LinkedIn Smart Networking

LinkedIn for Lead Generation and Relationship Building

LinkedIn can be a tremendous driver of website traffic and leads, especially for companies who sell products and services to other businesses. In fact, a 2012 study by HubSpot showed that LinkedIn generates 277% more leads than Twitter or Facebook!  As with all social networking for business, the key is to subtly promote your business without using LinkedIn as an advertising platform. This post focuses on using your personal profile to build connections. Your business LinkedIn page is limited to posting updates and products.

Complete and Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile

This could be an entire post of its own, but we’ll cover the basics here. Try not to leave any section, or any field in a section blank. Make sure your profile image is uploaded (no one wants to do business with a faceless avatar) and professional. Though that photo of you on the boat with your son is fine for your Facebook profile, it doesn’t belong here. This is a place for your professional head shot – close …

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How to Change Your LinkedIn Profile URL

LinkedIn – How to Change Your Public Profile URL

When you first create your LinkedIn profile, you are assigned a profile URL that will be a combination of your first and last names, and a string of numbers. You may want to put this on your business card – but not in its current form! Instead, choose a URL that reflects who you are and what you do – incorporating keywords if possible.  If you believe people may search for you by name, use your full name, perhaps in conjunction with a short keyword.

It’s best to set your URL when you first create your profile, as people may bookmark your URL and search engines may index it. When you change it, your old URL does NOT forward to your new profile URL. Still, if you haven’t been very active, or your existing URL is not usable (johnsmith23419234, for example), you may wish to change it.

How To Change Your LinkedIn Public Profile URL

From you home page, hover over the Profile box and select “Edit Profile. Find your public profile URL under your photo and click “Edit” to …

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No Trolls Allowed - how to ban a Facebook user

Facebook Pages – How to Ban a User

Facebook fans are great – except when they’re not! Normally, we get a little thrill when we see the “new fan” notification on our pages. We might even give them a “welcome” post or check out their timeline.  What happens, though, when the occasional fan goes rogue?

Just a Friendly Discussion, or Something More? Identifying Trolls

Trolls online? Yep. Wikipedia defines them as, “someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as a forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.”

Not everyone who disagrees with you is a troll. If you post something controversial, you should be prepared for some passionate responses. Since you really did ask for it, respond politely, even if you don’t agree.

If someone posts a complaint or customer service request to your page, go ahead and respond in a professional way. If the customer is truly unhappy, it’s often best to apologize and give them a way to contact you privately so you can resolve the issue. You could …

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Is-Quality-King-Social-Media-Marketing

Social Media Content – Why Quality Matters

Some say “content is king” when marketing your business. We say QUALITY content is king. Whether you’re blogging, updating a status, or tweeting for your business – what you share matters. So often when people don’t get the engagement they want from social media marketing, the problem lies with their quality of their content.

Just like most things in life, much of your social media marketing ROI is dependent on what you put into it. In this case, we mean the quality and consistency of the content used in particular. Here are a few areas every business owner should evaluate from time to time to keep quality in their content.

Tips to Evaluate Your Social Content

Is Your Content Consistent? This is a big one. Higher engagement results when fans can depend on your content. You should post to social media platforms at least once a day. In fact, many companies find improved benefit in posting multiple times a day. This will help establish your company’s presence and credibility. Insider Time-Saver Tip: Use Buffer or

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Is your LinkedIn Company Page a Ghost Town?

How to Grow Your LinkedIn Company Page Following

LinkedIn is the highest lead-producing platform in all social media for many businesses (especially B2B companies), yet the bulk of the activity seems to happen between people – not on company pages, and that makes sense.  But, what if you are involved in multiple businesses, or, what if you are responsible for maintaining the LinkedIn company page of a business you don’t plan to work for for the next forty years?  Being the conscientious employee you are, you don’t want to leave the ir LinkedIn presence desolate when you move on.

So, how can you get a little more action on your LinkedIn company profile?

Optimize your LinkedIn Company Profile

Seems like a no-brainer, but it’s worth double-checking to make sure you have a compelling cover and profile photo, all the details are filled in and current on your page, and your services section is filled out.

Share Relevant Content

People use LinkedIn for professional networking, so tailor your updates accordingly. Unless your business is about cats, sharing a popular Facebook cat meme on LinkedIn might not go over well. Focus …

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SEO text in front of gears. SEO Boost - Pinterest

Pinterest – Your Next Best SEO Boost

It’s no secret that we love Pinterest. We launched our first Pinterest management marketing plan at the beginning of this year and haven’t looked back. We’re happy to report that our clients are reaping the benefits with increased website traffic.

