Social Media Sonar Blog» LinkedIn

LinkedIn Infographic

Sean Nelson — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 15:09:03 +0000

Today’s post, LinkedIn infographic is the third in the series. You can view the first two, Twitter Infographic and YouTube Infographic by clicking on the links.

LinkedIn continues to be the only major social network focused exclusively on business professionals. Its not as casual as Facebook and not as flippant as Twitter. Today’s infographic focuses on how to be “the man or woman” on LinkedIn. It includes 10 tips that will help you:

Optimize your profile
Extend your reach
Leverage the tools

All three are equally important if you want to drive new business from Linkedin.

If you have a great profile and no one sees it you’ve accomplished nothing. If you have a great network and belong to several groups you’ll still miss out on opportunities if your profile is lacking. Finally, if you are using the available tools such as Answers, Polls, Status Updates, etc. but still have a poor profile, you may drive people back to your inadequate profile, but you’ll likely find that you have nothing to show for your work.

Your profile is the hub of your Linkedin existence. Its your landing page. It should tell people who you are, what you do, how you help people, where they can get more information, and even how to take the next step if they want to engage you or your products and services.

Next I would start naturally building your connections. Connect to you natural network, to people you meet at networking events, and even reach out to those you would like to know. Start looking for groups to join such as:

Those where potential your customers or clients are
Industry related groups where you can make connections that can become partners, vendors, or referral sources
Alumni groups, whether corporate or school based, where you can reconnect to old friends or find new ones
Topic related groups where you can expand your knowledge
A group that you start and grow

Finally, kick start your activity by answering questions to help others and demonstrate your knowledge, engage in group discussions by joining existing conversations or start your own, post status update to share content, ask questions, or share success stories, and finally using the search function to prospect.

Success takes time so be patient and consistent in your activity. My LinkedIn infographic should help you get started (click image to view full size).

Social Media Sonar provides the following four resources for FREE… 1. The Blog, 2. The Online Marketing/Social Media Blueprint, 3. Conversion Rate Optimization Guide, 4. Resource Center. If these help you implement your own online marketing program, great. We love helping people. If you decide you need some help, great. We love new clients. Contact Us if we can help you.

Why LinkedIn is Important to Small Businesses

Sean Nelson — Mon, 09 May 2011 13:05:27 +0000

In the summer of 2006 I read an article about a networking site that was for business people. I had heard of MySpace and Facebook, but those were networks for high school kids and people in college. A network dedicated to business professionals was definitely worth checking out. That network was LinkedIn.

I signed up for an account and started looking through it to see if I knew anyone and to also see if there were any ways to use it as a prospecting vehicle. After numerous searches my conclusion at the time was that this was a good site for people in technology industries but not necessarily relevant for anyone else.

At the time you could connect to other business professionals, participate in Answers, and join groups (although there really wasn’t any additional functionality to groups).

Five years later I have a different perspective, having used the service to build a network of business professionals and driven new business from being a member of the site. I wasn’t wrong in my initial assessment; it’s just that LinkedIn has evolved into a great tool through the increase in membership and functionality. It just had to mature a little bit, much like the internet of the late 90’s.

In the late 1990’s the internet was starting to gain traction and companies were starting to get in on the action. For a while, having a website was a cool thing to do but not a make or break decision. That changed and eventually having a website was as much a credibility play as it was a functional part of any businesses marketing efforts.

Social networking/media has followed the same path, although at a much quicker pace. Two years ago having a presence on the various social networking spaces was a cool thing to do for a business but once again not a make or break decision. Today if you’re not on a social networking site like LinkedIn you’re missing the boat.

Social Media/Networking has expanded the opportunity to have conversations with your prospects, increased the availability of information on companies and individuals, and provided new opportunities to deliver your message to tens of thousands of individuals and companies.

