete list of your emails and addresses from these programs. You select the people you want to invite to your network. You can use a standard Linkedin invitation or create your own, more personalized invitation to join. With one click you can send email invitations to all your selected contacts.
Download the Outlook Tool Bar (April 4, 2009) You can integrate your Linkedin program with an Outlook Tool Bar. What will this do? Once you have this tool bar, every email you receive through Outlook will indicate in the upper right hand corner of the email if the person is already on the Linkedin program. Click on this icon and you can immediately send an invitation to join your Linkedin network. I have done this with emails I have received from some of the leading experts in my field. It takes only a minute to generate the invitation right from Outlook. Now you have opportunity to connect with some of the best experts in your industry and invite them to be part of your network.
Invite Colleagues and School People (April 6, 2009) When you compete your Profile in Linkedin you add information about the companies where you have worked and the schools where you have attended. Using the Add Connection tab, Linkedin will search its data base to find matches for people who are associated with the same companies or who attended the same school as you. You decide which colleagues or school people you want to invite into your network.
Manual Invitations (April 8, 2009) You can use a manual form of inviting others to join your network. You create an invitation message and use Linkedin to send it to six people at a time. Repeat this process as often as you like.
Groups (April 12, 2009) The Linkedin program has hundred of groups–people who join together around a common theme or issue. When you join a Linkedin Group, you now have access to thousands of other like minded people who are already members in that group. With these group members, you have the opportunity to both, give and receive from others; show your expertise as well as get more exposure for your business from a group of people who have your same interests at heart.
Recycle Your Invitations For a variety of reasons, not everyone will respond to a first invitation to join your network. You may want to invite them a second time. Inside of your Linked Profile, you can click on “Sent” items. There you can find out whom you have invited and the current status of the invitation, Pending, Accepted, etc. You can decide if you want to resend an invitation.
Conclusion
To do you see how easily and quickly you can use this Linkedin to proactively build a your own network of people? It doesn’t have to be time consuming or laborious. It can be a process you control. Check out Linkedin at www.linkedin.com.
To be continued, your comments are welcomed…
Al Hanzal
www.successfulmarketingtools.com/wordpressblog
Before we start focusing on the Group functions in Linnkedin, I thought you might enjoy an short article on ways to use Linkedin in your business by Peggy Murrah. Enjoy.
Al Hanzal
www.successfulmarketingtools.com/wordpressblog
Social Media Tip of the Month -5 Ways LinkedIn Can Help Your Business
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By now, you should be familiar with all of the social networking aspects that LinkedIn offers. LinkedIn has helped so many professionals get in touch with each other and forge new relationships. Many jobs have been found through the use of connections and members have been well placed in their respective company networks. LinkedIn remains to be one of the largest networks of professionals seeking to build their careers.
LinkedIn is, however, more than just connecting with others and building relationships. Here are 5 other ways that can help you as a member of LinkedIn.
Have your questions answered
Similar to Yahoo! and Google Answers, LinkedIn offers an area where members can type in questions that can be seen by all members of LinkedIn regardless of connections. Since LinkedIn is a network of professionals, you can expect to get better answers than other sites like forums.
Conduct reference checks
LinkedIn is a great source for looking up companies and individuals for reference purposes. All you need to do is fire up the Reference Check Tool and just search for a person or company to see some information about how long they worked there and other backgrounds. It is great for crosschecking the legitimacy of profiles since LinkedIn is officially networked to some top resource sites like BusinessWeek.
Obtain information on competitors
Knowing your competitors’ progress and connections can be advantageous in taking your team above them. By taking the time in getting information on individuals and their connections belonging to rival companies, you can highlight their main strengths and weaknesses and find ways to work around them.
Get indexed in search engines
Since LinkedIn has a high Google page rank, you can take advantage of this by setting your profile on public and filling it with as much information as possible. What happens is all that information is indexed by Google and other bots while taking in keywords in the process. This gives you an opportunity for non-registered LinkedIn users to see your profile just by doing simple searches that may match your profile’s description. It also makes it easier for people to find more information about you and don’t know where to look. You can even use this to advertise other websites and gain exposure through LinkedIn.