What’s not to love? Pinterest is one of the fastest-growing and most popular social networking sites on the web. It allows you to market your brand, drive sales of your products, increase traffic to your website and even boost your SEO. You might be thinking “Really, Pinterest can affect SEO?” Yes. There are huge gains to be made by utilizing the Pinterest platform as a means to increase your SEO. Here’s a few of our favorites.

#1: Shared Content Increases SEO

Pinterest is a marketer’s dream for the ease with which it allows users to share content. Savvy marketers  know the power of shared content and its impact on SEO. Whether you’re posting products, blog posts, or behind the scenes images of the office, Pinterest allows you to reach a wide …

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Hangouts Using Lower Thirds on Business Pages

Using Lower Thirds for Google+ Hangouts on Your Business Page

I recently wrote an article for the Social Solutions Collective about using Lower Thirds on Google Plus Hangouts. It’s great for personal branding and makes you look like a news anchor!

You can use them for Hangouts you partake in as your business pages, as well, but it requires some extra steps. It comes down to creating a username for your page itself, giving the Hangout Toolbox permission to operate on your page, and understanding where lower third presets are stored. It’s not difficult (just a little tedious) if you follow my simple step-by-step, below.

Enable Lower-Thirds for Your Business Page’s Google Plus Account

You must be the owner of the page (as opposed to being a manager) to do this. You’ll only have to go through this once, and then any page manager will be able to use lower thirds and create their own presets.

Go to page settings. Scroll down to find the “Third-Party Tools” section. You’ll see a long, random username. Click on Set up a password. Enter your existing Google Plus account password when …

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masksfeatured

Should I Outsource My LinkedIn Account Management?

We offer social media support for pretty much any platform out there.  We’ll help you optimize your profiles, network with others and respond to comments, and even add updates for you. Except on LinkedIn.

We’ll optimize your profile and company profile and add updates for you (and, indeed, more than one of our clients has been complimented by connections on the content we share), and even work with you to provide a strategy and suggest groups for you to join, but we won’t build connections and participate in LinkedIn groups on your behalf.

It’s not because we don’t see value in the platform (LinkedIn is HUGE for B2B). It’s not because there isn’t a demand for outsourced LinkedIn management, either.  Just this week, I had to turn down a prospective client who wanted us to manage LinkedIn for him. I hated to have to do it.

 

Why I Won’t Manage LinkedIn For You

Unlike activity on any of the other major networks, all interaction on LinkedIn (besides posting updates) is done through a …

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Instagram Logo - Business Tags

Make Tags Work for Your Business – Instagram

Using images with social media is a sure-fire way to engage your customers. Don’t take our word for it.  Research from HubSpot shows that using images in posts boosts fan engagement by 53%. With the ever increasing popularity of photo-driven social media sites, savvy business owners are learning to use such platforms, including Instagram, to their advantage.

Instagram Rolls Out Tagging Feature

You may have noticed a recent change to your Instagram account – a new feature that allows you to tag people in the pictures you upload. What does this mean for your Instagram business account? Tagging will help you connect with customers and fans, thus increasing business engagement.

Tagging Helps Fans Get Behind Your Brand

Ask any business owner and they will tell you that success depends largely on fan loyalty. Fan appreciation and trust is just as crucial to thriving in business as are quality product and services. You can provide the best product or service available, but if you lack loyal customers, sales will plummet. This new …

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Google Plus Business Pages make you like Iron Man

How Google Plus Business Pages Make You Like Iron Man

Yup, you read that right. Forgive me, but I just saw the movie “Iron Man 3” and am still swooning a bit.

When I compare Google Plus business pages to Iron Man, I’m really referring to the suit of armor as the business pages and the person inside as the business owner.

Companies and small-business owners are finding protection (and a sense of awesomeness) in being able to separate their social media channels into more clearly defined territories. Sure, you can party it up like Tony Stark on your personal page, but when you need to go save the world, you don your professional page image – your Iron Man suit – and it’s all business.

Hopefully you’ve been on Google Plus long enough to get the feel for how to work your profile by finding great content, interacting with folks, etc. If you haven’t, you have no business creating a Google Plus business page. I say this with love because I know all too well the phrase “biting …

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