When I work with a client on developing a social media/networking strategy we focus on three of the available networking sites: Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Out of the three LinkedIn is still the one that provides the most opportunity for small businesses. Let’s take a look at some of the advantages LinkedIn offers:

1. An Impressive Membership

Consider the demographics of the average LinkedIn user:

The average household income is $92,000
50% are college graduate (another 30% have attended college)
50%+ are decision makers in their companies
Demographics exceed those of Wall street Journal in most categories

If you’re looking for a financially qualified prospect you’ve come to the right place.

2. Expand and Enhance Your Networking

Networking has been a staple for most business people throughout the years. LinkedIn doesn’t replace face to face networking but it can enhance it. When I first started getting serious about using LinkedIn I used my offline networking to drive new connections.

After each event I attended I went online to LinkedIn to invite those that I met to connect. This allowed me to add a new dimension to the people I was meeting.

I took it a step further by inviting those that I did not get a chance to speak with to connect as well. This allowed me to connect with someone who attended the event even though we didn’t have a chance to meet or have a conversation. If they never attended another chamber event I still had the opportunity to connect online and then decide if they were someone I wanted to meet offline.

3. Identify Prospects or Potential Employees

Most businesses rely on sales people to develop new prospects. The difference between a failing business and a successful one is often the ability to find and develop new prospects. LinkedIn allows youYou have the ability to search for members that fit specific criteria. If you want to find a Purchasing Manager in Atlanta Georgia you can search for this specific person. Looking to fill a business development position with software sales experience in Denver, you can identify individuals to target. You can even add keywords to narrow your search for instance if you need someone with Oracle experience.

It gets better. Once you identify the individual that you are looking for you have access to their profile. You can learn a lot by reading a person’s profile. Where did they go to school? Where have they worked in the past? Who recommends them? Who do they recommend?

In the old days you might walk into an office and look at the photos and items on a shelf to get a feel for the person you were meeting to find common ground. Now you can learn a lot before you even meet.

4. See How You Connect Into an Opportunity

Having the ability to conduct research on a prospect is important. Being able to identify how you connect to an opportunity is even more valuable. When you look at a person that is a 2nd or 3rd degree connection LinkedIn shows you the people that connect you to the person. It’s no longer about whom you know; but who do the people you know, know!

You can also choose to connect directly to the prospect or potential employee establishing the beginning of a relationship

You also have the ability to join up to 50 groups. Groups on LinkedIn are usually created based on a single factor that the group members have in common. It could be an industry, a geographic location, a concept, an alumni group, or based on current or former employees of a company. You can leverage memberships in groups to identify and connect to prospects.

5. Identify Companies and Employees

Since introducing their Companies section LinkedIn has continued to make changes to add value. These profiles offer a great resource to identify potential prospects. You can learn a lot about a company reviewing their profile including seeing a list of employees that have LinkedIn profiles. This allows you to identify employees that you can connect to in order to network your way up the ladder to gain access to decision makers.

If your sales or business development people are not utilizing this resource they’re leaving a valuable tool in their toolbox.

Its also a great way to promote your company with the ability to feature products and jobs.

6. Communicate Your Message in a Cost Efficient Manner

Over 90% of the people on LinkedIn utilize a free account. With their account they can contact their direct connections or fellow members directly, they can communicate a message through the “Status Update” feature, they can poll their connections, engage in discussion conversations in groups, and post press releases or news articles in groups. All done at no cost.

You can build your community and communicate with it on a ongoing basis for the simple cost of the time to implement. Talk about a valuable resource in a time of financial constraints.

Getting Started

It all begins with creating an account on LinkedIn and learning the various features and functions. LinkedIn may have 90 million members but only 24% of members are considered active users. This gives you and your sales people an opportunity to establish a foothold while most of your competitors are looking the other way.

LinkedIn has built the community, they’ve provided tools to engage and interact, you simply need to take the first step and invest the time to make it productive. How are you putting LinkedIn to work for your business?

