How to Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile

With more than 60 million members, LinkedIn has become the best resource for developing your professional network. It’s a great place to meet, post and find jobs, answer questions and join groups. Once you’ve created a basic profile, here are some tips to get the most out of LinkedIn.

First, and without question, your profile should be 100% complete. School, work, past work and other relevant information assists others searching for contacts, and helps build your own network. Next, add a profile photo. Your picture triggers recognition and makes networkers feel like they are connecting to a real person. Then optimize your summary section with relevant keywords. Use Google’s Keyword Tool or Wordtracker for your research. This particular section of your profile is often indexed fully by major search engines.

Potential SEO Benefits?
Take a look at this screenshot, which is a portion of my public LinkedIn profile. There is speculation (and some confirmation) the items in this section helps with organic search engine optimization.

• Add your website, link to your blog and link to your company. Make sure you further “edit” each by giving it a name other than the defaults provided by LinkedIn. As you can see from my list, I’m hyperlinking phrases such as “Marketing Blog” and “Consulting Services”.
• If you’re on Twitter, be sure to add your Twitter profile, and connect the accounts together. Under your profile, click on Edit and look for your Twitter settings. You could also try this link when logged in to LinkedIn.
• Always choose a real name or variation on your name over the default format LinkedIn provides for you. This certainly feeds your organic name optimization and enhances your online reputation. As you can see, my profile link is my full name “brianjfarrell”.

Connecting with Twitter
This image below shows my Twitter settings — my account name (@findtheclient), my privacy settings, and the most important section, whether or not all or select Tweets should show on my profile. When I first set this up, I sent all Tweets to LinkedIn. Since I’m on Twitter often, this amounted to sometimes a dozen or more updates in a single day. When friends said they couldn’t keep up with me, I changed this to show only Tweets with the “#in” hashtag. Much better results, and I can leave up new blog posts or polls for a longer period of time.

Build Your Connections
Once you’ve done the above, it’s time to build your network. Start with people you know, such as co-workers, clients and colleagues. Also look for connections by company name, under the “Companies” tab. Once you’ve built up this initial base of connections, ask for and make recommendations. But before you do this, read as many as you can. You’ll quickly see what makes up a good (or bad) recommendation. It also helps to personalize your request for a recommendation rather then sending out the canned form letter provided by LinkedIn.

Finally, updated your status often, since it appears on LinkedIn as well as in network updates to your connections. Updates should be considered a professional status, not what you’re eating for lunch. And if you haven’t done so, let’s connect on LinkedIn!

My Two-Month Plan for Better Social Marketing

Dale Carnegie once said “You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.” So I’m taking this quote as a challenge to myself to become more social, and more interested in, those of you following me on Twitter, reading this blog or visiting me on Facebook. This goes beyond just “liking” someone’s status on Facebook, and doing something more meaningful than only re-tweeting on Twitter. I’m active in a number of locations, and here are the action steps I plan to take for each:

Twitter
How do you cultivate relationships in 140 characters or less? Not sure it can be done, but I’m going to focus more on @ replies and direct messages with new and existing followers. Second, to create more fun and interaction, I’m going to add polls, quotes and other things of interest more frequently. I don’t have the biggest following, but of the people I follow who do, it’s an endless barrage of self-promotion, MLM offers and the like. I’d rather tweet the same interesting post 3-4 times a day than blast out marketing messages. Third, and maybe this should have been first, I’m going to focus on Twitter lists targeting my geographic area, monitoring for tweet-ups and participating in real world networking. It’s much easier to connect with someone when you meet face to face.

Facebook
Right now, my blog posts automatically feed to Facebook, and I’ve installed the Selective Tweets application so I can tag choice tweets to appear on Facebook. This passive approach hasn’t created much interaction, other than lots of “likes” on my posts. Instead, I plan to offer exclusive material to my Facebook fans. Also, and being really careful not to abuse, send messages and content to them directly via the messaging center on the fan page. An ideal outcome would be a combined tweet-up and Facebook meet-up in the Lehigh Valley (where I live).

LinkedIn
I used to feed my Tweets directly to LinkedIn as status updates, until a close friend told me he couldn’t keep up with me anymore. If he felt that way, I imagine many others did as well. So I’ve changed the application to only accept tweets with the #in hashtag. This way, I can be much more selective, and when linking to a recent article or post I’ve written, can leave it on LinkedIn as a status update for a day or so to get maximum viewership. Going beyond a commitment to write more recommendations, I plan to answer more questions and be more than a lurker on the groups I belong to. Finally, instead of waiting for an introduction, I’m going to turn the tables and introduce people to my network.