Find more information about people you’ll meet up with
If you are going to have a huge meeting with a few top executives of a company, try to learn more about them by searching in LinkedIn. Even if their profiles may not be listed, you can do other checks such as searching for the company and see any familiar names there. It is important to know the backgrounds of the people you are about to do business with so you can make better decisions and judgment.
These 5 ways are sure to help and encourage you to use LinkedIn more for any business related tasks. Use these methods to your advantage so you can have the edge over competitors and other people in your network. You can really stand out if you utilize the LinkedIn network using your own creative ways.
If you have been following my posts on the Linkedin networking tools, you have loaded up your contact lists from Outlook and other email services like G-Mail or Hotmail, etc. The strategy I suggested was to find on those lists, people who are already on Linkedin and send them an invite to connect with you. They already are familiar with Linkedin and are more likely to accept your invitation.
When I did my first batch of Outlook Contacts (I have been using Outlook as a contact manager for about five years), I identified 37 people who were already on Linkedin. While I knew many of these people, I have not had contact with most of them in the past year.
I composed the semi-private invitation you saw in an earlier post. I sent invitations to 37 people in one click. I was very pleased that within the first hour, I had twelve responses accepting my invitation. Over the course of the next several days, that number grew to 18 people. A 50% response rate is good for less than 30 minutes of work. It helped give me more Linkedin connections in very quick fashion. You may get better response rates with from your uploaded contacts.
Colleagues, Company and Class Mates
Linkedin also provides you with tools to find connections from colleagues, companies where you have worked or people who attended school with you. Start again with the Green Button Add Connections on the left side of any Linkedin page. Click on Colleagues and Classmates. If you have listed specific companies in your profile or identified specific schools in your profile, Linkedin will search its data base to find matches for your companies and schools who are already on Linkedin. You will be given a list of names and you can decide whether they are people you want to invite as connections on your Linkedin program.
Here’s how to install Linkedin on your Outlook tool bar. Go to the bottom of any page on your Linkedin site and to the Tools section. Click on Outlook Toolbar. You will be given instructions on downloading Outlook to create a coordinated tool bar.
When you have completed this simple process, you will have a new tool bar on your Outlook program with your standard Outlook functions and many new Linkedin functions. Take a few minutes to mouse over the various new buttons to see what you can do with these. You can arrange how you want your new Outlook toolbar to look.
Here are a couple of my favorite fun or useful things you can do with this nifty tool:
Search Bar: You can search your Linkedin website right from your Outlook program. No need to log into the website. All the results are shown directly in Outlook for you to see.
Info Icon: As I have already described, when you receive an email and it has the Linkedin Icon in the upper right hand corner, you can mouse over this icon and a new box appears that allows you to “keep in touch” with the person or “invite” the person to join your connections. All of the pieces are there for you to complete these tasks right from Outlook. (If you click on “keep in touch”, you will be given a reminder in 60 days that that you have not emailed this person—your own personal secretarial reminder!)
Grab Button: You can curse over the signature of the person on any email you receive. Then hit the Grab button on your tool bar. This tool goes out and grabs their contact information and creates an Outlook Contact Card for you. The Contact Card basically includes their name, address, company name, phone numbers and email address. (Some street addresses may not be included) Click Save and Close and now that person’s information is part of your Outlook Contact file.
More information on Linkedin is coming, your comments are welcomed
I continue to listen in on the debate regarding whether you should build your social network using a selected number of followers or whether the popular trends of collecting large number of followers is better. Michael Fortin in his blog: http://www.michelfortin.com/twitter-populated-drones-frauds/ has written a post that has people comment on both sides of the issue. Its a longer post. When you read it, substitute “social networking” for the word Twitter and see where you fall in this debate. Enjoy.
Your comments are welcomed…
Al Hanzal
Twitter Populated By Drones And Fakes?
Twitter is a fantastic marketing tool. I love it and I encourage everyone to get on it. But I do have a warning, because the way some people use it today is not only wrong, but it can also become potentially dangerous to its survival.
Twitter is micro-blogging, i.e., blogging in a shorter format. It limits the posts to 140 characters. The reason for the limit is, when Twitter was first introduced it was intended to be used for text-messaging (SMS) between mobile phones.
