Archive for the ‘LinkedIn’ Category
10 Ways to Use Social Networks for B2B Marketing
Tuesday, December 13th, 2011Social networks are essential for expanding your web presence—not only for creating social signals now a key component in search engine rankings, which makes your website and blog easier to find in search, but also by giving you more places to be found online.
Creating your profile on each of the major social networks is a first step, but just that. A profile alone won’t get you much. As with most things in life, you’ll get out of social networks what you put into them.
Once you’ve filled out your profile (particularly including your core keywords and links), the basic process for using any of the more than 500 social networks now in existence is pretty much the same:
- Find interesting/relevant/influential people to follow/like/connect with.
- Grow your influence and attract followers/friends/connections by sharing interesting and relevant content—your own, from third parties, and from people you are following / would like to have following you.
- Interact (e.g., ask and answer questions).
- Recommend.
- Repeat.
The “big 5″ social networks have a definite “order of familiarity” to follow for proper social media etiquette:
- • Twitter, YouTube and Google+: you can follow/add virtually anyone you find interesting/relevant/influential. Don’t be offended if they don’t follow/add you back immediately; they may very well do so once they’ve gotten to “know” you better through your social networking activity.
- • LinkedIn: it’s best to have some familiarity (real world or online) before trying to make a connection. This is a level deeper than the majority of more superficial social networks. This also applies to other professional / social networks (e.g. Plaxo).
- • Facebook: liking a brand page (or asking someone to like yours) is fairly superficial. However, friending someone on Facebook is widely viewed as a deeper level of social networking connection. Put another way, the common pattern is to have more Twitter followers than LinkedIn connections, and more LinkedIn connections than Facebook friends. Only the gauche and boorish would try to friend someone on Facebook that they have no prior connections to.
With those basics established, here are 10 ways for small (or really, almost any size) businesses to use social networks for marketing and PR.
1. Create valuable backlinks for SEO. Links from your profiles and social network posts / updates all help to increase the authority of your website and blog with the search engines, leading to higher rankings. What helps most, however, is having your content shared and passed along by others with high influence in your market space. To encourage sharing, in addition to being active on the leading social networks, place social sharing buttons on your site.
2. Expand your online presence. Google, Yahoo and Bing aren’t the only places people go to look for information. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube all include their own powerful and popular internal search capabilities, and there are numerous social search engines that specifically search social networks and other social media sites. The only way to found on social networks is to be active on them.
3. Develop reputation as a thought leader (or something equally positive). By sharing relevant and helpful information, whether your own of from other sources, you increase your value to those following you, and expand your network. Sharing content developed by others makes you social; sharing content written about you by others enhances your brand image; and sharing your own thought-leadership or other helpful content solidifies your reputation as a smart, valuable resource that can influence decisions.
4. Promote your content / increase web traffic. It’s been written that, “If content is king, links are queen.” In other words, as essential as it is to develop great content, the search engines won’t give it much weight and few people will ever see that content if it doesn’t get linked. Social networks are a great place to build quality links, again particularly when key influencers within the various social networks share your content with their followers.
5. Expand your network of connections. In almost any major city, on almost any day, there are various types of business networking events: breakfasts, happy hours, seminars, forums and other types of events where local business people can meet each other and form new connections. Social media makes it easy to expand your network globally—or at least well beyond the confines of those who either live nearby or travel to major industry events. Social networks are invaluable for helping you make connections with prospective customers, additional contacts within client companies, industry journalists, bloggers and other influencers that it would be difficult if not impossible to connect with otherwise.
6. Develop and build relationships. Making connections is just the beginning. Social sharing and interactions enable you to develop relationships that can be very meaningful and rewarding, over time, with people you’ve never physically met, perhaps even never spoken with by phone. These relationships can lead to increased online exposure, expanded knowledge, new insights and ideas, partnerships, referrals, and ultimately—increased business.
7. Perform competitive and market research. Social media isn’t all about you, of course. Knowing what kinds of questions your prospective customers are asking, what problems they are trying to solve, and their opinions and observations about competitive firms can help you develop content that better meet market needs and set you apart from competitors.
8. Spot opportunities for innovation. Knowing more about the issues and concerns of your target prospects can also inspire ideas for product enhancements or new products, services or processes that lead to increased sales, greater customer satisfaction and loyalty, and/or new market opportunities.