Online Strategy Using Social Media

Sean Nelson — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 17:14:10 +0000

Strategies are like excuses. Some people have them some people don’t. Some are good and some not so good. Some are so good that you file it away should you need it in the future. Today I offer you an online marketing excuse of a strategy that incorporates social media.

2 Parts of the Strategy

The strategy that I’ll layout has two parts to it: 1. Build a Cohesive Social Brand; 2. Syndicate Content. Then as you can see in the video I’ll show you how the two components work together. The goal is to generate an impact in your social media marketing while also looking to benefit from being indexed by search engines. Its a push / pull strategy that relies on one key component …quality content.

In today’s post I’m going to walk through part one. Tomorrow I will add part two, Syndicating Content. Of course you can watch the video and see everything at once.

Cohesive Social Brand

There are thousands of social media and networking sites out there and you could drive yourself crazy trying to sign up for everyone. You should focus on establishing a presence on the major sites and then add in some specific sites that fit your niche. Each of these components should use similar color schemes and design elements so that they are cohesive in look and feel.

1. Blog: In this strategy the blog is the most important piece. It allows you to generate content to share across all of your networks to engage your communities. You can use WordPress, Blogger, or any number of blogging platforms. My personal choice is WordPress but you choose whichever works best for you.( Social Media Sonar blog )

Focus on writing great content that does one of several things: educates, solves, entertains, informs, etc. You want to publish content that is going to be consumed by your prospects or clients. Be sure to optimize your posts with a short to the point title that includes keywords, include relevant keywords in the body, anchor text links where appropriate, include an excerpt, and tag the article with targeted keywords.

2. Facebook Micro-site: Facebook is the 800 lb gorilla these days in social networking, its too big to ignore. Simply creating a business page is the minimum, but you need to take it a step further. Turning your page into a micro-site allows you to move beyond simple wall posts.

You can create a Welcome page, an offer page that shows people that have not liked your page your offer details and to people that have liked your page how to fulfill that offer, and additional pages that highlight products, testimonials, etc. Of course Facebook also includes standards such as Discussions, Photos, Videos, etc.This is a new page that still needs work on building a fan/Like base, but you can see how I use the offer page to let people know they can download free social media guides, but only do so after clicking the “Like Button - Social Media Sonar Facebook page.

Also I have updated the page to the new Facebook layout (tabs are gone and links to pages are on the left side below your profile photo) which everyone will need to do by March 11th. Also I used the Static FBML app to build these pages which is also going away on March 11th, though existing pages will be grandfathered in. Be sure to add the app to your page before then and create a couple of blank pages with it for later use if needed.

3. YouTube: Google loves video and so should you. On top of my priority list is to create about 25 videos to add to my channel over the next 3 months. You have the option of customizing your YouTube skin to continue your cohesive look and feel. I’ve used mine to add in two promotional boxes and my social links. ( Social Media Sonar YouTube channel )

4. Twitter: As a continuous stream Twitter works best for me as a way to share my blog content and to find other content based on a topic search. It can be used for much more than these two but I’ll leave it to you to determine how it best works for you. You can add a custom skin so once again you want to make sure that you carry over your brand elements to your custom skin. ( @seanenelson )

5. LinkedIn: LinkedIn has been my favorite social network but Facebook is closing in as equally relevant for me. I love the new enhanced LinkedIn company pages and groups have always been a key resource. When it comes to dollars produced LinkedIn has generated the most ROTI (return on time invested), closing in on $100,000 over the last three years. (Social Media Sonar Company page )

Be sure to look at the different pages to see how the components work together to present a cohesive social brand. And remember that these are the components you need to have but not all that may be relevant for your business. Tomorrow I will post part two but until then you can watch the video to see how it all works together.

Fake LinkedIn Accounts

Sean Nelson — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 19:12:15 +0000

As an open networker I tend to receive anywhere from 100 to 150 invitation requests each week. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve noticed some suspicious items about many of these invitations:

Either no profile photo or a stock photo
Use of the words “Independent” or “Student”
Or no title at all

As I began looking at the profiles it was clear that these were basic accounts with little more than name and title. On about 50% of the questionable account there were three urls included but not much else.

