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.

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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.

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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!

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Check out the DE guest post on Search Engine People

April 27, 2011 Leave a Comment

We’re learning a lot covering all these conferences! In addition to sharing highlights with you here, Suzanne digests it all into guest posts, which are an effective technique for increasing your reach.

In this case, Suzanne left a comment on a post at Search Engine People and was invited to write a guest post. According to Search Engine People’s site, the firm is Canada’s largest and most trusted Internet marketing company: “Our team of over 40 seasoned experts is the trusted choice for over 300 clients worldwide, including many of Canada’s top brands.”

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Newport Interactive Marketers video review Social Networking for Business book

March 3, 2011 2 Comments

Newport Interactive Marketers (Twitter #NIM) brings together 70 +/- marketers, creatives, developers, business owners, and anyone interested in new media and interactive marketing. We gather monthly for networking and presentations, and we’ve just launched Newport Interactive Marketers’ Fab Finds & Great Reads series.

Newport Interactive Marketers’ Fab Social Media Finds and Great Marketing Reads series: Rawn Shah’s book “Social Networking for Business” with

“Social Networking for Business: Choosing the Right Tools and Resources to Fit Your Needs”

by Rawn Shah, Jan 2010, Wharton School Publishing

NIM members’ interest in reading “Social Networking for Business?”

Interplay and reinforcement of communities both online and offline. How can each help build a stronger community overall, thinking of Newport Interactive Marketers in particular.

Overview

More of a scientific approach to social networks, not for the casual Facebook user. In fact, Shah makes an important distinction between social media and social networks, which is more along the lines of community:

  • Not much social about the book, other than examples: Fiskateers and Wikipedia.
  • Not much to spark creativity, more on structure.

Who should read “Social Networking for Business?”

Brands and managers considering designing a community.

What can readers expect? Social network models

  • Chart of social government models (p. 30-31)
  • Centralized, Delegated, Representative, Starfish, Swarm
  • But there’s no strong recommendation for which model works best.

Defined goals and tactics to help nurture your social network, such as

  • Which metrics to use
  • Understanding motivators such as badges (p. 92-93)
  • Interpreting the style & possible meaning behind it
  • Contributions
  • Leadership models, such as community managers, key players
  • Community manager qualifications and actual tasks: such as identifying special interest niches

Most enlightening parts of “Social Networking for Business?”

  • The importance of sense of belonging
  • Whether the group’s vision is understood and whether members are aligned  with group values (p. 101)
  • Identifying commitment levels and gauging where folks are at (p. 116)

Social networking traps to avoid

  • Constant marketing or not encouraging a diversity of opinions (p. 116)
  • Warnings about the level of effort and planning required from dedicated leadership to “oversee the growth of the social group and environment.” (p. 118)
  • Community manager attributes & activities chart is excellent for generating ideas (p. 130)

How can you best benefit from “Social Networking for Business” — or not?

Reading this book and determining whether you have the determination and resources to launch a social community is a whole lot easier than launching one  with real clue of what you’re doing, pouring your heart and energy into it, only to fail. If you’re considering launching a social community, better to research & fail fast.

Thanks to

Be sure to check out the Newport Art Museum’s 4th Fridays: Kick off the weekend at the museum, fantastic bands, art, beverages, and lots of friendly NIM folks to meet.

Let us know what you think of the #NIM Fab Finds & Great Reads series and follow Priscilla & Suzanne & New England Multimedia on Twitter. For more information on Newport Interactive Marketers, check out our website.

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