9. Improve customer service. Traditional customer service channels are great for capturing information about and resolving specific customer issues (e.g., product malfunctions or “how do I…” questions). Social networks, however, open up possibilities for learning about other types of issues that may never lead to a customer service call: your product disappoints in some manner, your online form is too long and/or complicated, your website content is confusing, a particular piece of information or contact phone number is difficult to find, etc.
10. Generate leads and grow your email list (carefully!). There’s a reason this item is last on the list: while the goal of social media marketing is ultimately to produce an ROI, where the “R” is usually generated by increased sales, it’s crucial not to promote your offerings too blatantly or too early in the social networking process. Engaging in self-promotion too early will get you labeled as a spammer, damage your reputation and hobble your ability to grow a productive network. Promoting too blatantly is never advisable. Rather, once you have a network established, use social media to promote “gated” content like white papers or reports, invite followers to register for webinars, and promote your newsletter on your blog and other content pages in order to build a list for lead nurturing.
Establishing a presence on the leading social networks and utilizing an effective social media strategy will enhance your online presence and “findability” on search engines as well as within the social networks themselves.
Best LinkedIn Guides, Tips and Tactics of 2010
Wednesday, February 16th, 2011LinkedIn is firmly ensconced among the “big 3″ social networks for marketing and business purposes, and though its base of 80 million members is far smaller than the 600 million users of Facebook, its impact in B2B marketing is larger. According to recent research, 32% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn to generate leads, versus just 16% who do so on Facebook. Nearly half of B2B marketers using social media view LinkedIn as an effective channel, while only one in three say the same of Facebook. 43% of employees at the largest companies in the US use LinkedIn for professional reasons, compared to 11% on Facebook. And on the buying side, a study from the ITSMA revealed that “LinkedIn is used by 58% of the respondents to find information or to talk to colleagues about solutions in the context of a purchase. Blogs represent 50%, Facebook 47% and…Twitter scores 41%.”
For anyone seeking to expand their professional network online, market to professionals, get advice from peers on business products and services, find a job, or hire the right candidate, LinkedIn has become an indispensable tool. So how can you get the most out of this business-oriented social network? How can you optimize your profile to be “findable” for the right phrases within LinkedIn? What new features should you get familiar with? What the best practices for professional networking, generating sales leads, connecting with potential business partners, sharing content and getting answers to tough business questions? Which common mistakes should you avoid?
Get the answers to all of these questions and more here in 21 of the best guides to LinkedIn tactics, tools and techniques of last year.
How to Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile
LinkedIn: Maximize Your Impact by Reciprocate
Karen Emanuelson shares a few LinkedIn demographics stats (more than 33 million U.S. members; a new member joins every second; 78% of members are college graduates) then highlights seven areas to optimize on your LinkedIn profile (e.g., title, websites, interests) and five ways to maximize your efforts there (e.g. participating in groups and answering questions).
9 Tips For Building, Branding and Maximizing Your Profile And Exposure on LinkedIn by Stephanie Frasco
Stephanie Frasco recommends having an SEO keyword-heavy profile, blogging, using applications and engaging in conversation among other practices for maximizing your impact through LinkedIn.
How to optimize your LinkedIn profile by Socialmedia.biz
Anthony Piwarun presents a detailed, step-by-step guide to optimizing various key areas of your LinkedIn profile (headline, summary, title) as well as other factors, shows what kind of results are achievable, and answers the question: is premium membership worth the cost?
How Can I Look Amazing On LinkedIn? by My Venture Pad
15 tips for how to look “amazing” on LinkedIn for what you do, among them: rearrange the order of items on your LinkedIn profile in order to stand out; always personalize your connection invitations; add slides or video to your profile; and recommend good books (that you’ve read) on your profile.
Guide to Optimizing Your LinkedIn Profile by Site Reference
For visual learners, Misti Sandefur provides a detailed, step-by-step, fully illustrated guide to keyword-optimizing your summary, specialties, interests, links and other profile components.
New LinkedIn Features
LinkedIn New Feature – Follow Company by Success CREEations
Chris Cree details how the “follow company” capability works on LinkedIn, while noting that rather than trying to incorporate every new feature under the sun (like a certain other popular social network), LinkedIn has been steadily adding new features, selectively, that fit with its corporate and professional focus.
LinkedIn Adds New Profile Sections by 10 Golden Rules
Tracy Antol explains five new profile sections added to LinkedIn late last year that provide even more ways to enhance your professional presence there. Among these are Publications: per Tracy, “This one is especially useful to my writer friends. Now you can provide links to your published works as part of your profile.”
