Social Media is everywhere. They talk about it on the news and radio, there are articles in newspapers and magazines, and searching “Social Media” on Google returns 194 million results.

If you want to learn more about it there are hundreds of thousands of blogs, podcasts, and videos available to review. There is no excuse why you cannot figure out how to put social media to work for you. Well maybe one excuse.

That excuse is the missing ingredient in most people’s social media strategy and its “Time”. You can’t learn time and its a limited resource. You either have it or you don’t. Or you need to find or create it.

You really have three choices if you want to get serious about making social media a part of your marketing efforts.

• You can learn it from scratch by simply diving in and figuring things out.
• You can tap into the knowledge of others through classes, books, workshops, blogs, audio, and podcasts.
• You can outsource your efforts.

Regardless of which you choose you will still have to invest some time, but In the end its more a matter of time and money. (more…)

I’ve talked about the tools we use with our clients in the past, segmenting them as social networking tools (sharing conversations) or social media (sharing content). The reality is that on social networks you can share content and with the social media tools you can have conversations. The one that splits the difference is Twitter. Its the one that many business people don’t get.

LinkedIn is easy. Its a business professional social network that in simple terms is online networking. Facebook is more of a social interaction tool but with over 350 million people there are consumers and business people on it. And its easy to interact.

Twitter though is just noise right? The misconception is that its a bunch of people tweeting about their latest coffee conquest. The reality is… that happens, and a lot of people are ready to tell you the latest money making scheme. But there is also a lot of great information being shared by individuals and companies. And its a valid business tool.

Here are some thoughts on the business use of Twitter. (more…)

Back in 1998 I started building my first website for an Insurance company. The CEO had heard that in one of my graduate school classes I had had to submit a class project using html. He decided that I was just the person he was looking for to build the companies first website.

It was true that I had used html in that project, but all I really did was sit next to a project member while he copied snippets of code from a book to create our first web page. At the time I started creating the companies website it was cool and cutting edge to have a website but it wasn’t necessarily viewed as a business requirement. That would change over the next year.

In 2010 I think we’re at a similar point. Social Media/Networking is still viewed by some as not a business requirement but I expect that will change over the next year. Some will do so because they get it, others because they fear getting left behind. Even if they’re not sure what it is they might be left behind by.

To start off the new year I’m going to discuss what I call the 4 C’s of social media. These are the four concepts we focus on with our clients. (more…)

Since September I have been working on a 10 part series asking the question “Can LinkedIn Work for You?” The better questions should be “Can Social Media Work for You?”

In both cases the answer is yes. If you’re willing to put the time and effort required to make it successful. What I’ve often found is that many people start experimenting with the various tools but then abandon their efforts when they don’t immediately see results.

Here are the previous 9 articles:

Can LinkedIn Work for You? (part 1 of 10)

Why Are You On LinkedIn? (Part 2 of 10)

Enhance Your Networking with LinkedIn (part 3 of 10)

Expand Your LinkedIn Reach (part 4 of 10)

Building Credibility on LinkedIn (part 5 of 10)

New Opportunities-New Hires on LinkedIn (part 6 of 10)

Prospecting with LinkedIn (part 7 of 10)

5 Ways to Communicate Your Message on LinkedIn (Part 8 of 10)

Growing Your Business with LinkedIn (part 9 of 10)

Within these posts is much of the information you need to make LinkedIn work for you. Many of the same concepts apply to the other social media tools. What’s missing is how you personally can take this information and make it work specifically for you and what it is that you do. (more…)

Over the last two years I’ve written often about the tips and strategies to more effectively utilize LinkedIn. It’s just as important to consider the mistakes that people make on LinkedIn that will affect their success. Many of these mistakes are often errors of omission. Today I’m going to discuss seven mistakes and then I’m going to show you how you can correct them.

Let’s get started.

1. Bad Photo Choice

One of the first things most people do when they visit a profile is look at the photo. Its natural to want to see the person behind the profile. People connect to people and a photo helps improve your visitors perception.

One of the worst mistakes is to not include a photo. What does it say about you as a business professional if you don’t understand the importance of the profile photo?

Another mistake I see is that someone decides to include the family in their photo. That’s fine on Facebook but on a professionally based network it misses the point. Add to this photos with effects or simply unclear. If someone can’t see your face or recognize you there is a problem. (more…)

LinkedIn is a fairly harmonious place. People tend to act professional and when there are opposing opinions they typically become a case where people “agree to disagree”. Things change though when you began discussing LIONS. Suddenly the conversation isn’t so rosy.

LION’s, for those who don’t know are open networkers. They connect to just about anyone. They see opportunity increasing as the number of connections increases. Those who disagree see LIONS as simply driving their ego’s by counting the connections, as if the purpose of LinkedIn is to proudly claim to have 1,000’s of connections.