The SMS protocol, along with most phones, limit their messages to 140 characters. (Nowadays, some phones allow up to 160.) I love Twitter because, as a copywriter, it’s also a great tool to force you to be pithy, test headlines and subject lines, and create a persona around which you build your brand.
However, there’s one thing that seriously irks me and my wife, Sylvie Fortin, to no end. That one thing is in the process of destroying one of the best tools to come on the Internet since the invention of email. And that’s auto-following.
First, I don’t use Twitter for telling my followers every bit of minutia of my day. I think that’s ridiculous and absurd. If I were a celebrity, sure. Fans love to hear about the daily activities of their favorite stars. We live in a voyeuristic society. That’s why reality TV shows have exploded, and the whole concept of social media along with it.
Auto-following is where you automatically follow someone who follows you. There are many benefits to auto-following, such as giving your followers the ability to send you a private, direct message.
But to me, auto-following is, at its core, no different than posting your website URL willy-nilly to a bunch of free-for-all link farms, which was wildly popular at the early onset of the Internet. And we all know how that turned out to be as a marketing tactic.
In fact, FFA links only really benefited the owner of the link farm, because no one came to their website with the intent to read or click on those bazillion links. They only came to post their own link. And the FFA owner would therefore be able to build a list they can easily email to.
(Sounds familiar?)
I use Twitter for business—not for marketing or selling per se, but to share probably the most important aspect in marketing, social media, and the Internet in general (in fact, it’s the reason the Internet exists in the first place).
And that is (hold on tight, here it comes)…
… Information!
(Crazy, huh?)
Yes, I love to “tweet” about websites I’ve visited, which may be of interest to my followers. I love to post quick tips and links to articles I’ve stumbled across that I find fascinating or interesting. And I love to blog about products, software, and programs I’ve used or discovered, which I believe my followers would certainly appreciate knowing about.
And yes, I do insert from time to time an affiliate link or two. But I wouldn’t post it if I didn’t think it would be of benefit to my followers. My goal is not to make money with micro-blogging, or even blogging in general. It’s a byproduct.
But in terms of auto-following, I’ve always been against it. And yesterday, I felt vindicated, because I came across this remarkable short video from Seth Godin, who arguably is one of the leading experts on marketing.
In it, Seth addresses the entire “social media for business” in a simple statement. In fact, he did it in less than two minutes. Basically, he said that business is built on relationships, not on how many followers you have.
Seth calls it “fake networking” as opposed to real networking. What matters is real relationships, the relationships you create, cultivate, and care about. Not numbers on a Twitter account that only boast how popular you are or try to appear to be.
I believe most people use auto-follow in an attempt to inflate their numbers, either for pure egotistical reasons, or at most, for spamming their followers. Don’t believe me? Here’s a case in point.
Auto-follow is often enabled through various third-party software. But Twitter once had this feature — some users still have it to this day. Well, just yesterday Techcrunch reported a bit of news in which Twitter itself will abandon the whole auto-follow process. And personally, I think it’s about freakin’ time.
Twitter’s CEO said it beautifully: “We’re going to discontinue autofollow because this behavior sends the wrong message. Namely, it is unlikely that anyone can actually read tweets from thousands of accounts which makes this activity disingenuous.”
When I sent this link to my friend Armand Morin via a discussion we were having within our mastermind coaching group, his reply was nothing short of brilliant. He said…
I totally agree.
I think that is my biggest problem with Social Media Marketing.
People are fooling themselves thinking their numbers of followers or friends is an indication of their potential income generation.
Why would this work?
Most people are following or becoming friends with strangers for two reasons.
1.) They want to build their own “LIST”
2.) They are following these people with the false illusion that they are going to be their “friend” and get FREE marketing information. Which they don’t realize is the person they are following is only interested in OPTION #1 I listed above.
So are they really on your list wanting to be marketed to?
The answer is obviously no.
Now, I’ve disagreed with my friend Ed Dale in the past. But recently, Ed posted a video on the Twitter auto-follow nonsense, and this time I must wholeheartedly agree with him.
