New LinkedIn Feature: Endorsements–An Easier Way to Recommend Your Connections

This is great news! On Monday, LinkedIn introduced an easier way to recommend people and specifically, their skills, called “Endorsements.” On the top of a connection’s profile, you’ll see recommended endorsements for them. This allows potential networking partners to quickly identify your strengths. You can suggest additional skills as well. You can also endorse contacts from the new Skills & Expertise section that showcases these endorsements.

So, how should you take advantage of this new feature? Before you send a mass email asking your entire network for endorsements (don’t do it!), remember that networking — first and foremost — is about connecting people with value. Whether it’s through your expertise, or someone’s skill, your goal should always be to bring value to your network. The last thing you want to do is send an e-mail blast to everyone on your list. A mass email asking for a favor is likely to feel like spam and be ignored. If you’re going to send an e-mail to multiple recipients, try segmenting your network into different lists according to how you met them or what industry they’re in. You can then write a personal e-mail to a specific group, telling them that their in your (fill in the blank) group of people and feel they best understand your expertise in (fill in the blank) and would appreciate an endorsement — if they feel you deserve it. This kind of approach demonstrates you’ve taken the time to consider them specifically. Or, you could start by endorsing their skills first. They will get a notification that you have endorsed them and may, in return, endorse you back!

Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn if we’re not already connected and if I’ve helped you out in any way with your social media efforts, I would love it if you would endorse me on LinkedIn in the “skills” section! Thanks so much!

Source: http://www.entrepreneur.com

Facebook Tip: Link Your Blog to Your Facebook Page to Drive Traffic (Free App!)

One advantage to the Facebook business page is the featured App tabs located just below your cover photo. Even if you’re tweeting and updating your Facebook business page status with your latest blog content (ahem — you should be if you’re not!) This FREE Application Tab, brought to you by Networkedblogs.com, is simple and easy to install and makes a great addition to your Facebook business page. One more way to drive traffic to your blog and get your articles read!

Ok, as promised, here’s what to do:

1. Log  into your Facebook account and on your Facebook business page, and in another window have your blog open (so you can quickly copy and paste the URL).

2. Visit networkedblogs.com and at the top right, click where it says, “Add Your Blog.”

3. You’ll be asked to log in with Facebook – do that.

4. Logging in will bring you to a page that lets you Register a Blog. Type or paste in the full URL of the blog, i.e. http://www.brandlovellc.wordpress.com.  Click “Next.”

5. Now you’ll be asked to fill in a bit more info, including the title of the blog, a brief description, a few tag words, etc. The “feed” address to the blog should be automatically entered.

6. When you finish, you’ll be brought to a page about the blog. On the left hand side of the screen under “Blogger Tools” you’ll see the word, “Syndication.” Click that, then go check your email for a verification email. Click where indicated in the email and you’ll be brought to another networkedblogs.com page.

7. Click on the “Blogger Dashboard” in the upper right hand corner; then in the menu under your blog, next to Publish, select Add to Facebook Page. Select the page you want to add your blog to and click the blue “Add Page Tab” button.

8. Head over to your Facebook business page, refresh the page if needed, and you’ll see a tab that says “Blog.” Click on the tab and you’ll be able to choose which blog (yours!) to appear on the page. If there are photos/graphics on your blog posts, the list of recent post excerpts will appear with thumbnails (as shown), giving your Blog tab on Facebook a clean, professional look and offering readers another way to engage with your words.

Keep in mind, not everyone clicks on App Tabs. To make sure everyone sees your new blog post on Facebook, post a Facebook status update with your article and include the shortened link to your newest content each time you blog. You can even take a screenshot of your blog article and post a picture of it for a higher ‘reach’ to your audience. See example below.

If you found this article helpful and are not already a fan of BrandLove, LLC Facebook Fan Page, please follow the link and “like” my page. There are lots more social media tips and information. My fan page is updated daily. Thank you for your support!

[Promote Yourself] It’s Your Turn to BRAG YOUR BLOG to Create Brand Awareness and Drive Traffic!

As a way of showing gratitude to my loyal readers, I’ve created a forum for you to BRAG YOUR BLOG so you’ll get greater exposure from all my readers and Facebook fans if you choose to post there too. This is an opportunity for YOU to tell us how great your blog, podcast, videos or other content is in the comments section below. You’ve spent a ton of time researching and writing your blog post for the world to see and, hopefully, share. Even the best articles need help getting noticed so the only people reading your blog posts aren’t you and your subscribers. Promoting your blog post is vital to driving social media engagement for your article which will lead to traffic back to your blog.   What good is great content if no one knows you’re out there? Don’t be shy, it’s all about YOU!

I also have a BRAG YOUR BLOG going on right now on my Facebook fan page if you want to check it out and promote yourself there too.

LinkedIn: How to Share Ideas, Questions, Articles and Website Links and Why It’s a Good Idea

Tips on Using the LinkedIn Status Bar for Marketing

There are several ways to use the LinkedIn Status Bar for marketing:

1. Share a blog post. If you have a blog for your organization – or a personal blog – you can write up a quick summary of the post and attach a link to it on the Status Bar. It will then be shared on your LinkedIn network and Twitter (if you want to do so).  Remember, your network can then share your latest update, like it and comment on it. This will help propagate the message even further.

Thoughts on Twitter and LinkedIn 

I’m not really a fan of linking Twitter to LinkedIn. You’re dealing with two entirely different audiences, with different personalities, writing styles and lingo. On LinkedIn, you may have some important work-related intel to share with like-minded connections. While those in a directly related field may express interest, it will likely go over the heads of all those on Twitter.  Twitter is designed to be more of a casual, conversational format. You may want to gain followers by posting a tweet intentionally designed to get a reaction. While random people may love it, your business contacts may get turned off by the “unprofessionalism” of your tweet. Remember, not everyone uses Twitter, so your colleagues on LinkedIn may not know how to read some of the special characters and abbreviations on Twitter.

