LinkedIn Profile Organizer Walkthrough

Ok, you are on LinkedIn and have made some connections. As you get more active you will begin to wish there was an easier to set up and track the profiles and information that interests you. Enter LinkedIn Profile Organizer. In LinkedIn’s own words:

“Profile Organizer includes several tools to help you keep track of important profiles.”

“Track important profiles in a dedicated workspace.”

“Organize profiles into your own personal folders.”

“Keep important details that help you manage your outreach.”

Sounds pretty good huh? I am going to take you on a simple walkthrough so you can start using LinkedIn Profile Organizer yourself. Without further delay lets start this ride.

1. Go to the LinkedIn Profile Organizer Page.
2. Click the yellow “Upgrade Now” button.
3. Sign up for a LinkedIn Premium account (there is no way around this step if you want to use Profile Organizer).
4. Then from the “Send a message” sub-menu or search results page you can save profiles in custom folders and even add notes.

As I said, this is a very basic walkthrough (as I have a basic LinkedIn account) but these steps will get you started easily enough.

The benefits:

• More organization
• Easier to find information
• Tracking

Is it necessary? Though I believe it looks like a great feature, I do not believe it is necessary. If it is a feature you would like it would be worth it for you. If not, don’t upgrade.

Do you use LinkedIn Profile Organizer? If so, what are your thoughts?

5 Step LinkedIn Content Marketing Strategy

Are you linked in? Do you have a LinkedIn account? If you publish content of any kind that is important to you or your brand you should. As a matter of fact, if you are a professional of any kind, you should have an account. You can think of it this way: Facebook is your people you know network, Twitter is your be heard network, and LinkedIn is your professional network. If you want the right people to see your content it would be a huge mistake to ignore LinkedIn.

The first step is, if you don’t have a LinkedIn account start one right now. After you have an account, continue reading to learn a simple 5 step LinkedIn Content Marketing Strategy. On to our first step: Join Relevant LinkedIn Groups.

Join Relevant LinkedIn Groups

LinkedIn groups are a great place to let your voice be heard, engage with others, and make new connections. Which groups should you join? How many? How active should you be? Let’s answer these questions in order.

Which to Join

Which groups you should join depend on what your goals are. What is your niche? Are you a photographer? A marketer? Are you a local small business? A leadership guru? Whatever your forte, you should join groups relevant to that.

How Many to Join

This one is a very important question. The more groups you join and are active with the more exposure you and your work will have. On the other hand, if you join too many you wont be able to be very active in any of them. I would say a safe approach would be to just join a hand full, say 5 just for an easy round number, and go on from there. If you can handle being active in more then by all means join more.

How Active

This one is the key. You should be as active as you can. Comment on and thumbs up a few posts by others every week (at least). Post your work (be sure to follow the group rules). Get to know some of the members. You may just find that professional connection you are looking for.

How to Find and Join Groups on LinkedIn

1. Log into your LinkedIn account.
2. Click “Groups” located at the top menu of the page.
3. In the search field you are going to type in your niche and run a search.
4. In the search results click the name of a groups that you are interested in.
5. If you like it then click the yellow “Join” button.
6. Follow the above steps again, this time searching for local groups.

Publish Good Content

Right now content is more important than ever. If you have any interest in good SEO, building your influence, and being found on Google, you must publish plenty of good content. Write your content and publish it to your blog or website (and I would highly recommend that you do have a blog).

Post Your Content to LinkedIn

You want your professional connections to see your rock star content. Post it to LinkedIn. Be proud of your work and let yourself be known in your niche by your connections. Look at it this way, even only 20 connections will likely link you to thousands of professionals. If you want to be seen by the right people then LinkedIn is the place to do it.

Post Your Content to LinkedIn Groups

Remember those groups we talked about a minute ago? Post your content there too. Don’t be spammy and be sure to follow the groups rules.

Engage With Others

Now for a key to the whole thing. If you want others to take you seriously and be engaged, then you have to be engaged with them. Read what your connections and groups you belong to post. Comment and thumbs up where you can. Communicate and show them you are interested. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Show them that you are interested in them and you just may find that they become more interested in you.

What have we accomplished?

• You are now a member of the largest professional network in the world.
• You have joined groups that are either interested in or part of your niche or are local to you.
• You are putting out great content.
• You are sharing your content with other professionals or potential clients.
• You are engaging with potential clients and members of your niche.
• You are meeting great professional connections.

You have accomplished a lot so far huh? Put the power of LinkedIn to work for you and make your content known.

What are your thoughts? Do you use LinkedIn as part of your content marketing strategy? Why or why not?

Bring Your Social Media Under Control With HootSuite

What is HootSuite? According to the HootSuite website:

Save your time and your sanity. Improve productivity by managing all of your social networks within HootSuite. The dashboard is designed for you and your team to listen, engage and measure all from one simple interface.

I would say they summed it up very well. HootSuite is a social dashboard designed to make your social media life an easier one. Read on to see how to get started on this amazingly sanity saving service.

Check Your Accounts in One Window

One of the coolest features of HootSuite is you can keep up with your social media accounts in one window. Rather than logging in and out of your various accounts you can view them all from one program. HootSuite allows you to manage your Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Foursquare, WordPress, MySpace, and Mixi accounts. That in and of itself is pretty impressive. Keep in mind that with a free HootSuite account You can add only five connections to your networks and advanced features such as analytics won’t work. For most of you this very adequate for your needs.

Post to All in One Shot

Another benefit of HootSuite is that it allows you to post to all of your added networks at once. Posting is easy:

1. Click inside the field at the top of the webpage that says “Click to select a social network”.
2. Choose the networks you want to post to.
3. Where it says “Compose a message…” type your post.
4. Click the Send Now button.

Easy peasy so far huh?

How-To

How do you get started? Just follow these simple steps:

1. Go to http://hootsuite.com/.
2. Bookmark the HootSuite page so you can return quick and easy.
3. Under “Sign Up Today – Free” either sign up using Facebook or fill out the form.
4. Add your profiles.
5. Set up your streams so you can keep track of the information you wish to use HootSuite to follow.
6. Explore your new HootSuite set up.

Pretty simple, and you didn’t have to download and install a single program. If you have any questions please comment below and let me know.

Tell me about your HootSuite experience.

33 Social Media Web Tools That Will Rock Your Online Marketing

The right tools can make any project easier. Whether you are working on a computer, building a deck, fixing your car, or doing electrical work the proper tools will make all the difference in the world. The same holds true with your social marketing. With the correct tools, your online marketing will work faster, easier, and more effectively. In this post I am giving you 33 tools that will rock your online marketing. Check them out and enjoy.

Posting

SlideShare

Post your presentations online. This is one very cool service. You simply create your presentation on your computer as you normally would with your presentation software, then you use SlideShare to upload the presentation to the Web. It works pretty slick and can help you in using more variety in your posting.

Quozio

Post beautiful quotes. Just go to Quozio, type in your quote, and let Quozio do the rest. Make the quotes you post more attractive.

Buffer

Schedule your posts. This can be very handy if it isn’t abused.

PlagTracker

Make sure your content is original. This service is an excellent way to make sure your work is originally you.

Google URL Shortener

Easy to use URL shortener from Google.

Listly

A list maker. This is social list making at its best.

Brainy Quote

Find quotes. If you are looking for quotes you will be impressed with this huge database.

Organization

HootSuite

Your social media dashboard. This app makes your social media services much easier to manage.

Pocket

Save websites to view later.

Tweepi

Manage your Twitter account. This is a multifunctional program that does what it does very well.

Tagdef

Look up hashtags to discover what they mean and other useful information.

Google Reader

Make the blogs you follow more manageable. With Google Reader all of the blogs you follow can be read from one window.

JustUnfollow

Manage your Tweeps. Very useful.

Paymo

Manage your business from the cloud. The functionality of this one will surprise you.

Monitoring

Monnitter

Tweet search engine.

StatMyWeb

Many website statistics. The features are truly mind-blowing.

TweetReach

How far does your tweet reach?

Klout

See how influential you are.

PeerIndex

See who you are influencing.

Facebook Insights

Valuable information about your Facebook Page.

SocialMention

A social media search engine.

Topsy

A conversation search engine.

Google Analytics

Social media analysis.

Google Alerts

Get the information you want.

LikeAlyzer

Master your social stats.

Keyword Tools

Google Keyword Tool

Find great keywords from the company that is the king of all search engines.

WordStream

Find profitable keywords from a trillion-keyword database.

Translation

Google Translate

Translation between languages

Cloud Storage

Dropbox

One of the best out there.

Email List

MailChimp

Work your email list like a champ.

Online Publishing

Webs

Your free website. You don’t even need to know how to code. You are pretty limited to their templates but it is easy and free.

Formatpixel

Publish like a champ. Check it out and you will be surprised.

WordPress

Start your blog today.

These are some of my favorite tools. Give them a try and let me know what you think.

What are some of your favorite online marketing tools?

Social Fitness

You hear it from the doctor, news media, and even the White House. America needs to get in shape. I have a good question for you though. What kind of social shape are you in? Are you too socially thin or socially obese? Are you socially weak or strong? In this article I will give you some tips on how to:

• Have social room to breathe.
• Get social stamina.
• Become socially flexible.
• Gain social strength.
• Build social power.
• Have social balance.