In fact, just a couple of months ago my wife and I were engaged in a fierce, controversial debate online about the nonsensical nature of the whole auto-follow process. I want to share with you some of the highlights from that debate here.
I cannot paste what others have said for copyright reasons. But let me paste some of my tweets below. Most are from Twitter, but some are from Facebook since my tweets are simultaneously posted to my Facebook “wall,” which often generate independent conversations and additional comments.
Understandably, some tweets are parts of conversations. So to help you understand the context, each group of tweets are preceded by a sidenote to explain the history behind it and give you some background information.
SIDENOTE: The tweet that started it all…
• Auto-follow? Not me. My philosophy is, I follow those who reply to @michelfortin as to engage me. It’s
like saying “Hi!”
• What’s your follosophy?* Auto-follow? Follow those who reply to you? Follow only follow-worthy?
Follow “x” followers?
*By the way, “follosophy” was coined by Harris Fellman, not me.
SIDENOTE: Some people said that NOT auto-following defeats the purpose of “social media.” Because a bad ratio of “following” vs. “followers” means your conversations are one-sided. One even said that non-followers who tweet “one way” (i.e., they don’t follow as many followers) are usually tweeting unhelpful, “spammy,” or “soapbox” tweets.
I disagree.
• “Helpful” could also be defined as appreciating other points of view to support or challenge your own.
Even soapbox tweets.
• I said this many times, would you auto-follow everyone who propositions you in a bar? (Rhetorical
question. Don’t answer, LOL!)
• Twitter is the Internet’s water cooler. At least you know the people you work with to talk with them at
the cooler.
• Lately there’s an onslaught of people who clearly use auto-follow so they can claim “I have a huge
list”. It’s B.S.
• Ultimately, it seems to me that auto-follow is one person pretending to listen, and it seems fake and
insincere.
• It’s like “I’ll show you mine *IF* you show me yours.” Paul Myers said it best, “Internet marketers are a
bunch of incestuous cannibals.”
• With social media, people have a distorted sense of what “friend” means. An acquaintance, a contact,
or a fan, doesn’t make them a “friend.”
• Same with Facebook. I add friends who add a message to their friend requests. They make an effort to
introduce themselves.
• I ignore simple friend requests, especially if they’re people I don’t know. Which is the point!
• Most people on Facebook, who add you as a friend without any introduction, are usually networkers
who want to pitch you their “opportunity”.
• Facebook caps their friends lists to 5,000 because it’s virtually impossible to have 5,000 “friends.”
Think about it.
• Once you’ve reached Facebook’s limit, they tell you to start a fan page instead so people can become
fans, not friends.
• Facebook’s policy is clear: you cannot use a personal profile for professional or promotional purposes.
I know, they’ve told me.
• If you want to enter a conversation, use hashtags or @ replies, not auto-follow.
• Twitter is a big cocktail party*. You don’t follow everyone in the room who merely looks at you.
*By the way, “cocktail party” was something my wife coined several months ago, way before Seth Godin mentioned it on that video I posted earlier. Back to the tweets…
• We need to distinguish conversational vs. social media. Being in a crowded bar doesn’t mean you’re
being social.
• Conversely, being in a crowded bar and talking to no one doesn’t mean you’re being anti-social,
either.
• Watching everyone in the bar interacting with one and other doesn’t mean you’re listening in on every
conversation, too.
SIDENOTE: Some have tweeted that “auto-follow” is a way to introduce yourself, like a “handshake.” They say you should auto-follow to be approachable. I disagree.
• Auto-follow is NOT an introduction. A discussion or conversation IS. It’s all about RELATIONSHIPS.
• Which is why I prefer to follow those who reply me, because they’re making an effort to introduce
themselves.
• I *am* approachable. That’s why I’ll respond to tweets with @ reply to me. I might even follow them.
• But I won’t automatically follow people who simply follow me without saying a word.
• Handshake? If a serial killer shakes your hand, would you befriend them? Not unless you get to know
them first.
• Yes, auto-follow is creepy. To me, anyway. I’m not against it, it’s just not my philosophy. I don’t like
it.
• Honestly when following thousands, the only way to have a conversation is via the @ reply!
• But not auto-following doesn’t mean it’s one-sided! Want to enter a conversation with me? Just @
reply to me. Simple.
• TV or radio are one-sided. Twitter is mutifaceted by its very nature — follow or not. Hashtags is a great
example of this.
• People who follow you (without an expectation of a return follow) are genuinely interested in what you
have to say.
• I’d rather have hundreds of real, serious fans who care, than thousands of curious onlookers who
don’t.
SIDENOTE: One said that auto-follow’s single benefit is the ability to direct message (DM) each other. I agree, which is precisely why I don’t auto-follow. Here’s what I mean…
• Bottom line, I follow those who make an effort to introduce themselves to me and whose tweets are
valuable.
• Return follows grant you access via DM. I don’t like that. I pay a support staff to handle stuff like that.
• If I followed thousands of people, I’ll get bombarded with DM’s and support requests.
• It’s not that I don’t care, it’s that I don’t have time answering DMs, which takes my attention away
from serving my paying clients.
• If I don’t respond to DMs by saying “please contact support,” which is time-consuming, I’ll be accused
of not listening anyway.
• People who auto-follow and want to DM are looking for free advice. A free lunch. I don’t do free
lunches.
• Here’s a great article/video by @perrymarshall to explain why I, too, don’t do free lunches:
http://is.gd/go5P
• Would you subscribe to everyone’s blog who comments on yours? Of course not. Micro-blogging is no
different.
• I don’t subscribe to everyone’s blog who comments on mine. But I do reply to their comments. Twitter
is micro-blogging. But it’s still blogging.
• Again, I follow people because I want to FOLLOW them. Not because of an expectation of a return
follow.
• Social media is about interaction. Discussion. Conversation. Hence “social.” Not reciprocal STALKING.
• Final note, if I followed a gazillion people, I still won’t know you exist… unless you introduced
yourself to me with @ reply.
• Besides, I know you exist when you @ reply me (that’s what I mean by following after you approach
me). That’s what I do.
SIDENOTE: Some people said that if the “gurus” don’t auto-follow, you can’t access them. You bought their product, and therefore you have every right to access them. They say that, if they don’t follow back their customers, their delivering bad customer service. I’m not only disagreeing with this, I’m also disgusted.
• Just because you bought someone’s stuff doesn’t give you access. Do you expect Bill Gates to follow you if
you bought Microsoft Windows?
• Precisely. It’s about relationships. I mean, would you auto-follow everyone who propositions you in a bar?
• It’s like being in a crowded stadium, when everybody’s talking at once, and pretending that you’re listening
to what everyone is saying.
• Yes, friends have discussions. It’s like being on stage at a seminar vs. being at the back having a 1-on-1.
• Exactly. Look at it this way, would you respond to every piece of junk mail with a letter saying “thank you
for mailing me!”?
• Followers can either be a “fan” or a “friend.” That’s the point about “following” in the first place.
• I FOLLOW because I’m interested in WHAT that person has to say. I don’t follow simply because I want
that person to follow back!
• I’m THEIR fan. I follow with no expectation. That’s the point. There’s a difference between “fan” and
“friend.”
• Right. You follow? You’re a fan. I follow back? You’re a friend. I don’t want followers. I want fans.
SIDENOTE: Chris Brogan, who follows as many people who follow him (and that’s in the several tens of thousands), said to me that if you don’t autofollow, you appear as a snobby bastard, so there’s no winning. My answer…
• It’s all in the intent. There’s unconditional reciprocation. And then there’s extortion.
• I guess I’d rather be perceived as a snobby bastard who doesn’t care than a lying one who fakes that he
does.;)
What do you think?
Finally, I’ll leave you with one of the best posts on the subject of Twitter. Copywriter Randy Gage, who I’ve been following for many years, posted one of the best manifestos on the use, purpose, and benefits (and downsides) of Twitter I’ve ever read.
About the Author
Michel Fortin is a direct response copywriter, author, speaker, consultant, and CEO of The Success Doctor, Inc. Visit his blog and signup free to get tested conversion strategies and response-boosting tips by email, along with blog updates, news, and more! Go now to http://www.michelfortin.com.