2. Increase the reach of a press release – When you send out a press release, you can post it through the LinkedIn Status Bar, with a link to the complete news release and your network(s) will get the information that way. Again, your connections can share, like and comment on the status and their networks will get the press release information too.

3. Media coverage or bylined articles – If are covered by the media or you write an article for an industry publication, post it to the Status Bar. Include the link to the article and ask your network to like, share and comment.

4. Promote an event – Hosting an upcoming event or conference? In addition to using traditional channels to market your event – write up a short description with a link to the event’s website and send it out through the LinkedIn Status Bar.

5. Job Opportunities – Is your organization hiring? Let people know about it through the LinkedIn Status Bar. Post a brief description of the job and add a link to your careers page. This is a great way to get referrals from your connections! You can share thoughts, articles or other content-rich websites with others from several places.  You can use the posting module on your home page to share information. The example “Using Pinterest to Gain Exposure” is shown in the below screenshot.

How to Post a Status Update on LinkedIn.
1. Click into the text box where it says “Share an update” and type in your remark and/or link.

• Limited to 600 characters maximum.
• If you choose to update your Twitter status too, only the first 140 characters will be visible on Twitter.

2. Click  “Attach a Link” to add your URL  and then click “Attach Link” (optional). Allow a few seconds for a description to automatically display.

• Click the Edit link to modify the title and description.

3. Select an option under “Visible To:”

• Pick anyone to show updates to everyone looking at your profile and send updates to your connections. (This is the default setting.)
• Pick connections only to be visible only to your connections looking at your profile and to send updates to your connections.

4. Check the box next to the Twitter icon to update your Twitter status with the same information (optional).

• You can manage your Twitter settings from the Profile section of your Settings page.

5. Click “Share.”

• You can also share with groups or individuals once the update is posted. It will show up on your home page under “All Updates” as shown below in my post “How Much Automation is Safe For Your Social Media Strategy.” Click “share” to post to groups or share with individuals. You can share posts with 1 group or as many groups as you belong.

 

 

 

An update will remain visible in the Activity Feed in your side bar until it is replaced by a more recent update or until you delete it.

Other Ways of Sharing Updates:

• From Discussions in your groups.
• From partner sites like Wall Street Journal or New York Times.
• From LinkedIn Today.
• From any webpage when using the LinkedIn Sharing Bookmarklet.
• From your connections’ update by Liking their post.

As always, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn if we’re not already connected. If you’re not already a BrandLove, LLC Facebook Fan, please “like” my page. There are lots more social media tips and information. My fan page is updated daily. Thank you for your support!

Source: Social Media Today

[Infographic] The Power of Facebook Advertising

Facebook has just released the below infographic, The Power of Facebook Advertising showing global stats around Facebook usage as well as some insights for Facebook advertising.

If you’re not already a BrandLove, LLC Facebook Fan, please “like” my page. There are lots more social media tips and information. My fan page is updated daily. Thank you for your support!

Cool New Twitter Widget: Embeddable Interactive Timelines For Real-Time Interaction on Any Website!

Twitter recently launched a new tool that makes it easy to embed interactive timelines of Tweets on any website. This is a great new feature that adds a real-time dimension to articles and blog posts on other web sites. What differentiates this new tool from other Tweet widgets is its fully interactive nature that allows readers to reply, re-tweet, favorite, follow an account, view tweeted photos– all without having to leave the page. The auto-expand photos option brings the photo front and center in the timeline, and you can expand Tweets just like you would on twitter.com to see cards, and retweet and favorites counts.

By providing real-time Twitter news about an event or topic via hash tag, a blogger or online journalist can add further value to his post without the need to update it. The widget can also simply feature a Twitter user’s feed which can be useful for company web sites that use Twitter as  a customer service tool. This not only allow site visitors to conveniently tweet their questions immediately, but will also allow customer service reps the ability to respond to any questions or concerns straight from the company website as well.

To learn how to embed timelines of Tweets on your own website, check out Twitter’s Developer Blog.

To find more social media tips and tricks follow me on Twitter or Facebook. Thank you in advance for your support!

Source: Examiner.com

No Klout Score? No Job Then. Really???

Have you heard of Klout? No? According to an article written by B2C, then you might be becoming unemployable. If you don’t have a Klout score, you will be passed over for some jobs, and the number of recruiters using Klout as a measure of worth is growing, especially in the United States.
Read more at http://www.business2community.com/social-media/no-klout-score-no-job-then-0242343#kQacFFtvzLG8JmKG.99.

As a hiring manager, if you were looking for a social media marketing person, would you not hire someone based on their Klout score? I’m really curious to hear your thoughts on this.

To find more social media tips and tricks follow me on Twitter or Facebook. Thank you in advance for your support!

[Infographic] Another CxO? Meet The Hot and Now Chief Marketing Technology Officer

According to John Koetsier’s recent VentureBeat article, the big data explosion has made Chief Marketing Technology Officers (CMTOs) hot commodities. The new role, chief marketing technology officer, is focused on marketing, but not on the soft and squishy creative side that CMOs have traditionally focused on. Rather, CMTOs are using significant technology and analytical expertise to help companies make sense of and exploit vast amounts of customer and market data from sources as diverse as Facebook, the company blog, customer databases, sales information and trending tweets on Twitter.

Key areas of focus include managing the various technologies bolted together to enable this, turning social data into actionable insights — and sales — and delivering coordinated marketing campaigns in multiple channels simultaneously.

Meet your new Chief Marketing Technology Officer: