Leveraging LinkedIn: Free tips to prospect and engage

January 25, 2012 Leave a Comment
Leveraging linked in newport county chamber of commerce talk by suzanne mcdonald

 

Leveraging LinkedIn presented to the Newport County Chamber of Commerce

This presentation was coupled with live demos and lots of Q&A from the packed room at the Newport County Chamber of Commerce. LinkedIn demo included:

How to optimize your profile

  • Make sure your photo shows you professionally and recognizably
  • Be sure it’s recent

Use plug-ins to enhance your profile

  • TripIt
  • SlideShare
  • Blog Link
  • Reading List

Engage via Groups

  • Share articles of interest
  • Connect to people in your Groups who you find interesting
  • If you’d like to connect with someone you don’t know, try engaging via Groups

Other LinkedIn tools

  • Posting and encouraging attendance with Events
  • Showcasing your expertise and adding value with LinkedIn Answers
  • Prospecting by looking up and following companies and following individuals

With only a free account, you can leverage LinkedIn to gain clients. This has worked for Designated Editor using Answers and Groups. And we harnessed Events to help promote Newport Interactive Marketers gatherings.

LinkedIn posting tips

Post at least once per week.

One way to stay active on LinkedIn is to post articles you’ve read and commented on to LinkedIn (can also select to share with Twitter) and share with Groups and Individuals. Please note: LinkedIn is not like Twitter, and people are more likely to become over-saturated with your posts if you’re contributing multiple times per day.

Thanks to the Newport County Chamber of Commerce for hosting and don’t miss a Facebook Seminar at the Chamber on Feb. 9, 2012.

Filed Under: Designated Editor's perspective, LinkedIn Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

New media tips to land your first customer presented by Suzanne McDonald

January 19, 2012 Leave a Comment

Landing your first customer with new media presented by suzanne mc donald, designated editor

How to use new media to land your first customer, a Designated Editor presentation at Boston ENET: The IEEE Entrepreneurs’ Network

Landing your  first few customers, as Boston ENET: The IEEE Entrepreneurs’ Network, accurately articulates “is often one of the biggest hurdles startups face.”

Check out the slides for insights on how to “leverage digital media and traditional marketing techniques to land those first customers–without breaking the bank. Suzanne will explore customer acquisition with an emphasis on using the marketing tools of the 21st century.”

Boston ENET events gather many previously successful entrepreneurs who are venturing on new projects, as well as some freshly minted entrepreneurs. A highly engaged crowd with fantastic questions, and a fantastic venue at SwissNex Boston, along with gracious hosts: the SwissNex Boston team and Christina Inge of Boston ENET. Don’t miss future ENET events.

Christina Inge

Christina Inge

Tweet highlight from Christina Inge of Boston ENET

“The hard part when you’re beginning is you’re in an echo chamber-talking, but not yet hearing from customer #enet”

Let’s continue the conversation

  • What did I miss?
    How did you get your first customer?
Filed Under: Boston, Designated Editor's perspective Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Mobile-Friendly Makes Your Business Customer-Friendly

January 11, 2012 Leave a Comment

Your audience wants to be engaged and informed.  Establishing and maintaining brand loyalty means connecting your audience to social networks, mail subscriptions and mobile devices. This allows the consumer to receive fast, accurate content through multiple channels, making your business’ customers more accessible. With an audience on-the-go, your company needs a plan to become more mobile-friendly.

Newport Interactive Marketers (sponsored by Designated Editor) is starting 2012 off with all things mobile.  Join NIM as Annette Tonti CEO, MoFuse uncovers the best mobile web practices for advertisers and publishers. Strengthen your multi-channel approach by building effective mobile web content that is convenient and easy to use. “Make Your Website Mobile-Friendly” is an event that is open to the public and begins at 6:00pm on Thursday, January 26 2012 at 41North (351 Thames Street, Newport RI 02840).

You will learn

  • Mobile is Local: What does that mean for marketers?
  • How are people using the mobile web and how will that change in 2012?
  • Mobile Web or App, what is the difference?
  • How do you build effective mobile web content?
  • Every marketer needs to include mobile as part of their multi-channel approach.  Which are the best practices?
  • Why and how has mobile web quickly emerged as the most important landscape for mid-tier and local businesses?

No matter what industry your company is in, there are opportunities for growth on mobile devices. Featured speaker Annette Tonti knows this all too well, as MoFuse defends its reputation for powering mobile sites for customers as different as the State Department and Harper Collins.  They also power mobile sites for thousands of local businesses and marketers who use mobile to build mobile ad campaigns.  From Pandora to Ghirardelli chocolate, both large and small brands are engaging audiences in this new, effective way.