LinkedIn Launches ‘Company Pages’ by MediaPost Online Media Daily
Mark Walsh reports on company pages, another new feature added by LinkedIn in late 2010. “The revamped profiles allow page administrators to highlight particular products or services and tailor product lists to different types of audiences. The new layout also lets companies feature product videos as well as targeted display advertising. LinkedIn members visiting Company Pages can also post recommendations and reviews of products or services.”
LinkedIn’s new company pages by eConsultancy
Pauline Ores expands on the reporting in the post above with a close look at the new marketing features of LinkeIn company pages, implementation considerations, and musings on what LinkedIn may or should do next to capitalize on the unique strengths of its business-focused social media platform.
Some Linkedin Tips & New Features From Talent Genius Ltd
Steve Smithson explains how the new LinkedIn Share Button, company recommendations and Signal features work, plus he offers a dozen helpful tips on maximizing your use of LinkedIn to promote your company such as utilizing LinkedIn Polls.
LinkedIn Tips and Best Practices
6 Common LinkedIn Mistakes Small Businesses Make, and What You Should Do Instead by OPEN Forum
Anne Field helpfully identifies six common LinkedIn mistakes (and it’s not only small businesses who make these BTW) and the right approach to use instead, for example, overtly promoting your product or service (gauche). A better practice: “In group discussions, don’t ask questions or make comments that are obvious sales pitches. Instead, establish yourself as a key expert or resource by providing thoughtful, pithy observations.”
13 LinkedIn Mistakes You Should Avoid by New Grad Life
Continuing with the theme above, here are a baker’s dozen more common LinkedIn mistakes to avoid, among them: using the default “My Website” and “My Company” link labels instead of more descriptive custom text for those links, failing to join groups, and not providing—or asking for—recommendations.
Improving Your Search Engine Rank Using LinkedIn by CompuKol Connection
Michael Cohn offers seven tips for LinkedIn SEO, such as using keywords throughout your profile, updating your status at least once per week to keep your content fresh, and linking to your LinkedIn profile from your blog, email signature and other places.
Ten Ways for Small Businesses to Use LinkedIn by OPEN Forum
Guy Kawasaki follows up on his original Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn post from 2007 with an updated list, including uses like finding vendors for outsourcing services that aren’t your expertise, getting answers to tough business questions and sharing your blog content.
How to stand out on LinkedIn by iMedia Connection
Steve Patrizi, Vice President Marketing Solutions at LinkedIn, offers more than a dozen tips for standing out on LinkedIn, from optimizing your profile for LinkedIn’s internal search to finding experts to connect with to sharing your own great content (blog posts, presentations, etc.).
How To Use Linkedin To Generate Business by Search Engine Land
Writing that “If you provide B2B consulting, services or products, your options for social media are fairly limited, let’s be honest you probably won’t find many fans for your Facebook Legal Incorporation Services page. For these types of businesses, LinkedIn is a much better alternative,” Michael Gray provides tips on using your profile, groups, questions and answer, status updates and other LinkedIn capabilities to generate referrals and sales prospects.
3 Steps to Managing Your Reputation with Linkedin.com by MPower Philosophy
Marilyn Oliva provides a concise yet valuable guide to managing your online reputation with LinkedIn by completing and optimizing your profile, expanding your contact list and sharing information to build credibility.
LinkedIn Group versus Facebook Group by Search Engine Journal
Frequent best-of contributor Ann Smarty supplies a detailed head-to-head comparison between LinkedIn and Facebook across several criteria including privacy controls (bet you can’t guess who wins there!), promotion tools and networking features.
4 LinkedIn Tips to Help You Stand Out by Social Media Examiner
Noting the power of LinkedIn as a business networking tool, Linda Coles outline four ways to “use social etiquette to really make your LinkedIn connections valuable and stand out from the crowd,” including the proper ways to ask for recommendations and send a group mailing.
8 Tips to Get More Out of LinkedIn by Justin Levy
Observing that, “As with many things in life, what you get out of LinkedIn will only be as good as what you put in,” Justin Levy offers eight tips to get more value from LinkedIn, such as posting relevant, helpful information in your status updates (e.g. industry news, important announcements) and providing thoughtful, helpful answers to questions in your area of subject matter expertise.
The 9 Worst Ways to Use LinkedIn for Business by HubSpot Blog
For those who have no interest in succeeding on LinkedIn and want to avoid any chance of landing a new job or client there, Diana Freedman offers tongue-in-cheek recommendations such as leaving your profile blank, ignoring connection invitations and making sure you don’t link to your profile from your website, email signature or blog.