For the record I don’t consider myself a LION, yet I’m an open networker. When writing my first LinkedIn book I identified three LinkedIn connection strategies. This year I added a fourth to define how I now connect.

How you choose to connect will impact how you use LinkedIn and in the end your chances of finding success.

Before we look at the four connection strategies I want to make one point. How you choose to connect on LinkedIn should be of no concern to anyone else. It’s your network and your strategy. As long as it works for you thats all that matters.

The Four LinkedIn Connection Strategies: (more…)

When I first joined LinkedIn my thought was that this would be a good place to network and connect to other business professionals.  What I’ve learned since is that LinkedIn is a great place to communicate your message to millions of business professionals.  Most often through indirect methods.

Most people think in term of communicating directly, but that’s a traditional perspective.  Social networking/media has its own rules in regards to sales related activites and most often using a direct sales pitch will fail and potentially cause damage to your brand.

There are a few ways to communicate directly on LinkedIn.  The most obvious is to send a direct message to your first degree connections.  Personally when I receive a direct sales message I immediately archive it.  Most often it’s from someone I’m connected to but do not personally know.  If I receive several I simply remove the connection.

If you want to sell to me you have to first introduce yourself and then start a conversation.  It all starts with the three requirements necessary for someone to choose to do business with you.  First they have to know you, second they need to like you, and finally they need to trust you.

Connecting or interacting within LinkedIn groups can accomplish the “getting to know you” requirement.  Moving to like and trust requires time and interaction.  You’re going to have to share value over time for this to occur.

Here are some of the ways that I communicate my message to tens of thousands of LinkedIn members each week. (more…)

Last week I discussed New Opportunities, New Hires with LinkedIn that discussed using LinkedIn to advance your career and for companies to find new employees.  Todays conversation addresses using LinkedIn to prospect.

Most people use LinkedIn to connect to other business professionals that they know or meet while networking.  It definitely can help put an additional degree of connectivity to these folks.  But limiting your use to simply networking leaves a significant opportunity out of your monetization toolbox.

The tool that most people fail to take advantage of is the ability to prospect for potential opportunities.  Let me be clear, prospecting is not sending sales messages to your direct connections.  It’s not posting sales messages in groups.  It’s simply identifying potential people or companies that could eventually become clients.

LinkedIn, like other social networking sites, are not great places to overtly sell your products and services.  Can doing this work? Sure, but you’re more likely to turn people off than to turn them on.  A better approach is to connect and engage in conversations so that people first get a chance to know and like you.  Then you can begin converting the “like” into trust.

I recently received a message form someone stating that they had looked at my profile and read my blog.  In the message they simply asked if they could follow up with a question.  I said sure and then next communication was an offer for me to use their services.

Bad strategy.  I’ll talk about how they could have approached things later.

The two ways you can prospect on LinkedIn are People and for Companies. (more…)

I’ve talked about some big things you can do in the past to more effectively utilize LinkedIn. Today we discuss 5 little things you can do that can make a difference.

1.  Making URL’s Hyperlinked

When people respond to questions in answers or posts in a group discussion board they often include a URL.  Many of these are done wrong so that if someone wants to visit the link they have to copy it and post it in the browser address bar.  These URLs usually look like www.linkedintuition.com.  If you want it to be hyperlinked simply add the http:// so that the format is http://www.linkedintuition.com.

Get this right and your click thru rates will increase.

2.  Properly Size Photo’s

LinkedIn photo’s are 80 x 80 in size.  Before posting your picture make sure it is a square picture so that when it is resized by LinkedIn it retains the proper proportion.  Add a rectangle picture and you’ll look like someone is squeezing your head.

Use a graphics editor to crop your picture to a square and resize to 80×80 or 160×60, etc.  It doesn’t matter as long as its square.

3.  Change Your Group digests to Weekly (instead of daily)

Let’s say you took my advice in previous posts to join 50 groups.  When you join a group you can tell the group how often you are open to receiving activity alerts.  The default setting is daily.  During the week you’ll get 250 digest alerts…one from each group each day.  Change it to weekly and it will be more manageable.  If you have groups that you don’t want a digest from you can choose to not receive updates.

You can also choose to not receive group announcements which the manager can send once every seven days.  I would recommend allowing the periodic announcements.

Reclaim your message Inbox.

4.  Send a Personal Message When Connecting

When you accept an invitation request it takes you to a subsequent page that allows you to type a message.  This is a great opportunity to thank the person for the connection invitation and to communicate a message.  It won’t make a difference in every case but it can have an impact.  I customize each so that my response is relevant.