I can’t say with 100% certainty that these are fake accounts but they look suspect. In the video I show about 8 of these accounts, and since I’ve screen captured these I’ve noticed another twenty or thirty similar accounts that I received invitations from.

What this means

If you are a closed networker, not much. If you are an open networker though you’re going to need to look a little more closely at the people you connect to. I currently look at every profile that I receive a request from. Its time consuming but if I want to continue to be an open networker than I need to avoid connecting to as many suspicious accounts as possible

Why do people create fake accounts?

I can think of two immediate reasons:

To connect and then spam their connections through the messaging system
To build links back to a site (for those that include the three url’s)

I’m sure there are many other reasons.

Watch the video and be sure to keep your eye on the people that you accept connection requests from.

LinkedIn Marketing Book 2nd Edition

Sean Nelson — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 20:50:52 +0000

In June of 2009 I released my eBook LinkedIn Marketing Secret Formula. At the time it was one of the first books to look at using LinkedIn to communicate a message to tens of thousands of people on a daily basis. That might sound like spam but the techniques I detailed were all through indirect communication tactics. At no point did it advocate or suggest that you send sales messages directly to people.

As I release the 2nd edition of the book it is still one of the only books that lays out a LinkedIn communications strategy. Most books simply tell you what LinkedIn is and help you learn how to accomplish tasks such as completing your profile, creating a group, answering questions, etc. Nothing wrong with that, I released two such books: LinkedIn 101 in 2008 and The LinkedIn MBA in 2009. There are enough people that will continue to release these types of books which are great for people new to LinkedIn.

This book is for the person that has figured out the basics of LinkedIn and is ready to put it to work for them.

The core of the book evolves around the simple concept of understanding your three true LinkedIn networks. I’m not talking about degrees of connection, but three distinct networks determined by the ability to communicate a message to.

Your three LinkedIn networks are:

The entire LinkedIn membership
The people you are directly connected to
The people who belong to the same groups that you do

Each of these networks have specific ways that you can communicate directly or indirectly to. Understanding how to reach each with your message is what takes LinkedIn from a networking tool to a business growth and lead generation tool. Its what I discuss in LinkedIn Marketing Secret Formula.

The book was originally released at a cost of $39.99. I still think that the information in the book is good value at that price point, but for a short period I am going to offer a 40% discount with a request that you simply post a review as a comment to this post. To read more information on the book and purchase click here. Be sure to use discount code: 2Y4001.

If you’re interested, I am simultaneously releasing the 2nd edition of “The Insurance Brokers Guide to LinkedIn” and “The 100% Complete LinkedIn Profile Workbook”.

Interested in earning money helping promote the book. I have set up an affiliate program splitting commissions 50/50. To sign up Click Here.

LinkedIn Open Groups

Sean Nelson — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 22:41:39 +0000

Are LinkedIn Open Groups Great for Members or Great for Spammers?

I’ve seen a lot of back and forth discussions about the new LinkedIn Open Groups. A lot of the negatives that I see people mentioning stem from the thought that this will further encourage spammers to post promotions and add little value to discussions.

LinkedIn Rant w/ a Solution

In 2010 LinkedIn decided to remove the New Article board from groups or per what they put out “combine the news board and the discussion board”. At the time people were pretty good about posting discussion questions on the discussion board and links to blog articles, online news releases, and articles to the news board.

I assume LinkedIn felt it would be natural to combine the two opening up a new board called Promotions to give group members a place to promote products and services. They were wrong.

The reality is that many group owners faced with an influx of blog posts to their discussion boards, overreacted in my opinion, by taking the draconian steps of banishing posts with Links in them. Heaven forbid that someone should actually use a “Business” social network to actually grow their business. Eventually the consensus seems to be that blog posts should be posted to the promotions board, which while some blog posts are blatant shills, the majority are written by people that seek to first share value and then benefit from the goodwill generated by what they shared.

The solution is simple. LinkedIn should bring back the news article board. That would mean that within a LinkedIn group your have a place to:

1. Share Conversations (Discussion Board) – interact with fellow group members

2. Share Content (News Board) – allow content producers to share content which encourages further content development

3. Share Value (Promotions Board) – help companies promote their products and services and members to find discounts

4. Share Wealth (Jobs Board) – help someone find a job

(end of rant)

Back to the Open Group Question

Given that LinkedIn missed the mark on removing the news board, my initial reaction to Open Groups was no. I have to admit that there was no basis for opposing open groups other than I did not want to open the group to postings by others who are not members. After reviewing the setting page I changed my mind and have taken my four groups to open groups.

Here are the Group settings and what I selected for my groups.

Section 1: Group Settings – Choose none, some, or all options

1. Enable the Discussions and News features. – YES

Sub Choices:

A. Enable the Promotions Feature. – YES

—– Allow only moderators and managers to move discussions to the Promotions area. – YES

B. Enable the Jobs Feature. – YES

—-Allow only moderators and managers to move discussions to the Jobs area. – YES

C. Automatically remove content flagged by group members. – YES

—-Number of flags: 10 flags automatically removes post

2. Display the Subgroups tab. – YES

Section Perspective: I wanted to enable as many features as possible to provide members options. Also wanted to remove the ability for anyone to move posts to jobs or promotions board. Too many past issues with this.

Section 2: Permissions:

1. Options for Members of this group: Select only one of the following

A. Free to post (discussions, promotions, jobs and comments). – I chose this selection

B. Free to post promotions, jobs, comments only, and submit everything else.

C. Free to post jobs, comments only, and submit everything else.

D. Free to post comments only and submit everything else.

E. Submit everything for approval.

2. Options for Anyone on LinkedIn – Select only one of the following

A.Free to post comments, and submit discussions for approval.

B. Submit both comments & discussions for approval.

C. Submit comments for approval only (no discussions allowed).

D. No contributions allowed. – I chose this option

Section Perspective: I want group members to be able to post freely. I only want group members posting in the group

Section 3: Restrictions – Select none, some, or all of the following

1. Require moderation for new groups members. – NO

Number of days that a person is new to the group: 0 days

2. Require moderation for new people on LinkedIn. – No (not allowed to post per above setting)

Number of days that a person is new to LinkedIn: 0 days

3. Require moderation for people with few or no connections. – No (I only allow people with at least 10 connections to join my groups)

Section Perspective: Evaluating as I move forward, but I don’t want to limit new member (but if I begin to see a lot of spam from new members I will have to address)

Section 4: Membership – Choose one or the other

1. Auto-Join: Any member of LinkedIn may join this group without requiring approval from a manager. – NO

2. Request to Join: Users must request to join the group and be approved by a manager. – Yes

Section Perspective: My groups are all Georgia based and to join you must reside in Georgia. Everyone must submit a request to join. I make exceptions for recruiters (anyone offering potential jobs is welcome), to people who previously lived in Georgia, and folks looking to move to Georgia.Display this group in the Groups Directory. – Yes

Section 5: Additional Settings

1. Allow members to display the logo on their profiles. – Yes

2. Allow members to invite others to join this group. – Yes

Section Perspective: I’ll take the additional exposure.

LinkedIn Open Groups Wrap Up

Based on my understanding of the setings I can do two things that make it worth moving to Open Groups:

1. I can restrict comments to only members.

2. By opening the group I allow members content to be seen by anyone and indexed by search engines

I get to increase exposure to the group and to members who contribute and I get to limit contributions to only group members. I benefit as a group owner, members benefit, and non-members benefit. Its a win-win-win solution. LinkedIn may have missed the mark on removing the New Board but they nailed this on on the head.

