THINKing » LinkedIn http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog My CreativeTeam Thinks About Creativity, Marketing, PR & Social Media Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:40:12 +0000 en hourly 1 LinkedIn For B2B – The Series http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/linkedin-for-b2b-the-series/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/linkedin-for-b2b-the-series/#comments Tue, 10 May 2011 11:51:09 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=2268 LinkedIn

We have recently concluded our series of posts on how to use LinkedIn for business-to-business purposes. Below, you’ll find an easy-to-navigate overview that takes you to the complete posts.

Are You LinkedIn? - Twitter and Facebook seem to get all the glory when it comes to social networks, but LinkedIn – with its network of more than 80 million professionals – can be a very important component in any B2B company’s outreach program.

LinkedIn - Advertising – LinkedIn provides a great platform for reaching B2B audiences.

LinkedIn - Branding – Use LinkedIn’s custom company profile to tell your company’s story.

LinkedIn – Business Development – Finding possible strategic partners for your business development efforts is simplified with LinkedIn.

LinkedIn – Event Promotion – Hey, kids! Let’s put on a show. It’s easy to setup and promote an event with LinkedIn.

LinkedIn – Marketing/Sales - There are a  number of ways to utilize LinkedIn for your sales and marketing effort, from LinkedIn Groups and Events to advanced search.

Recruiting – LinkedIn is more evolutionary than revolutionary. It is primarily a tool to help employers fill the pipeline quicker with qualified candidates, and a tool to help the candidate stand out above the crowd.

 

 

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]]> http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/linkedin-for-b2b-the-series/feed/ 1 LinkedIn Recruiting http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/linkedin-recruiting/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/linkedin-recruiting/#comments Wed, 04 May 2011 15:46:28 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=2275

We will talk today about using LinkedIn for recruiting purposes in the final installment of our series Are You LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is more evolutionary than revolutionary. It is primarily a tool to help employers fill the pipeline quicker with qualified candidates, and a tool to help the candidate stand out above the crowd.

Whether you are hiring or looking to be hired, the number one thing you should be doing on LinkedIn is strategically building your network. The steps for both hiring managers and those seeking new positions are the same:

  • Maintain connections with colleagues from previous jobs
  • Expand your network with an eye toward your future needs
  • Search LinkedIn for the keywords that apply to the position you seek or the one you need to fill
  • Ensure your personal or company profile contains the correct keywords

Your success will depend upon the quality of your network. And if you never interact with your contacts except when you need something from them, you are doomed to fail.

PS – If you are a hiring manager, LinkedIn has additional tools for you.  Jobseekers should check out this LinkedIn tool.

 

 

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]]> http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/linkedin-recruiting/feed/ 3 LinkedIn – Event Promotion http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/linkedin-event-promotion/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/linkedin-event-promotion/#comments Mon, 18 Apr 2011 14:52:24 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=2248

Event marketing has always been a powerful tool for professionals. Think high-end wine dinners thrown by financial services pros. Now, you can take advantage of social media to take your events to the next level with LinkedIn Events.

When you go to the Events home page, you’ll see several tabs at the top of the page to help you: Find Events; My Events; Add An Event.

  • Find Events takes you to a search page that lets you find events based on time frame, location and by type of event (e.g., tradeshow, networking).
  • My Events helps you track events you plan to attend, are interested in or are organizing.
  • Add An Event lets you start and promote your own event, live or virtual.

Let’s talk about adding events. When you add an event, LinkedIn automatically promotes it to your network, and provides you with several options for additional promotion. If you have a small LinkedIn network you may want to consider these option. You can share with contacts by adding email addresses of people not in your LinkedIn network. Or, you can pay to promote it through LinkedIn.

If you opt to advertise, LinkedIn offers cost-per-impression and cost-per-click options.  If you have set up your own event, please let us know how it worked for you.

Here are other entries in our series on LinkedIn:

Are You LinkedIn?

LinkedIn Advertising

LinkedIn Branding

LinkedIn Business Development

 

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]]> http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/linkedin-event-promotion/feed/ 3 Market Successfully In Today’s Interactive Environment http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/market-successfully-in-today%e2%80%99s-interactive-environment/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/market-successfully-in-today%e2%80%99s-interactive-environment/#comments Thu, 10 Mar 2011 15:22:36 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=2176

I just did a session called Market Successfully In Today’s Interactive Environment for the Bank of Commerce’s School of Commerce (SOC). The SOC is designed to help independently owned businesses with the key challenges they have, ranging from financing to marketing.

The presentation covered how to develop your social media plan with key discussion centering on research, audience definition, goal-setting and measurement.

I developed a special report to go with the presentation and you can download it here if you are interested. Do you agree with my approach? Did I leave anything out? Please let me know.