Breathing

Breathing may just be the most important thing any of us ever do. Without breath there can be no life. It is said that a human being can only live 4 – 8 minutes without oxygen. Lets all take a deep breath as we think about that. Now, answer me this: How long do you think your social media program will survive if you don’t give it room to breathe? Trust me when I say that if you just push and go go go you will burn out and find no joy in it. This is the Internet! It is supposed to be fun, not something to burn out over.

Here are some tips to give yourself some room to socially breath:

• Take a break once in a while. Physically, if you just continue to push with no rest, you will tear your body down rather than build it up. The same holds true with a social media program. Just understand that you are not required to sit in front of your computer for hours at a time without pause. Yes, there is more to life than just social. Go out and experience it.
• Don’t overextend yourself. There are over 200 known social networking websites on the Internet. If you are hooked into too many you will effectively have time for nothing else and you will burn out. Not to mention, you wont be very effective on any of them because you are spread too thin. My advice would be to pick no more than 4. Ask yourself these 4 questions:
  Which one do most of my target audience hang out on? Which one will I find most of my influencers on? Which one will make it easiest to display my wares? Which one will help my SEO the most? There you have your 4.
• Have a routine. Rather than an unorganized hit and miss shotgun approach have a plan. How often will you post at each site? What kind of posts will you make? How often will you engage with your stream? How will you keep up with it? Have a planned routine and work it.
• Know when to walk away for a while. Yes there should always be room for life in the real world. Once in a while go out and experience it. Then you will never burn out on social.

Stamina

Without energy the human body just wants to sit and sleep. With plenty of stamina the body wants to keep going. Social media can be the same way. With social, if you don’t have stamina you will run out of wind and stop. How do you build up some social stamina?

• Get a good social tool to work from. With the right tool your social media life will be easier and you will be able to pick up the momentum to keep going. My favorite tool is HootSuite. Check it out and I think you will love it as well.
• Practice. Just like any other activity, social media gets easier and you get better at it with practice. Keep working at it. Leverage what works. Drop what doesn’t work for you.
• Keep going. There is never a good time to give up. Keep going and it will eventually pay off. Social marketing is something that takes time and patience.

Flexibility

When it comes to your body, the surest way to injury is to never stretch your muscles. In the realm of social media, if you aren’t flexible in your approach you will come off as stiff, and you may even injure your marketing efforts.  Here are some tips to get a little social flexibility:

• Pay attention. Pay attention to what is working and what isn’t. Is it rock star or is it epic fail? Are you seeing ROI? If it isn’t working, and you have leveraged it to its capacity maybe it’s time to change gears and try something else.
• Keep an open mind. Read about what others are doing. Follow blogs. Pay attention to the news. Read books and articles. Really great ideas are everywhere. Keep an open mind to a different or new approach.
• Embrace change when it makes sense. When a change makes sense embrace it. Change is nothing to be fearful of. What is frightening is the thought of trying the exact same thing over and over while expecting a different result.

Strength

You need a strong body to lift a heavy weight. In the same way you need a strong social presence to lift a heavy social media strategy to the heights of success. How do you build a stronger social presence?

• Post regularly. At the very least you should be posting once a day to each account. At the most it should be 3 to 5 times. Post much more than that and you may be accused of being a spammer. The point is, be active so your name stays out there.
• Continuously engage with others. Yes that means reading what others are posting. Comment, share, retweet, like, favorite, etc. If someone sends you a message or comments on your post respond as soon as you can. Keep the conversation going and keep building relationships. That is what both social media and marketing are all about anyway.
• Put out good quality content. Content is not only king (yes it is important enough that I will keep repeating it) but is the key to effective SEO. Over time good content will build into a strong Web presence that will result in a true return on the time invested.
• Keep it interesting. People like interesting, entertaining, funny, informational, and different. People love the visual. Post the kind of things that your audience wants to read. Mix things up once in a while. It is ok to post text. It is also a good idea to post images, video, Slideshares, infographics, and yes even the occasional meme. The key is, if you aren’t offering them something in a way that they will find interesting they wont read your posts.

Balance

Just as in everyday life if you have no balance you will fall over, in your social media life if there is no balance something will eventually fall down. Just like any other aspect of living you need balance to be healthy. Spend your time on social networks. Also, spend time with other necessary parts of your business. Take time for a hobby. Spend time with friends and family. Take alone time for quiet. Find the balance you need and your social will stand stronger than ever.

Now take the steps you need to take to get into social shape.

How socially fit are you? Comment and let me know your thoughts.

Equation of a Successful Social Media Post

There are two types of posts in the realm of social media: those that are engaged with and those that are ignored. How are your posts doing? Are you getting the clicks that you are looking for? Are your posts selling? Ignored posts can be a great source of frustration for content writers. Are your posts being ignored? Perhaps it’s time to learn the successful post equation:

Hook + Useful + Benefit = Success

Lets take a closer look at the parts of the equation of posting success.