Blogging
This goes beyond my own blog, and maybe should be labeled “commenting on blogs”. Every blogger out there, regardless of fame or perceived fame, is driven hugely by their ego. I’ve always wondered who’s reading my blog, and the only proof I have, beyond what Google Analytics tells me, are the comments made. I can assure you, I will read each and every comment that comes in. Even some of the ones Askimet marks as spam. I’d venture to guess other bloggers do the same thing. So, I’ve reached a simple conclusion — the best way to engage with someone is to leave thoughtful, meaningful comments on his or her blog. It’s also proof you’re reading the material, and regular comments on blogs are a sure sign you value and appreciate the writer’s hard work. I doubt this will go unnoticed. If you have only limited time in your day for social marketing, I’d focus 95% of my efforts on entering thoughtful comments on blogs. It’s that powerful.

So there you have my two month plan. Lots of writing, reading and typing. Buying coffee for fans and friends who want to meet in real life. And truly enjoying social marketing. Will you join me?

Photo credit by eduardtrag.

Three Free Ways to Grow Your Business in 2010

Here are three areas to focus on or add to your January marketing plans. Each of these will generate new leads for your law firm or other professional services practice. The best part? All of these are free, requiring only time and talent.

Local Listings
The practice of law, or any other service, is typically a combination of a problem + a location (e.g. “divorce lawyer in Dallas”), so claim your listing on Google’s Local Business Center and on Yahoo Local.

Ratings & Reviews
Ask current clients to rate and review your practice on Yelp. This site has grown beyond just reviews on restaurants, and organizes businesses in more than 20 categories, such as Local Services, Professional Services, and Real Estate. If you’re not part of the conversation, how do you know what’s being said? Simple instructions are found on Yelp’s Business Owners Guide.

Networking
When asked, nearly all service providers like to say they get business “by referral” so put your networking on steroids and join LinkedIn. The best ways to use this site, beyond simple networking, are by joining groups and answering questions. But don’t neglect your network! Writing unsolicited recommendations is the best way to get more of your own. And if you’re a lawyer or an attorney, join Martindale-Hubbell Connected, which is a professional network is designed exclusively for legal professionals.

Build your marketing plan from these three foundational elements, and you’ll be well on your way to growing your service-based business in 2010.

Social Marketing

Social marketing uses the sound techniques of Internet marketing and the proven power behind word-of-mouth advertising to create instant buzz for a company’s products, services and brand. Through highly visited social sites like MySpace and Facebook, interest-driven networks like Stumbleupon and Del.icio.us, and popularity-based sites like Digg and Reddit, companies are using Social marketing techniques to effectively reach their target audiences.

What is social marketing?
Social marketing is the indirect spread of a website’s products, services, information, and opinions through channels and networks formed by various social groups a/k/a “virtual friends”. The foundation of these social friendships is built on a type of “web trust”, as group members gain popularity by expanding on, debating, support and providing contributions to current topics. And because group members may belong to and hold similar discussions within multiple groups and networks, the viral growth of a topic (or product or company) becomes explosive.

Social Marketing: Out With the Old, In With the New
With social sites doing the marketing, the days of soft selling are out and social marketing is in. Consumers have spoken, and no one wants to hear from strangers about a product or service, or how a company can change the world with its new, revolutionary idea, or how much lower and better a price or product is. When generated by members of the social media websites, your message changes from marketing noise into a viral, marketing “buzz”.

A Few Tools of Social Marketing: Blogs, Tags and Sharing
Blogs, short for weblogs, are online commentaries and journals of free speech. Blogs have been very popular over the last few years, especially in the political and high-tech arena. Today’s companies use them to discuss relevant topics, promote and review their products and to answer questions posed by consumers. Loved by search engines, linked to by other websites and read by faithful followers, blogs are becoming even more popular as an online marketing tool.

And with blogs, come tags – the author’s labeling of a blog post (or any web page) with relevant keywords (tags) to help those searching find the page. Used with blog indexing systems like Technorati, tags are an alternative traffic generator bringing in both traffic and inbound links to tagged pages.

Once a blog entry has been tagged, others looking for topics related to the tagged keywords will be lead to click through. If a visitor finds thinks the information in the blog entry needs to be shared, tools like those provided by Stumbleupon, Digg, and Del.icio.us provide ways to tell others of the new find. As more people “stumble upon”, “digg” or find the entry to be “del.icio.us” the more likely the blog will enter into the world of mega-social medias like Facebook, Flickr, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc. where it’s popularity will continue to grow.

Conclusion
Social marketing is fast becoming an inexpensive way to gain visibility, build a network of followers and to get the word out on products, services and expertise. When used properly, social marketing’s very nature will create a wealth of inbound links, increase visibility and promote the Internet buzz for a company or organization. The realized effects tend to be an increase in search engine rank, brand trust and the power to influence others online.

With social marketing, hard sells become obsolete and softsells are seen as welcomed suggestions; visitors become advocates, and supporters become your sales teams. It’s becoming the most efficient and effective way to harness the power of the web.