In an earlier post, I talked about making a decision on what strategy you were going to use to build your Linkedin network. Qualitative verses Quantitative. Currently, there is a heated discussion going on regarding Twitter and the same decision about building your network. Do you automatically follow everyone who wants to follow you?. It’s the same qualitative verses quantitative discussion.
As you add more names and invitations to your Linkedin connections, it is worth while to listen in on this Twitter debate. It will give you additional insights into what type of connections you want to form on your Linkedin program.
Let me help you jump into the debate by sharing with you a short video by Seth Godin who always has a way to say things so pointed. Here’s the reference to his short 2 minute video. http://www.openforum.com/marketing/video_socialgood.html.
In the next post, I will give you much more content about the Twitter debate.
Here are some ways to begin building your Linkedin network rapidly.
Use the Linkedin “Add Connections” Function
On the side of every Linkedin page you will find a green button Add Connections. Click on this button to begin your first step in building your network. This will take you to a page where you can manually add six invitations at one time. We will come back to the manual input in a moment. First we want to use Linkedin automated tools.
You will find a tab on that same page “Import Contacts”. You will click here to import contacts from Outlook, and webmail services like Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, AOL and other electronic address books.
I’ve had a Hotmail account for eight years. From the Icon choices, I clicked on Hotmail. My connection did not go through the first time (See the tip at the end of this secton). The second time Linkedin connected to my entire email list in Hotmail and displayed a 193 contacts. (Since I only use Hotmail as a back up email program, I had forgotten most of the people listed on this email file.)
If a person is already on Linkedin, they will have a small blue cross after their name. This is a great place to make your first invitations. These are people who are already familiar with Linkedin and suitable candidates to add to your network. (Use your own set of criteria for who you want on your network).
You then click to identify which of these people you want to send an invitation to. In my case I choose the 18 current Linkedin people as my first set of invitations. This created a list (their names and email addresses are already on the Linkedin list because it extracted the list from your webmail accounts), on the right side of the page.
I checked the box that says I want to “Personalize my Invitation”. I was then greeted with a screen box in which I could type my personalize invitation rather than the standard Linkedin form.
Since I was sending 18 of these invitations at one time, I wanted to make the invitation semi-personal. This is not a mass mailing nor is it a one to one mailing.
Here’s what I wrote: “I see that you are on Linkedin just as I am. I would love to connect with you. I am currently working on an e-book of tips for people using the Linkedin program and would like to send it to you. Let’s try to connect on each others network. Thanks.” Al
You will notice a couple of things about this semi-personal note. It is more general than a one to one (you can always send out individual personal invitations) . Second, I offered them something in return for joining my network. My mother taught me that whenever I visited a friend’s house, I should bring some type of treat or gift. This is my version of “visiting” someone. It is my hope that the email tips sheet will be seen as useful to the other person and an incentive to connect with me on Linkedin.
Once I was finished with my message, I click to send the invitation. Linkedin will personalize the invitation with the person’s name. I was immediately notified that 18 invitations were sent. By the next morning I already had four responses that people had joined my network.
Because my hotmail list had almost two hundred names, I went back several times and follow the above steps until I had send email invitation to all the people I wanted to from my Hotmail list. If you have a large list you can go back to your list several times to do this process.
If you have completed your profile as I have described, you now have all the ingredients of your own brand. Unless you have a totally unique product or service, you are always selling YOU. Let’s break down this brand called YOU.
Recently, I needed a new furnace for our home. After receiving several bids from local heating contractors, I went on line to do my own research. What I found was a mess.
Every websites was full of pictures and promises about their products. No just one product but dozens and dozens of products. I just wanted one website that could clearly show me the advantages and disadvantages of the various brand names and furnaces I was seeing. I never found it. When I mentioned this fact to the contractor who finally sold me our furnace, he said, “You’re right. Even I am confused when I go to the websites?”
Creating the Brand YOU
What do you do? Your first challenge in creating a brand is to provide the prospect with a clear picture about what you are offering. What do you do or what does what you are selling do? You must be able to answer this question simply and clearly. Confused buyers never buy.
Write down the answer to this question in simple and clear words. Then show it to three people. Is it simple and clear to them?