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]]> http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/market-successfully-in-today%e2%80%99s-interactive-environment/feed/ 0 How Is Social Media Like A Mullet? http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/how-is-social-media-like-a-mullett/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/how-is-social-media-like-a-mullett/#comments Wed, 02 Mar 2011 13:01:19 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=2160

Photo: Copyright 2001 Columbia Pictures

When you live in the South you sometimes still see the male hairstyle known as the mullet. As Joe Dirt said in the movie by the same name, a mullet is “business in the front, party in the back.” And that is how social media is like a mullet: it’s both business and personal.

It’s not easy juggling your different accounts, keeping in mind what you should and shouldn’t say using that particular account. I have a personal and a business Twitter account, and assist in tweeting several other business accounts. There’s my Facebook account, the My Creative Team Facebook page, and four other client related accounts. Not to mention LinkedIn, Amplify, and Quora…you get the picture.

I’ve been using Hootsuite to simplify my digital life. And it works pretty well. I just ran across a story in Springwise about Whoopaa,

The new service can integrate with users’ Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts, presenting them all on one site. Users can then mark these accounts as associated with either their business or personal Whoopaa profiles. Once Whoopaa has been linked up in this way, users can switch between their business and personal profiles at the click of a single button, instantly viewing all the social network activity attached to the Whoopaa profile selected — neatly arranged in one time-line. Users can send direct messages, invites and wall posts to their separate social network accounts from within the Whoopaa site, as well as sending messages directly to other members’ Whoopaa inboxes. An iPhone app is currently in development.

With the increasing importance attached to online identity, both in personal and business terms, the demand for aggregators has seen no shortage of contenders. However, for social networkers who prefer to keep these profiles separate, Whoopaa set itself apart with a neat headline feature.

I’m thinking about giving it a try. Have you tried Whoopaa, or another utility that gives you more control? How do you keep your business social media and your personal media personas separated? Let us know.

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]]> http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/how-is-social-media-like-a-mullett/feed/ 6 LinkedIn – Business Development http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/linkedin-business-development/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/linkedin-business-development/#comments Fri, 25 Feb 2011 20:08:42 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=2144 business development – n : business function focused on strategy, creating strategic partnerships and long-term relationships with suppliers and customers. The business development function within a business can be thought of as a jack-of-all-trades position focused on strategic deal-making with an eye toward increasing sales and expanding the company’s long-term business success or scope.

Based on the above definition, LinkedIn is the perfect platform for helping the business development specialist achieve his goals.  How so? Let’s say you have an idea for a strategic partnership that would be mutually beneficial to your company and the partner organization you have identified.  But you don’t know anyone at the company. Here’s how LinkedIn says to proceed:

  • Performing a People Search will quickly find the right person at the company and determine who you know in common for a warm Introduction. If this isn’t possible, you also have the option to reach out directly via an InMail.
  • While reading an article on partner sites (such as Business Week, CIO, etc) you can immediately see how your network can help you get access to that company to discuss an opportunity using Company Insider. Click the icon to see who you’re conncted to at LinkedIn.
  • Viewing your counterpart’s profile can help bridge the gap by providing mutual contacts, background, recommendations, etc.

The above is probably the most often used LinkedIn technique for business development, but there are a couple of other ways to use it. Let’s say you have an idea to develop a profit-sharing arrangement that is common in certain industries but not in yours. You can search Linkedin to find relevant contacts at companies in those industries, so you can reach out to ask them how the arrangement worked for them. Or, consider using Answers to get your questions addressed.

LinkedIn has some pretty powerful business development tools for those willing to do the work.

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]]> http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/linkedin-business-development/feed/ 4 LinkedIn – Branding http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/linkedin-branding/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/linkedin-branding/#comments Thu, 10 Feb 2011 15:11:32 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=2075

We’ve been talking recently about LinkedIn and the numerous ways you can utilize the platform for yourself and your organization. We see at least six business functions (see list below) in which LinkedIn can assist your company. We have already addressed #1. Today, we take a look at branding.

1. Advertising

2. Branding

3. Business Development

4. Event Promotion

5. Marketing/Sales

6. Recruiting

Just as LinkedIn offers you an opportunity to build your personal brand, it also provides companies the platform from which to tell their brand story with the Custom Company Profile. You’ll find My Creative Team’s LinkedIn Company Profile here.

I would argue that the best way to build the brand you want is to hire the right people. LinkedIn – with its focus on helping people find the right job – is a great place to do just that. Here, you have the chance to showcase the kind of company you are and the kinds of people you have attracted in the past. And, according to Mashable, the Careers tab allows you to provide applicants with,

…targeted content, better visibility, and more modules. The new and improved company profiles allow for businesses to display relevant career-specific information within its own tab. So now instead of all the company’s information jammed on to one page, a job seeker can click the Careers tab to quickly get a tailored view of your online career center.

If you haven’t completed your LinkedIn company profile, you need to get to it. Here is an article from Social Media Examiner about how to do it, as well as information about some of the new features recently unveiled.