The Hook

The hook is exactly what it sounds like: something to get your readers’ attention. It can be something funny, shocking (yet tasteful), off the wall, or best of all it can be visual like a picture or video. Remember, the visual sells. Why is this an important point? It is important because if you don’t get your readers’ attention in the beginning you will likely lose them before the end.

Some tricks to make developing effective hooks easier:

• Brainstorm. Make a list of everything that comes to mind. When brainstorming there are no bad ideas. Keep it going till you run out of ideas for a hook. If you have a hard time getting started walk away for 15 or 20 minutes and come back to it.
• Save what you have brainstormed to use later. Over time you will have a list to fall back on if you need a hook but can’t come up with one.

The Useful

So you have hooked them in with a rock star level hook. Yes you are that good. Now what? Now that you have their attention it’s time to give them something they can use. If you get someone’s attention but have nothing to offer them you will lose that attention and have a hard time getting it back again. What is useful? Something that your reader can relate to and apply in some way. It can be something they can use in their business, to enhance their life, to find pleasure in, or even to share with others that need the information. Have something useful to offer them and you will keep their attention.

The Benefit

At this point you have hooked your readers in and provided them something they can use. Is that enough? Nope. If they can’t actually reap a benefit from what you have to say then they have no reason to use the information you have provided or to even continue reading your posts. A perceived benefit is a key to successful sales. Some examples of a good benefit?

• Something they can be entertainment by and laughter. People like to be entertained. They like things that amuse them.
• Show how what you are posting can improve their lives.
• Explain in a few words how the information can be beneficial to their business or career.
• Let them know whats in it for them.

A Successful Post

Look at what you have done. You got your readers’ attention, offered them something they can use, and showed them how the information you are selling will help them. What do you have? An epic post that just may lead to engagement and conversion.

Hook + Useful + Benefit = Success

Here are a couple examples:

“Want to save some money? Come to our big sale this Saturday and save save save! Save money and get quality merchandise.”
is better than
“Come to our big sale this Saturday and save save save.”

Or,

“Lose the old clunker and cruise in style! Visit us today for great deals on used cars. Upgrade your ride while giving your wallet a break.”
is better than,
“Great deals on used cars. Visit us today.”

Apply this simple formula to all of your posts and let me know if you have seen a difference in the responsiveness of your readers.

Share your comments. What tips can you offer on writing great social media posts?

Build a Solid Online Reputaion

Whether you know it or not you all have one. It can be positive or negative but it is always there. What am I talking about? I will answer this question with one word: Reputation. Now some interesting facts:

• Your boss probably has a Facebook account too.
• That job you are applying to will probably at least Google you and search for your name of Facebook.
• What you say online can be damaging in the “real” world.
• More people than you might think do pay attention to what you say in social media.

Online reputation can be just as empowering or damaging as your reputation in the brick and mortar world. Perhaps your online reputation has an even greater impact because it is on display to the whole world.

What can you do to build a positive reputation on social media? What kind of reputation do you want to build?

As Being Genuine

It is as simple as that. Don’t pretend to be someone you are not. Don’t try to live off the B.S. card. Be real. If you aren’t genuine you will eventually be found out and trust will inevitably be damaged. If you lose the trust of your customers, followers, and collaborators your brand will suffer.

As a Content Provider

Why should I read your post? Why should I follow you? When a reader reads a post, whether it be on Facebook or at their favorite blog they are looking for content. They don’t care what you need on your farm, they could care less how drunk you got last weekend, and the fact that you need new members on your mafia crew is completely irrelevant to them. They friended you, followed you, or subscribed to you because they want to hear what you have to say. They want something that will benefit or entertain them. They want to know you.

As an Authority

Do build a reputation as an authority requires the regular posting of content. It requires research and staying on top of your game. While avoiding the B.S. share what you do know. Learn what you don’t know. Be the expert that you can be and that your followers expect.

As Being Fun

Let’s face it, no one signs into social media to be bored. People want interesting. They want fun. They want entertaining. They want the visual and attention getting. If you come off as irrelevant or boring you will lose rather than gain a following.

To be fun:

• Don’t just post text 100% of the time. Be visual. Post images and video too.
• Try to say things in a fun and interesting way.
• While being an authority, don’t be serious all of the time. It is ok to be silly once in a while.
• Post things that are relevant to them.
• Post answers to questions they have.
• Provide information about things that matter to them.
• Here is a big one: Show them how your brand is a benefit to them.

Your reputation belongs to you. You have the power to build or destroy it. You also have the power to come off as an authority in your field or as irrelevant. The choice is yours and the choices you make will have a direct impact on your life, relationships, and career.

What kind of reputation do you want to build?