What do you think?

LinkedIn Labs Tests Out New Tools

Sean Nelson — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 16:22:46 +0000

This is likely my last post of the year and being that Christmas is only hours away I’m going to share a little LinkedIn gift with you. Many people are not aware that LinkedIn has a site where they feature internal projects. These not-ready for prime time tools may or may not be relevant but they are interesting.

Once a month LinkedIn celebrates “In Day” where LinkedIn employees are encouraged to research, experiment, and create concepts outside of there normal routine. Adam Nash explained the concept in a post on the LinkedIn blog, “This concept began with an impromptu hackday held over the 2007 holiday break and has now grown to a company-wide event (including an American Idol style panel of judges). Teams are given just five minutes to demo their hack in front of the entire company, and judges get just two minutes to ask questions.”

These are a few of the tools that are highlighted in our Resource Center on the LinkedIn Tools page. Be sure to check out that page to see what other tools are available.

LinkedIn Labs

Instant Search

A sample application to search LinkedIn, built over the new Linkedin Javascript APIs.

My Perspective: Nice search results page. The same results were shown as if searched on LinkedIn, but without the clutter results were displayed in 3 columns by 5 rows. Results include profile photo, tile/tagline, and location. The negative was that there was no navigation to view more than the first 15 results. This will never be a stand alone tool but is likely a way to test out new concepts for LinkedIn’s People Search.

NewIn

This application shows new members joining LinkedIn from around the world. (requires Google Earth)

My Perspective: An interesting tool but more of a potential time waster than profit maker. Still every now and then you need to take a step back.

Resume Builder

Build, save & share beautifully formatted resumes based on your LinkedIn profile.

My Perspective: Should be ready for a call up. This tools does a good job of crafting a nice, clean resume. 11 templates provide the ability to change the look and feel of your resume. I would like them to add a export to .doc or .pages file for further editing. The formatting that you use on your online profile summary doesn’t necessarily translate …spacing, characters, etc.

ChromIn

Integrate LinkedIn directly into Google Chrome. Easy access to your LinkedIn updates, anytime.

My Perspective: Not a bad tool. Easy to add to Chrome and simple to post a status update. Shows updates from others using the tool. Not bad if I happen to be using Chrome and have a sudden thought that I need to share. Otherwise I’m using Hootsuite fed into my status update.

Signal

Signal is aimed at making it easy for all professionals to glean the most relevant insights from the never-ending stream of status updates and news.

My Perspective: Ready for the “Show”. Signal helps you filter through status updates by degrees of connection, by company, industry, time posted, location, school, topics etc. A great way to make sense of status updates. Great research tool. Really cannot think of any negatives.

Infinity

A beautiful visualization of your professional network, built using the LinkedIn Javascript APIs.

My Perspective: This is like the really attractive person you date but realize after 5 minutes that there’s not much beyond the looks. Still nice to look at and fun to mess around with. Great Apple stile visuals. And I like that if you hover over a profile photo you get their latest status update. Click on the photo and get a brief summary of the person

Don’t fall in love too fast with any of these beta tools as some may only live for a few weeks. But in true American Idol spirit some will rise to the top and potentially make it to the big time as a fully supported tool on LinkedIn. For now just play with them to see if they have any impact on your business or your LinkedIn experience.

Post Blog to Multiple LinkedIn Groups at the Same Time

Sean Nelson — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 20:11:45 +0000

One of the things I like about social media is that as a developing medium it sometimes takes a little creativity to accomplish what you might want. Recently we had a client that engaged us to help drive traffic to their internal jobs postings. One of the first places I thought of posting these opportunities was in the jobs board in LinkedIn groups.

We did a search on industry groups and selected twenty to join. These twenty groups have over 300,000 members. The only thing left to do was to post each job opportunity in each group.