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]]> http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/linkedin-branding/feed/ 5 LinkedIn – Advertising http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/linkedin-advertising/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/linkedin-advertising/#comments Tue, 01 Feb 2011 15:31:09 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=2034

Why should you care about LinkedIn’s ad platform? Well, there are 80 million LinkedIn users worldwide; 1.5 million C-level executives; 1.3 million small business owners; 32 million US users. So, I’m thinking you might be able to find an audience here for your organization’s message.

LinkedIn offers a number of ways to reach your audience. There are display ad options and sponsorships, which are for those with larger budgets.

However, it is the recently improved self-serve advertising product we’ll focus on. This allows companies to create and place highly targeted ads on pages throughout the LinkedIn platform. Your ad can be created quickly to show up on Profile pages, the home page, the inbox page, search results page and on group pages, too.

One of the improvements to LinkedIn’s ad platform lets you target by current job title, which helps you build a more precise audience. You can have as many as 100 job titles in a single campaign. Additionally, you can target:

  • By company name
  • By LinkedIn groups
  • By geography
  • By job function and seniority
  • By industry and company size
  • By gender and age

LinkedIn allows you to pay by clicks or impressions. Your budget may be as little as $10 per day and you can stop your ads at any time because there are no long-term contracts. For additional information on LinkedIn ads, this FAQ page answers all of your questions.

Is LinkedIn advertising effective? Here is a test done by eConsultancy that gives you some data on how LinkedIn performed for them.

I have to admit that I’m not completely sold on LinkedIn yet. Users don’t stay on the platform very long at any one time and they are not yet used to seeing the small PPC ads. Do you have any experience using LinkedIn ads? What were your results?

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]]> http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/linkedin-advertising/feed/ 6 Are You LinkedIn? http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/are-you-linkedin/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/are-you-linkedin/#comments Wed, 12 Jan 2011 14:30:13 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/?p=1636 LinkedIn

Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series about how to use LinkedIn for B2B purposes. We are preparing this for the Bank of Commerce’s School of Commerce.

Twitter and Facebook seem to get all the glory when it comes to social networks, but LinkedIn – with its network of more than 80 million professionals – can be a very important component in any B2B company’s business development program. We won’t go into detail here on what LinkedIn is, but here’s LinkedIn’s explanation of what the platform is about.

In our view, the top uses of LinkedIn for a B2B organization – not necessarily in this order – are:

1. Advertising

2. Branding

3. Business Development

4. Event Promotion

5. Marketing/Sales

6. Recruiting

In this installment, we’ll look at how to set up a LinkedIn account and a LinkedIn company profile page. Later, we’ll discuss how to use the platform for the six purposes outlined above.

First, go to linkedin.com and sign up for a personal account. This is free, but there are paid options if you want to consider them

Next, you’ll want to complete your profile fully. In essence, it is an online resume and it’s important to do this thoughtfully, using keywords and phrases that apply to you and your business. As an owner, you may not be looking for a job, but you are looking to connect with a wider range of people, so fill out the section on hobbies and interests, as well. If you want a step-by-step walk through, here is a good overview.

Your personal account has been established, so let’s create a LinkedIn company profile page. This page allows you to publish a company description, a link to your website, and LinkedIn’s platform dynamically generates your employee list.

Here are a few examples of company pages if you’d like to take a look before creating your own: eBay, Google, Yahoo!, Oracle.

Now, let’s fill out your company profile page. You must have a verified company email address in order to set up the company profile page. By that I mean you can’t use a gmail or hotmail account. Once established, you can allow others from your company the ability to administer the account.

Go to the Company page on LinkedIn. Look to the right of the page. You’ll see “Add A Company”. Click on that and you’ll be taken to a page where you enter the name of the company and your company email address. Since you have already set up your personal page, you’ll be taken directly to a page where you can start filling in the profile for your company immediately. An online wizard walks you through all the information you may enter.

When you are finished with the page, you’ll click the “Create A Company” button to make it public. Don’t worry if you haven’t uploaded your logo yet, or left out some key details, you or another employee can come back to edit later.

Next time, we’ll talk about how to put LinkedIn to work for your business.

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]]> http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/are-you-linkedin/feed/ 5 Too Much Social, Not Enough Sales? http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/too-much-social-not-enough-sales/ http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/too-much-social-not-enough-sales/#comments Tue, 01 Jun 2010 12:39:20 +0000 Harry Hoover http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/too-much-social-not-enough-sales/ Is social media wearing you out and getting in the way of your real work? It’s not bad enough that you have to keep up with a blog, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Friendfeed, Youtube and maybe Plaxo, but every day I’m being asked to join yet another social network. There are hundreds of them, it seems. I’ve said no to Viadeo, no to Friendster, no to MySpace, and by-bye to Goodreads.

How many social networks is too many to handle? As in every other facet of business, I believe focus is the answer. Pick three to four that make sense for you and your organization and do them right.

If you are spending all of your time blogging, Twittering, adding posts on your company Facebook page, when are you going to have time to keep the business afloat? After all, the first rule of business is to stay in business. To do this, you must make money.

How many networks are you trying to keep afloat? Have you jettisoned any? Which ones? What is working – or not working – for you?

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