6 Steps to Social Marketing Success with LinkedIn

1. Social Networking

Few contact databases search and obtain results without social interaction. LinkedIn gives your business the tools to deepen current relationships and learn about new ones, including business opportunities.

LinkedIn is continually keeping you aware of changes in your connections and alerts you to new links being made. These indicators often signal opportunities to congratulate colleagues, help them find new strategic positions, or learn about new connections.

This constant flow of social information is helping you to actively manage and expand your potential social marketing audience. Important components in a LinkedIn marketing strategy.

2.Contact Management

LinkedIn is centered on the theory of social networks. These relationships start with a core database of contacts and can quickly evolve into a powerful LinkedIn marketing strategy. The secret is activating that initial base of relationships.

LinkedIn allows you to quickly import nearly any digital address book and match that with existing LinkedIn members. This immediately starts your engagement campaign. You can use LinkedIn to manage your contacts, routinely communicate, and trigger opportunities.

Share news on events you are holding or attending and share with your connections. Utilise events to engage clients. Invitations can also be sent to your LinkedIn network, which will give you an opportunity to meet face to face if they decide to attend.

3. Opportunity Research and Indexing

Opportunities are really the main aim of LinkedIn. It is designed to facilitate opportunity research. LinkedIn gives you easy tools to search and segment not only your network, groups but also the community at-large.

Peering into specific industries, companies, and niches is as simple as an advanced search.

LinkedIn also allows you to make your own profile information available for search engines to index. LinkedIn profiles receive a fairly high PageRank in Google, providing a very effective way to influence what people see when they search for you.

4. Social Marketing

Building connections in LinkedIn is about constructing a premium audience for your business marketing. Your profile and activities with LinkedIn are immediately available for all LinkedIn users to see and have the potential to attract enquiries and buyers to your business.

Some clever strategies to fully leverage your marketing with LinkedIn:

• Responding to LinkedIn Questions, as well as posting your own
• Visiting targeted profiles with privacy settings off, it is like leaving your business card behind
• Request connections and referrals from your existing network
• Always reply to an invitation to connect and offer to help in anyway you can. Or why not offer to meet face to face
• Use Groups to connect with people, professionals really enjoy networking and it’s a good way to share your expertise and learn best practice

5. Lead Management

Every connection in your LinkedIn network is a potential lead. Actively managing them becomes much simpler with a tool like LinkedIn. Connections themselves are opting in, updating their contact information, and guiding you, with their activity, to what really motivates them to action.

Watching your LinkedIn dashboard is like being a fly on the wall as your network of opportunities work to find answers and solutions to their challenges. Think of it more as an opportunity dashboard. This concept allows for you to wait for the perfect opportunity to gain new business and this is your social marketing strategy in action.

6. Lead Nurturing

Not every connection or contact is ready to buy. That is why LinkedIn is so important to your social marketing strategy.
Traditional internet marketing can eat into your budget very quickly through regular activities promoting your latest offers and incentives. LinkedIn allows you to keep in constant contact with everyone in a steady lead nurturing campaign, trickling your social marketing presence, and then alerts you to researching or buying behaviours.

How is LinkedIn working for you and your business? Share your sucess and comments here.

Related articles

• Who’s viewed your LinkedIn profile? (customerthink.com)
• LinkedIn to Let Marketers Use Slide Shows in Ads (socialtimes.com)
• Here’s What LinkedIn Can Do With Pulse (allthingsd.com)
• Don’t Get Too Personal on LinkedIn (hispanicbusiness.com)
• Social Media Newsfeed: LinkedIn SlideShare Ads | Social Ad Disclosures (socialtimes.com)

10 Top Tips To Get Social

Whether your business is just getting its social sea legs or already flying high in the digital world, there is a niche and opportunity for every brand on social media.

(this isn’t my picture so if its yours just let me know and I’ll take it down)

I have worked with many different businesses and brands from getting them started in social media or helping them recreate and tailor an improved strategy for a better ROI through their social media efforts. I have a true passion and social intelligence for all things social which I have successfully passed onto to many of my clients to get them to where they want. I ensure all of your social channels are leveraged and optimised to support traditional and digital solutions and more importantly there is company-wide buy in and understanding on what social can do for you.

Setting goals and making plans ahead of time is an important factor and can be the make or break of your success in the social sphere. Brands just starting out on social media should focus on acquisition and getting to know and be a part of communities that matter to them and want to be a part of. More savvy brands should look for engagement, awareness and advocacy.

Everyone should be listening, no matter what stage you are at.