We started with 20 jobs to post and doing simple math meant that posting 20 jobs in 20 groups would require 400 posts to groups to complete . Thats a lot of time that really was not in the budget. Surely there had to be an easier way.

In simpler LinkedIn Times:
When I first started writing my blog I used LinkedIn groups to share my posts, growing my blog from 2,200 visits a month to a high of 50,000. Each time I wrote a post I would then post it in the 50 groups I belonged to. It was a tedious but effective tactic.

Earlier this year LinkedIn made some changes and suddenly you were able to post to the News board of all of your groups with a single post. Unfortunately that functionality disappeared when LinkedIn removed the News boards in groups. Fortunately through trial and error I have been able to find a way to posy one blog post in all of your groups with a single posting.

When 20 x 20 equals 1
So getting back to our client that needed to post their job opportunity in LinkedIn groups, here are the steps we took. The same steps you can use to syndicate your content to all of your groups at once.

Step 1: Create a New Blog
If you already have a blog then you can skip this step. Our client did not have a blog for their job posts and we did not have time to wait for their web developers to implement one so we created a WordPress hosted blog.

Step 2: Add a Share Widget to Your Blog

If we were hosting the blog on our client’s servers we would have access to upload the widget of our choice. With WordPress hosting our blog we were limited to the widgets loaded, so we needed an alternative way to add the Share functionality.

One of the widget options is the Text Widget which allows you to add coding to it to add functionality. We then did a search on Share Content and found the Add to Any site. We created an Add to Any account and then downloaded the Share code for WordPress.com.

Step 3: Add a Text Widget to your Blog Sidebar
We next went to the Widget Administrative panel in the backend of our blog and added a Text Widget to the Sidebar and pasted the WordPress.com Share Code from the Add to Any site. With our Share Widget added to our Sidebar we were ready to share our job blog posts.

Step 4: Go to your Post page and click on the Share button
Now that we had our blog in place, the jobs loaded as posts, and our share widget added we were ready to begin syndicating our content. We went to the homepage of our blog and clicked on the Title Link of the first job we wanted to share. On the post page we then clicked on our Share widget which then opened a page listing the networks available to choose to share to.

From here we’ll use video to show you how easy it is.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHhvgDAmyGs

(If the video does not work click on the following link to view the video in YoutTube: Syndicate Blog Content to LinkedIn Groups)

Hopefully the video helped show how easy it is to use this technique. We had an extra step for our client since the blog posts needed to be put onto the jobs board. Our only option unfortunately was to go into each group and move the posts to the Jobs board by flagging the discussion as a jobs post. Even with having to manually add to the jobs board we were still able to add 6 posts per hour. We estimate that using this technique saved us 6 to 8 hours on this task.

Remember that you want to make sure that the posts you add to LinkedIn groups

1. Are relevant to the group added; and

2. Share value and not simply a sales message.

Good Luck!

What’s the Point of Social Media?

Sean Nelson — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 13:04:56 +0000

Have you ever stopped to ask yourself that question? How did you answer it? What if we ask someone else? Are they likely to give the same answer or a different one?

We’re also likely to give a different answer than people at the top social sites would give. So lets look at the point of several sites.

LinkedIn: To help professionals network and deepen the relationships they already have or are just developing.
Facebook: It’s changed in scope from its origins but Facebook allows us to engage with our friends and families on a more personal level sharing experiences, video, photo’s, etc.
Twitter: Twitter lets us stream micro thoughts to others and see what others are thinking or up to.
You Tube: Allows you to post to share experiences, entertainment, outrage, etc with others.

**Scot Allen’s response does a better job of describing the above tools. It’s worth the read.)

When you read through these descriptions there is a huge component missing if you are a business person. At no point in the descriptions does it say that any of these top sites were created to help you sell some product.

Billboards were created to sell products. Commercials are produced to sell product. Print Ads, radio ads, etc ……… So we have a set of tools that were not created to sell products and a set that were developed to sell products. What’s the problem?