How will your mobile-friendly company engage its audience?

With so many new devices and applications hitting the streets at record speeds, it’s easy for your company to put some of these new devices to marketing use.

  • Build incentive programs (i.e. coupons, contests, etc.)
  • Enable financial services such as PayPal for streamlined billing processes
  • Run surveys – feedback directly from the customer makes them feel engaged and appreciated
  • Promote customer service – build a two-way conversation
  • …and much, much more!

Connect with Annette Tonti via Twitter and LinkedIn before the event, and check out MoFuse, too!

For event details, visit http://bit.ly/NIMmobile2012

Filed Under: Mobile, Newport Interactive Marketers Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Book review: ‘Social Media Playbook for Business’

January 5, 2012 Leave a Comment

Tom Funk’s Social Media Playbook for Business

Tom Funk’s “Social Media Playbook for Business: Reaching Your Online Community with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and More” covers various aspects of social media, from strategy to platforms, plus “next level,” successes, fails, and the future of social media.

Funk’s Strategy chapter covers everything from:

  • Listening
  • Ownership
  • Legal
  • Establishing mission
  • Publishing a plan
  • Goals
  • Tracking
  • ROI
  • Is my company right for Social Media?

Managers who are not directly involved with day-to-day social media may find Funk’s explanations most helpful. He covers:

  • Social media platforms
  • Competitive analysis
  • Monitoring blogs and social platforms

Unfortunately Funk is not as in-depth as some other books I’ve reviewed when discussing what to expect when hiring consultants.

Funk does discuss the importance of writing a social media business plan, however. He explains formulating a social media plan like a business plan, translating how social media can benefit businesses in a language more oriented to MBAs than marketing/communications specialists.

A social media business plan, like a business plan would include:

  • Competitive analysis
  • Operations plan
  • Goals
  • Objectives
  • ROI

Funk does a great job in explaining earned vs paid media. Also, the Future chapter digs into:

  • Social shopping
  • Neuro-linguistic programming
  • How social media is likely to integrate with our everyday expectations
  • How social becomes the new “normal”

Published February 2011, Tom Funk’s Social Media Playbook for Business will assist business owners and managers with creating a social media plan for businesses to evolve and leverage Social Media. The Social Media Playbook is available on Amazon.com and or other booksellers.

The Social Media Playbook for Business: Reaching Your Online Community with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and More

By: Tom Funk
Published: Feb. 2, 2011
Best for: Larger businesses, higher-level managers who may not be handling day-to-day social media firsthand.

Filed Under: Designated Editor's perspective, Social Media, Social Media Book Reviews Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Interns aka digital natives at the Social Media Social

December 22, 2011 Leave a Comment

 

Interns aka digital natives meet pros at the Social Media Social

By Jaclyn Liva
University of Rhode Island

Social Media is being used in almost everyone’s lives constantly throughout the day. The URI Student-led Public Relations Society recently hosted the first-ever Social Media Social. Several students that belong to the University’s Harrington School of Communication were in attendance, along with many Newport Interactive Marketers members and small businesses looking for interns.

University of Rhode Island Social Media professor Suzanne McDonald, founder of NIM, kicked off the event with an informative speech on how the need for digital natives is increasing. It was a great because the students there are all familiar in social media, aka digital natives. Her presentation is available on SlideShare and focuses on “Crossing the Digital Divide” between digital natives (student-interns) and busy professionals.

The Social was an opportunity for students to socialize with business owners and other professionals who are seeking help with social media for their businesses. Suzanne also talked about how important a LinkedIn profile is to have.

Shawn Simmons, Director Public Relations at StyleWeek Providence, @StyleWeekPR was also a keynote speaker at the social. He discussed the importance of branding yourself and offered tips on how to discover your brand. Shawn advised everyone to keep in mind that what other people say about your brand is much more important than what you design your brand to be.

During the event, there was a live Twitter stream onstage. People were tweeting and retweeting questions for the social media experts panel. And #URI_PRS was trending. One student tweeted: “How important are recommendations from co-workers and bosses on LinkedIn?”  The question was answered almost instantly by one of the panelists: crucially important.

It was nice to see even the keynote speakers tweet from the audience. It made the atmosphere of the Social feel much more open.

The Social Media Social panel featured

These pros deftly handled numerous questions and stressed the fact that everything that is put on the Internet will forever live in cyberspace.

The Social Media Social came to an end with a networking session. This gave everyone in attendance the opportunity to meet, mingle, and explore internship opportunities over free ice cream!

Filed Under: Newport Interactive Marketers, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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