What is your specialty? A second branding question is what is your specialty? People don’t buy from Jack of all trades and masters of none. They have too many buying options. When you try to appeal to everyone, you appeal to no one. Make it clear about your specialty.
How are you different from the competition? How are you different or better than your competition?” You don’t just want to be different. You may be the only sales person with green hair. That would make you different. Does this different matter to your customers?
Here is the heart and soul of branding. Does your difference make an emotional connection with your customers? What’s the one thing they can get from you that they cannot get from your competition?
When you think of Tiffany’s—what do you think of? Fine jewelry and romance. When you think of Tiger Woods, what you think about? Golf! Your difference is what makes the deep connection with your customers.
Dominate your market. The fourth quality, do you want to just be another peddler in the market place? Be the best. Be recognized as an expert in your business. Understand your customer better than your competition. Tell the world about your expertise. Dominate. Don’t just exist as a brand.
When you bring these qualities to the market place, you have a successful brand. You become enviable. People will look at you and admire you. And that makes your entire business operations more enjoyable and prosperous.
To be continued, your comments are always welcomed…
As we prepared for a recent vacation, I used several of my social networking programs to ask people if they had any recommendations for places to eat in Ft. Lauderdale where we were going for vacation. My wife loved the idea but asked, “Wouldn’t people know we are out of town and maybe rob our house?”
Privacy is a concern for many internet people. For this reason, some do not use social networking programs. Linkedin allows you to create whatever privacy level you want on your Linkedin site. You can structure your privacy so that no one can see your information; everyone can see everything on your site; or a mixed level of who can see what information.
Most successful social networkers let everyone see their information—the whole point of social networking is to be seen by others. However, they carefully guard what information they place on a social networking program.
Privacy Options and Your Public Profile
No Views can be seen Full View can be seen
You can specify any of the following:
Photo
Headline
Summary
Specialties
Current Position
Past Positions
Education
Websites
Interests
Groups
Honors and Awards
Interested in
You will recognize these as the categories you have just completed. You judge what areas you want open to the general public and what areas you want to remain private to selective people.
You are also allows in this part of the profile to choose a Linkedin button that you can place on your website or email signature file. Once a person clicks on the button, they are immediately sent to your Linkedin site. You will notice how popular these social networking buttons have become on internet sites and email signatures.
You can switch and use another Language to create your profile.
So far, with all the areas you have completed on the Linkedin Profile you’re customizing your Linkedin profile. You have been completing your profile with the aim achieving the goals you have set for your Linkedin involvement.
I will now show you two additional ways you can customize your Profile to make if more effective for your Linkedin purposes.
Your Website
On your profile page, you have a place to put in the address of your websites or blogs. When you click on this area, you will be given several options to identify the type of site you want to address. Your last option is “Other”. Let me show you how to use “Other” to get a higher search engine rating and more visibility for you.
When I choose the “Other” category, instead of adding my company name, Hanzal Enterprises, Inc., I added a key word phrase from my search engine key word search. I typed in “small business marketing”, then, I typed in the address of my website.
What does this accomplish? Linkedin has a very high page ranking on Google. By doing this I now have my web address and a key search word phrase linked on Linkedin. When someone types in the words “small business marketing” in Google it starts searching with higher rated pages like Linkedin. When it sees that on I have “small business marketing” on my Linkedin site and them my website address, it gives my website a higher ranking. I’m riding the coat tails of Linkedin higher rating to get a higher rating for my website. A simple change makes a big difference.
Your Public Profile
You can personalize your Linkedin Profile page by using your name in the Linkedin URL. When you first join, you are given a number as a Linkedin member. Who wants to be a number? You can insert your name in the Linkedin URL instead of a number. This will boost your online presence with someone is searching for you on Google or other search engines. Now you will have your own customized URL on Linkedin. See my example: www.linkedin.com/in/alhanzal .
Here’s how to do this.
Click on your current Public Profile URL link, you’ll see the edit box. You will see the original number address you were given at sign up. Click on Edit and it will take you to a new page and a box where you can change the address. Type in your full name–all in lower case letters as one word. Then click Set Address.
Your name changes from numbers to your name. Now you can put this on your signature file, websites, and other marketing pieces to let people know that you are on Linkedin. You now have given people another way to contact you.
