Posts Tagged ‘linkedin’

You’ve heard about the 90/10 rule, right (or the 80/20 rule or the 96/4 rule or one of its many incarnations)?  In Jack Humphrey’s excellent blog post on Twitter networking, he lays out the 90/10 rule so:

90% of what you share on Twitter should be made up of personal insights and thoughts along with a heavy dose of helpful links, while 10% should be made up of messages that more directly benefit you.

By keeping your “buy from/benefit/look at me” Tweets to 10% or less of your total content, you don’t lower your skeeze factor…you create a great opportunity to use your social networks to promote others.  and isn’t community what it’s all about?  Here are 10 easy ways to share the social media love:

Join the conversation:  Social media is no fun when it’s one-sided.  So get active and start conversing with your community!  Just engaging in conversation is a great way to attract attention to the worthy causes and businesses of others.

Retweet:  RTs are a great way to point your network to people you know and love.  So find relevant tweets, and pass them on!

Attribute:  Nobody likes to pass on an insight or link, only to be disregarded when it comes to attribution.  So take the time to link to the blog, Facebook page, or Twitter handle of the person or company you’re citing.

Interview:  Ask your favorite colleagues and connections for a quick interview on your blog, website, or newsletter…and remember to include their contact information.

Guest spot:  Better yet, invite contacts you love to guest blog, sharing their insights and expertise in their own words.  They just might ask you to return the favor (and at the very least will drive traffic and goodwill your way).

Follow Friday:  The #ff tag is de rigueur on Twitter these days, and for good reason:  you can generate tons of goodwill by taking just a few seconds to identify follow-worthy friends to your Twitter tribe.

Recommend:  Take a few moments to give a concise, eloquent LinkedIn recommendation or Yelp review to colleagues and service providers who have impressed you.

Star and save:  Like someone’s blog post?  Take a second and star it on Google Reader or save to your de.licio.us account.  Your recommendation will doubtless drive a bit of traffic their way.

Share plans:  Do you plan to attend a colleague’s new networking meeting or seminar?  Publicize your plans to attend and share links where applicable.  There’s nothing like showing up to an event your friends and connections have helped make successful.

Follow through:  It can be tempting to treat backscratching and cross-promotion as a short-term gig.  But remember…consistency is the enemy of mediocrity.  Follow through on your commitments and consistently promote others.  You’ll get a great feeling in addition to those elusive brownie points.

I frequent many Yahoo! groups and bulletin boards frequented by writers and small business owners.  Lately, among the laments about the demise of newspapers and the perils of a shaky economy, I’ve been hearing an interesting war cry:  “Social media is a huge waste of time!!! It will distract you!!! Don’t listen to its siren song…it will destroy your marketing, your career…everything you’ve worked so hard to establish!”

I personally think that you can’t afford not to participate in some form of social media, especially in a world that’s ever more populated by Net-savvy, time-crunched people.  However, it’s a tool like anything else in your marketing arsenal…only worthwhile if you use it wisely.  Here are three ways to know when to rein in your social media use in favor of more traditional marketing means:

You are unable to manage your time.  Some people are able to resist the call of a blinking Tweetdeck and a buzzing iPhone.  Others, sadly, are not.  If you’re unable to manage the amount of time you spend using social media, consider limiting it to a certain amount of time per day (timed, with a timer) and pledging to spend an equal amount of time on the marketing messages you used before you converted to Twitter or Facebook.  Yes, this may involve picking up (gasp!) the phone.

You are undercutting your existing marketing.  If your many profiles are not customized and integrated in with your existing brand, you’re wasting your time.  Sure, you may be able to better interface with long-lost-childhood-friend X, but you’re spinning your wheels in terms of your marketing.  Don’t have time to brand your social media or give thought into how it might integrate with your existing marketing strategy?  Then don’t do it.

You are uninterested or undercommitted to the marketing you did before adopting SM.  Yes, social media is slick, instantaneous, pretty, and even inexpensive.  But if your social media activities have replaced the marketing you did before you logged on, be honest with yourself.  Have they really yielded the return on investment they should?  Have you abandoned sucky marketing in favor of micro-efforts that won’t ever pay off? If the answer is yes, it’s time to reassess.  Social media should be part of a marketing plan…not the entire plan.

Simply put, social media without strategy might just be a waste of time.  Interested in figuring out how to use it to your advantage without losing your mind?  We’re giving a seminar in Denver on April 20 that will help you with jus that.  Click here for more information on Social Media for Mere Mortals.

Photo courtesy of bogenfreund

Um, how’d it get to be the end of February already?

Here’s a quick roundup of what’s what in the world of marketing, media, and brand strategy:

• Death to buzzwords.  Finally!  Someone else is taking up the anti-buzzword buzzkill.
• Crocs CEO resigns, is replaced.  Not news to many who have been following the ups and downs of this early-stage success story.  My prediction:  Crocs will get worse — way worse — before it gets better.  It’s dealing with oversaturation, intense competition and knockoffs, and some sad brand stigma.
• LinkedIn is not Twitter. I repeat, LinkedIn is not Twitter.  [Via Deb Kolaras]
• Wait, what?  Pepsi is starting throwback branding in addition to its lame new branding?  Color me confused.

Boasting an undeniable wow factor and an awesome community, Boulder is a great place to do business.  Doing business just got a little better with the Boulder New Media Breakfast series generously hosted by Metzger Associates, one of the area’s premier PR firms.

Today’s inaugural breakfast featured LinkedIn impresario and the tremendously successful CEO of Integrated Alliances, Mike O’Neil.  Here’s a quick rundown of his top tips for making the most of LinkedIn:

The demographics. LinkedIn is “MySpace for grownups” and is one of the most powerful social media hubs on the Web.  The average user earns more than $100k annually and is 41 years of age.  36% of all LinkedIn users are decision-makers in their business.

The to-do list.  Anyone wanting to make the most of LinkedIn should start by fleshing out their profile to be a fabulous marketing document, then move on to increasing their network (bigger = better), utilizing searches to their benefit, communicating through messages and introductions, and leveraging LinkedIn for sales.

The numbers.  Mike recommends a profile with upward of 500 connections (he has a whopping 19,000!).  Why is bigger better?  Because you can generate more prospects, more inbound calls, more respect, and more social capital.  Smaller networks work better for execs.  Mike recommends that users join 20-30 groups and connect with the super-connected (known as “lions” or “toplinkers”).

The predictions.  Mike’s looking forward to the aggregation of today’s panoply of new media tools in a new browser or website form…in the meantime, he thinks Microsoft, IBM, or another big player will acquire LinkedIn soon.

The takeaway:  Build your social network while you’re employed.  It might seem like a big investment of time, but it pays to get it while the getting is good.