Does it help?  Not with everyone but it certainly doesn’t do any harm.  Stand out by taking the 20 seconds it takes to send a follow up message.

5.  When You Ask a Question Choose a “Best Answer” or Multiple “Good Answers”

This is a common courtesy.  You’ve asked a question and others have taken their time to answer it.  You should make it a habit to read all answers provided and provide feedback on the quality.  Often a single answer will stand out in which case you designate the answer as the “Best Answer” provided.  Sometime one answer will not stand out but several will provide value.  Simply choose several as “Good Answers”.

Return the favor by answering other’s questions and by recognizing answers to your question that provided value.

Wrap Up

Compared to some of the tricks and tips in some recent posts these seem relatively modest.  They are important and can make a difference.  They’re all simple and require little extra effort to do.  These and others are included in the LinkedIn MBA available for $4.97 at http://www.linkedintuition.com/book.html.

What are some other simple things you can do that make a difference?

SONARconnects is a full service advertising and marketing agency.  We help our clients by showing them how to develop strategies and tactics to build communities of people, communicate their message, and monetize their social networking/media presence.  Our clients include Lenny’s Sub Shop, Copeland’s New Orleans Style Restaurant (ATL), Action Business Coaching (ATL), Aussie Pet Mobile (ATL), The Frederick Group, and MyCustomDay.

If you’re struggling to understand how to use social networking/media to build brand awareness and drive new business call us for a Free consultation at (404) 663-3997 or visit our site:  http://www.sonarconnects.com.

There are some happenings that many LinkedIn members should be aware of.  It appears that after years of allowing violations of it’s “user agreement” LinkedIn is starting to take action.

Over the last couple of weeks I have seen cases where members have had their accounts suspended for violations that had been previously overlooked.  Just yesterday I spoke with someone who had a client whose account was suspended for including their email after their name.  There was no warning just an email from LinkedIn advising them that their account had been suspended and to contact customer service to discuss.

Personally I don’t see where this impacts anyone else or infringes upon their use of the site so I don’t agree with LinkedIn’s action.  From a business perspective, though, LinkedIn built the network and has the right to dictate the terms.

LinkedIn is in business to earn profits and one of the ways that they do so is by selling premium accounts which provide members the ability to contact a number of people not in their network directly through the use of InMails.  They also sell these for $10 a pop.  Providing an email allows some people to avoid using InMails to grow their network.

LinkedIn also states that members should only connect to those they know.  Another point where I disagree.  When I go to a chamber networking event they don’t tell me to only talk to people I know.  I’m there to meet people I don’t know.  My perspective is that LinkedIn is simply an electronic version of the chamber, so a large part of the value is connecting to others I don’t know.  This allows me to expand my network and develop opportunities that were previously out of reach.

There are several notices in the list of Dont’s in the user agreement that are relevant to today’s discussion:

1.  Include information in your profile or in Status Updates which reveals your identity such as an email address, phone number or address or is confidential in nature;

2.  Invite people with whom you have no prior relationship to join your network;

3.  Upload a cartoon, symbol, drawing or any content other than a photograph of yourself in your profile photo;

If you look at enough profiles you will see profiles that include an email address along with the person’s name.  Traditionally this was done by LION’s to facilitate connecting with others.  You can argue the merits of open verses closed networking, but for Open networkers this has been a great help to building their networks.

I have only stumbled on the phone number a couple of times and have not seen anyone listing their address.  If you currently have your email included in your name field you may want to rethink that choice.

The second point, as noted above, is one I disagree with.  When I changed my networking strategy from a Hound Dog to more of a LION (not an official LION but more open in who I connect to) I noticed that the number of my unexpected opportunities increased. (expected and unexpected opportunities are discussed in my post -Ed Jones Had Me at Hello)

I think at some point the majority of people have connected to at least one person they did not know.

The third point I actually agree with LinkedIn.  As a business networking site that focuses on people connecting to people anything other than a personal head shot or photo doesn’t make sense.  The proper thing to do is to create a companies page if you want to promote your company.  If you want to promote a product or service use your profile to include keywords and applications to highlight either.

You’ll notice more people willing to connect and interact if they know who you are.  When I see a profile that is a business name or a product all it says to me is this is a person that doesn’t understand social networking.  This person isn’t interested in developing relationships but simply participating to sell a product.

I’m up front stating that I am on LinkedIn to grow my business and make money.  But I also understand that the first step to doing so is providing value to others with no expectations.  Over time this apporach will allow others to get to know you, start to like you, and eventually trust you.

The end result is that what has previously been allowed may now result in your account being suspended.  The points above have always been violations of LinkedIn’s “user agreement” only now action is actually being taken.

**To read previous posts (18 months worth) go to the main blog page at http://www.socialmediasonar.com.