Well for one people have started tuning out the channels designed to pitch them on a product or service. Second, everyone is so gaga over social media that there is simply too much buzz to do nothing. So what are you going to do?

Quit using the same tactics in social media that you used in advertising: This is a channel that doesn’t want to be sold to …directly. Indirect means of selling can actually work very well.
Quit expecting results overnight: This doesn’t mean that you can forget about ROI or other useful measurement, it just means you have to have some patience. If I want to send 1 million emails I buy an email list. If I want to reach 1,000,000 people in social media I need to build up my communities over a long period of time.
Understand what it is you have to offer someone who chooses to connect, follow, or friend you. If I am a consumer in your target market and I choose to follow you what’s in it for me? Why should I engage or stick around? Here a hint … it needs to be at least one of these – interesting, exciting relevant (per Michael Yoder) , or valuable.

I used to list 5 or 10 things whenever I wrote a post like this, and I could list a lot more of things to do and not do. But, this is social networking so the giving and receiving should be equal or at least constantly changing like a see-saw.

So I’ve started the conversation with these three. Its up to you to keep the conversation going by adding your thoughts and ideas as comments.

How’s Your Social Media Swing?

Sean Nelson — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 03:59:49 +0000

I’ve heard it all. Social media is the greatest evolution in marketing to its the biggest waste of time and money. I agree with both. Its not the tool itself but how it is used.

If I had Tiger Woods’ golf clubs I would still suffer the same severe handicap. I do have a Ken Griffey Jr. autographed Louisville Slugger but I’m not likely to do more than stir air if I faced even your average major league pitcher. Its not about the bat or the club; its about the swing.

Hitters in baseball have batting coaches and even Tiger has a swing coach. Today we’re going to take a look at some basics to craft your social media swing.

Club Selection
Each hole that a golfer plays consists of weighing different factors to determine which club gives him the most likely chance to succeed. On a par 5 the Driver is likely to come out of the bag first. On shorter holes its maybe a Wood or an Iron.

In social media your club selection includes things such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, You Tube, Flickr, Blogs, Websites, Landing Pages, Digg, Stumble Upon, 4 Square, PR Web, and the list goes on and on. You just need to choose the right club that will help you best put the ball in the cup.

Unless a golfer hits a hole in one each hole is likely to involve multiple club selections. The same is true for social media. When you craft your strategy you should be able to determine which of your social media clubs can help you achieve your goals.

The Right Swing
I normally hit my pitching wedge about 120 yards with a full swing. If I’m only 90 yards out I’m going to go a little easier on the swing. If I need to quickly get over a tree I’m going to play the ball towards the back of my stance. I vary my social media content in the same way, dependent upon the shot or response I’m looking to craft.

You really have a tremendous number of opportunities to craft content. Some of your options include Tweets, Wall Posts, Notes, Events, News Articles, Discussion Posts, Blog Posts, Video, Podcasts, Photos, Press Releases, Apps, and more. In golf the swing is the most important piece and in social media its understanding your communication options and crafting content that allows you to share value.

Ratings and Attendance
Professional athletes earn a lot of money for the skills they have mastered because fans buy tickets or the products they endorse. Look at the attendance differences at PGA events over the last 10 years when Tiger woods entered a tournament verses when he didn’t play in an event. There was a definite difference in perceived value.

In social media people will engage with you or your brand if they perceive value. Your job is to understand the value that your prospects are looking for. It could be white papers, applications, tools, or information presented in articles or blog posts. It also might be discounts, coupons, or special offers to those who follow, friend, or connect with you.

Fail to understand and deliver the value your social networks are looking for and you’ll spend a lot of time with little to show in return.

Be the Ball
If you want to use social media successfully then you need to have a plan. Too often companies simply start tweeting or connecting without a defined purpose. Its easy to be a hacker; being a professional takes a lot more time and effort.

Social media can make a difference or it can be a huge waste of time. Its how you use the tool that will determine if you break par.

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