I have put together 10 top tips to get you started or help kick start your social strategy:

1. Don’t be selfish or shy

If you’re planning a social campaign that’s not engaging, asking questions, finding out about your audience and communities, sharing useful content and information then what is the point in taking part?

Ensure you connect with the rest of your communications, marketing and media plans and it is all integrated. Traditional and digital media need to support an integrated campaign that has social media at its core.

2. Don’t be frightened. Social doesn’t bite!

Still so many brands are avoiding social media as they still don’t quite understand its capabilities and how it fits into their overall strategy. Brands need to be a part of it in order to connect to their audiences. Social gives brands more opportunity to connect with audiences they may have previously not had the chance to connect with, on the other side of the world. There is nothing more valuable than word of mouth and that is just ‘one’ of the many benefits of social. Show your audiences and customers what you can offer, what you are like and more importantly show off your happy customers.

3. Monitor, measure, adapt.

Social allows you to find out what is going on in the world, what people are saying about competitors, your industry and more importantly you. So make sure you monitor this. Measure it and if needed adapt your messages. More data is available than ever through social and the opportunity now is to connect through two-way communications with your customers across all media’s, and time your messages according to whom you are connecting to and where.

Your content should be your advertising. Is it strong enough to break through all the noise?

4. Listen

Social listening can and should impact planning, execution, optimization and results measurement. Automated tools and reliance upon technology is not enough.

True value from listening will come from your social champions or the one person who is managing all your channels. Ensure they have prioritized what you are listening for, how you are going to capture it and how you are going to share the results.

5. A picture says a thousand words…

Marketing is going visual and you need to do the same. Embed text and brand or product info in relevant graphics to post. Pictures are also the mostly widely used and shared method of posting on Facebook. When people share your images you want them to see your website link or other relevant info.

6. Borrow with pride

Why reinvent the wheel. Look to other successful campaigns and find out what and how they went about it. Adapt it to suit and fit around your brand and messages and borrow with pride. You know it works, so make it work for you.

7. Not another one?

There are so many social platforms to choose one, how do you really know which ones to be a part of and which ones to leave out? The answer is you won’t until you try. There are also some core staple platforms that you should try and be a part of because they offer more than you might thing. Google+ is an example of this. Google+ will be more important to your business and by being on Google+, you will be able to take full advantage of Google’s many services and tools. It hasn’t the social power of some of the other sites but it is a central part of Google and you should be a part of it.

8. Less is more

Nuances exist everywhere, so if you don’t understand how one of your platforms works and how your customers interact there, make sure you ask someone who does.

Also concentrating your marketing efforts to a few social platforms is more effective than spreading yourself too thin over many of the social sites. The time it takes to successfully participate in social media is substantial so you need to build a strong presence on the sites that deliver rather than trying to dominate them all. Some are audience targeted so use the ones that are tailored towards your audience.

9. Think about the future

Quick hits are good, but meaningful experiences drive long-term relationships and build advocacy for your brand. You need to have a guiding principle and long term goal that governs your efforts.

10.  Make it relevant

When people first started using the social sites they were posting things like “just having a cup of tea at my desk” Times have changed, people do not want or need to know this. This will also add no benefits to your social activity. You need to post relevant information to your audience. Make it about your readers and followers, not ‘all’ about you. Post solutions, inspiration, and interesting facts that can be useful and helpful.

Consider the consumer’s minds, brand health, net promoter score and measurements when generating content.

What is the best social media advice you have ever been given? Share your comments here.

 

 

Related articles

• The Most Basic Tips for Using Social Media Sites: (red-brand-media.com)
• Time To Reconsider How You Use Social Media (ministryofsearch.co.uk)
• 19 Things Successful People Do On Social Media (forbes.com)
• Social Media Can Keep Seniors In Touch With Friends And Family (lifefoneblog.com)

 

3 Changes To Expect From Linkedin’s New Look Personal Pages

Have you seen LinkedIn’s new look company pages? Well they’ve also thrown in a new look for personal pages too. Over the next couple of months everyone should have a new look profile. I was particularly eager to make the change so requested to be placed on the waiting list for the roll out and loving my new look!

So, what’s new?

Well, the changes aren’t massive – arguably the profile components are the same, however the new profile is more organised, and put together in a slicker and simpler visual layout putting greater focus and emphasis on content and connections – two elements that are the basis of Linkedin’s overall success.

However, one thing I noticed straight away and missing already is the elimination of a link to your Blog. For me, LinkedIn was a really effective way of driving traffic to my blog. This doesn’t stop you updating your status with blog posts though and driving traffic this way.

Here are 3 changes you will notice to your profile:

#1 Telling Your Professional Story

The new design will helps you make a much more powerful first impression – which in business, on or offline is incredibly important.

The layout allows you to showcase your skills, accomplishments and current projects you are working on, as well as added endorsements from your connections in areas they find you most competent.

Including current projects adds a valuable dimension to your otherwise static page; allowing connections to really see what it is you ‘do’ and how you do it. This is not only vital for potential recruitment opportunities; but for the ultimate in networking and showing off not just your company, but your own skills and creating new business opportunities.

#2 Discovering and Finding New People and Opportunities

The new profile provides members with a stunning visual depiction of the people and companies in their network.  Gone are the days of combing through your connections to see if you have anything in common with the prospects that you are trying to reach. The new profile shows far more rich and visual insights on not only the people, but the companies in your network.

This not only will increase engagement with those in your network; but these insights make it easier and simpler to discover people outside of your network, quickly establishing a common ground to make more meaningful and profitable connections.

Finding this ‘common ground’ is a fantastic first step in building not only personal contacts; but professional ones too – heading in the right direction of making long term connections with mutual interests.

#3 Engaging with Your Network

Finally; the new Linkedin Page has increased opportunity to engage with your community, with recent activity displayed at the top of your profile allowing you to stay current with what everyone (company or contact) has been sharing or doing.

Edit your news feed with exactly what you want to see, and tailor stories and updates to your specific interests.

The newly redesigned profile page gives you much more ways to customize and showcase your professional identity.  The new Linkedin Profile is overall very well designed in providing an improved social networking experience all round.

Related articles

• Xactly Named One of the Best LinkedIn Company Pages of 2012 (prweb.com)
• Meet the New LinkedIn Profile: A Better Way to Connect and Build Relationships (linkedin.com)
• SocialMotus Social CRM tool Announces Integration With LinkedIn Groups and Company Pages (prweb.com)
• How to use LinkedIn (kapilchoudhary.com)
• LinkedIn Makes it Easy to Add Video in New Profile (gloriarand.me)
• New LinkedIn Profile Lets Users Visualize Relationships & Gain Better Insights (marketingland.com)
• New LinkedIn profiles take cues from Facebook (nbcnews.com)
• LinkedIn revamps profiles with personal branding in mind (zdnet.com)

5 reasons why you shouldn’t have a Facebook Personal Page for your Business

On its pages, Facebook clearly states that Facebook personal pages are meant only for the individual user, not for a group or business. Despite those stark clear words, people are still making the mistake of using a personal account instead of a business page. But why is it such a big mistake?

Here are 6 really good reasons why you should disassociate your personal profile and create a dedicated business page for your group or business:

1. You are breaking the rules! 

You may have set up a personal Facebook profile using the name of your business or your business branding. If you also have another Facebook page for your own personal use, you are in violation of Facebook rules and one or both accounts could be suspended. Section 4 of Facebook’s terms clearly states that you shouldn’t have two separate Facebook accounts and you should never use a personal Facebook profile for commercial gain. I have seen businesses have their accounts suspended altogether over this malpractice. You will then completely loose your Facebook presence.

2. Your Business won’t be seen

Facebook business pages can be optimised for search engines like Google, but personal Facebook profiles cannot. Profiles are not indexed by google. Surely you would like as many potential customers as possible to find your company online wouldn’t you? Using a personal page to promote your company is ruining your chances. The intrinsic features of a personal profile are to help individuals make connections at a personal level. People are unable to ‘Like’ your page and instead have to request you as a friend. Many will just look at your page and leave. Should they ‘like’ your page which is instant they will then receive regular updates on your group or business. Read my next point…

3. No-one will ‘Like’ your business

It will be much more difficult to gain ‘friends’ as a business if you’re using a personal Facebook profile because regardless of privacy settings (which confuse most Facebook users anyway), people will be reluctant to share personal information with a company, no matter how good that company is. I know I wouldn’t. A Facebook business page allows people to ‘Like’ your company without any privacy risks because your company cannot access their personal information.

4. You are missing out on some very useful statistics!

Insights are a large benefit that you will receive FREE as part of your Facebook business pages. Without ‘Insights’ how do you know if your Facebook campaign is working?

5. Your business could run out of Friends

Although it’s not easy to verify, many commentators say that Facebook will only allow a personal profile a maximum of 5000 friends. But your Facebook business page can be ‘Liked’ by a limitless number of people. Why limit your opportunities?

6. Your business will be one dimensional
Whilst you can only have ONE personal Facebook profile (if you’re obeying the rules) you can create more than one Facebook business page. So if your company has several sub-brands or specialities, you could consider creating a dedicated Facebook business page for those too.

It’s not rocket science. Facebook personal profiles are for people and Facebook business pages are for businesses. Of course you can still reflect your business in your personal Facebook updates, I do it all the time! But it’s simply not designed to enable a company to maximise the many benefits that social media offers.

UPDATE: Facebook has now developed a tool that will allow businesses that have made the mistake of setting up a personal profile rather than a Business page profile to migrate one to the other.

2Communicate are currently helping many of our clients who have made this mistake (you are not alone, lots have done it!) to successfully make the change and reap the many benefits of a Facebook Company Page.

So get in touch and make the change today email: sarah@2communicate.co.uk Tel: 07958 490263/ 01905 356778 

Related articles

• 7 Key Ways to Optimize Facebook Fan Page SEO (along with Mozinar Q&A) (seomoz.org)
• 18 Creative Examples of Facebook Timeline Covers for Brands (amsterdamprinting.com)
• Facebook Profiles can now be converted into Business (Fan) Pages (thecontentlab.icrossing.com)
• More Than Privacy Controls, Facebook Needs Our Trust To Keep Growing (techcrunch.com)
• How do I connect Facebook to business page instead of personal account? (ask.metafilter.com)
• Focus on Facebook: How to Market Your Business Through Social Networking | eLocal (elocalroofers.com)

Hootsuite or Tweetdeck

Both Hootsuite and Tweetdeck are regarded as two of the most popular social media management tools. My clients are constantly asking me which is the best one. I do have a favorite, but what works for one, doesn’t always work for another and I think you have to decide what you want your management tool to do for you.

Both offer excellent easy to use features, but in order to find out which might work best for you I thought it would be useful to identify the pro’s and cons of each management tool by going through some of their features.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite is a web-based application and a Social Media dashboard tool, which allows you to integrate various social networks including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Foursquare and WordPress.

Hootsuite has over 300 million users, boasting several awards including “Best Twitter app”.

Hootsuite offers free versions where users can manage up to 5 profiles and it doesn’t limit you to one account per network. Hootsuite also has a free mobile app which is very easy to use.

Tweetdeck

Tweetdeck is a Social Media dashboard tool, which allows you to integrate various  social networks. Tweetdeck is a software programme that you can download onto your desktop.

Tweetdeck is currently the most popular Twitter application. Tweetdeck also offers a free mobile app.

Cost

One of the benefits of social media is that’s its free, so bringing cost into the equation can often put many off. Social media management tools offer a helping hand in managing your accounts so if cost is the deciding factor over which one you choose its important to understand what cost is involved.

TweetDeck is completely free to use, whereas HootSuite offers both a free version and a paid pro version for just under £4.00 per month.  Both free versions offer almost identical benefits, whereas with HootSuite Pro the cost per month provides you with significantly more useful features including bulk scheduling, Google analytics and Facebook Insights.

Multiple Accounts  

Both TweetDeck and HootSuite will allow you to add multiple social media accounts so you can manage everything at once. TweetDeck combines all of your accounts into one window whereas HootSuite provides a tabbed interface with a tab for each account you add.

The special feature you will find with HootSuite is that you can also add multiple users because of it’s browser based interface, allowing you to create posts from multiple users and even allowing them to add a signature to each of their specific posts.  This is particularly beneficial if you are using social media as a customer service tool.

Scheduling

Having the ability to schedule update is a real advantage for anyone utilizing social media. It offers you the satisfaction that you are proviign your auidnece with regular updates and information, however you will not be answering any questions or comments.Scheduling is often one of the main reasons for people wanting to choose a social media management tool, and particularly something my clients often identify as something that would help them.

Both TweetDeck and HootSuite (free version) allow you to schedule posts in advance. HootSuite Pro (paidf version) allows you to bulk schedule updates using an imported CSV file (comma separated values). The bulk scheduler allows you to import 50 updates at once but is rather tricky to figure out how to use it.

Tip. Use the Ctrl+F/Replace function in Excel.

User Interface

User interface is one of the most important features for anyone when choosing a social media management tool. If you can’t use it and it’s not nice to look at, then you just won’t use it. Both Hootsuite and Tweetdeck are very easy to use platforms and both pleasing on the eye. Both take a bit of getting use too, but once you have familiarized yourself with the features you should be up and running in no time. TweetDeck allows you to see everything all in one window, but could prove a bit overwhelming. I personally think the interface could be better suited for personal use.

Hootsuite has a browser based interface downloadable for Mac, Smartphones and Tablets. Hootsuites Social media profiles are viewed in tabs, rather than all in one window, so you can. The tabbed interface might be more suited to a social media manager who is managing multiple accounts that would need them to be separated for organisational purposes.

Update Multiple Social Networks

Both Hootsuite and Tweetdeck allow you to update your Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn profiles regardless of whether or not you are using the free or paid version.  However, HootSuite’s features allow you to update your Facebook Business and Brand Pages , Foursquare and WordPress.com accounts.

The verdict…..  

In my opinion,from a user ability perspective Tweetdeck is easier but the functionality offered by Hootsuite is better.

Having the ability to load Tweetdeck direct from your desktop is very appealing as is having everything all on one screen where you need it. However in my opinion Tweedeck is geared more towards personal use. If you are managing multiple accounts Tweetdeck just doesn’t seem to cut the mustard and offer that extra insight that I look for when managing my clients social media accounts and identifying their ROI.

Both versions of Hootsuite, have almost all the features that TweetDeck has. However Hootsuite offers some basic social analytics, to see the impact of your messages and Tweets and for me, this is a very powerful advantage when managing social media for business use. HootSuite Social Analytics provide you with a better view of your social spaces with  powerful analytics tools, more ways to measure, and customizable reports, all of which are designed to track campaign success and help you understand the return on your social media investment.

I don’t personally think one is better than the other and there are pros and cons for both, but I think depending on your preferences and needs one might be better than the other for you.

Do you use either of these apps and which do one do you use and why?

Sarah Michelle Willis 

Follow me on Twitter: @SarahMWillisPR 

 

 

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• The Future Of Social Media : Contextualizing Tools, Campaigns And Mobile [Editorial] (thetechnologycafe.com)
• Twitter tools used by the world’s top brands (royal.pingdom.com)
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• How to Use Twitter Hashtags for Your Business (openforum.com)
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Happy New Year! …It’s 2012

Happy New Year! Wow, how many times have I said that already….at what point is it not polite to say ‘Happy New Year’?!

So a New year, brings new beginnings, new experiences to be had and new opportunities. For me, 2012 is going to be all about growing, ensuring that everything I do, whether it be right or wrong, I will learn from it, take it away, and grow stronger and better. So, without getting to deep, this year I plan to do a number of things, and one of which will be tapping into my knowledge of Digital Marketing and Social Media.

I will be utilising the power of Social Media in a big, big way this year to promote myself as a professional within the PR industry and also 2Communicate. I plan to make new contacts and develop new and existing opportunities for new business, not just for myself but for other businesses too. I have come across a number of articles about how people have made a real success through Social Media. Chances are the majority of businesses you or I interact with whether it be in a professional capacity or as a consumer, will have some sort of Social Media account or platform set up, albeit personal or through their business. Companies in mainstream, consumer-facing industries have all joined in with Social Media. There are so many people that can offer their expertise and opinions that could be utilising the power of Social Media that just aren’t. Take a Farrier for example; a good example of a niche service that often comes recommended through word of mouth. Many whom have never needed a Farrier may not necessarily know what one does, and may never have considered it as a career. If a Farrier was to set up a blog about what it is they do, how they came to where they are today, the industry, general hoof care, then they could instantly have a captive audience. If they then followed this up with a Facebook page with advice and tips, customers could access it and share it with their friends and instantly they would have a huge Equestrian following, an increased customer base and even inspire some new apprentices within the industry.

I met a huge number of sceptics last year all asking similar sorts of questions, such as what value does Social Media really add. I delivered a number of workshops and was so surprised to learn how many very large corporate organisations were using Social Media but couldn’t see its benefits. I strongly believe that if you understand Social Media, what it is and what it can do, utilising it properly with the right means, then yes it can add value. There have been a number of companies whom have made huge errors, one being Habitat, but we can learn from these mistakes.

Whether you are providing a service or a product, alone, it’s an opportunity to ensure you have got it right, and is that not one of the most fundamental aims of running a successful business and what customer service is all about?

I have found five great examples, all at different stages of their experiments, and all indicating the breadth of business use of Social Media, this was taken from Mashable.

I look forward to the opportunities in 2012, and beyond, to help others promote and build themselves professionally, whether it be through Personal PR or for their business through the use of Social Media and celebrate in their success.