Jody Raines

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Social Media And Social Networking: Best Practices And Big Mistakes For LinkedIn

Jody Raines, web marketing communications, webmarcomSocial media, especially LinkedIn, are networking tools which, when applied correctly, can potentially grow your business exponentially.  Utilizing social media channels correctly shouldn’t be difficult, yet for some reason, the people who use all social media channels to blast out the same message, will continue to barrage the wrong people with the wrong messaging.  What a turn off.  Indeed, the folks who use social media incorrectly will stop reading and continue to make the same mistakes that cause prospects to opt-out and disconnect.

If you find that you have a large number of opt-outs of your email campaigns, or you notice that your social media followers or likes are dwindling, read on…

Here are the three biggest LinkedIn Mistakes that I see over and over again… by sales and marketing “pros” who are too eager to “use” social media to generate leads.

Frankly, any of the following mistakes would result in not connecting, disconnecting or opting out.

Three BIG LinkedIn Mistakes:

First mistake – if you met someone at a networking event, chamber meeting, or family barbecue and you exchanged business cards that’s not always the best way to add to your network. When you establish a rapport with someone, and you feel that you can confidently recommend their services or refer business to them, then you should add them to your network. A great thing to do when you add someone is to mention how you met them or something from that conversation. I cannot tell you the number of times I have not accepted a request to connect because I didn’t remember whether I knew the person or how we met.

Second mistake – if the person connects with you, please, do not send them a note immediately trying to share what you do and why they should work with you. Unless that’s continuing a conversation where the person indicated that they were interested, slamming someone that way will not endear you to the new connection.

Third mistake – if you think it’s cool to send your ‘newsletter’ or ‘announcement’ to all your contacts through LinkedIn and that your going to get a ton of business that way, thing again. It’s actually somewhat disrespectful to send a blanket email to your contacts that way. No one wants to be addressed as “Dear Contact”. The power of LinkedIn is that it gives you some great information, and you have the opportunity to make the connection more personal.

Best practices – LinkedIn

Here’s a recipe to utilize the power of Linked in that can work for you. Let me know if you have other tips that work well, and we can share them.

  • Fill in your entire profile. LinkedIn represents an opportunity to share your resume online. Be complete and share relevant information that can be searched for keywords.
  • Use links to your website and change the description for SEO. The links in your profile use default descriptions for “my website” and “m y blog”. You can change these to a phrase or company name for improved search engine optimization.
  • Ask for Referrals. If one of your contacts is connected to someone you would like to know, there is an appropriate way to request a referral. Be sure to explain how you can HELP the recipient contact. If you only want to connect to sell them something, or if you do not add value, you should re-think wasting your contact’s time.
  • Connect with your former associates. Think about high school or college – each of your friends there has gone on to different organizations or companies. Adding them to your network can expand the strength of your network considerably. People you used to work with, for example, most likely have moved on to other positions within other organizations. Adding them to your network gives you the opportunity to connect with their connections or ask fro introductions… Very powerful when used correctly!
  • Join groups. A little known feature of groups is that it adds the ability to connect with other members of the group. If you want to meet people or add to your network, joining groups and participating in group discussions is a great way to get your name out there.
  • Ask questions. Withing groups and within LinkedIn, asking questions can help you to identify others who can utilize your services. A well worded question can expose motivations and vulnerabilities that you have the ability to help with. For example, a client who does vehicle wraps could ask a question regarding the top issues for wrapping a fleet of vehicles. If answered, the person has now identified the fact that they have a fleet of vehicles and that they are having a problem. Based upon the problem, this could be an amazing prospect… Think about it!
  • Connect with other group members. Other group members have networks too – and their network could be greatly different than yours. By connecting with others in your group, you now have new contacts that are just a couple of degrees of separation from you, and those numbers increase algebraically.
  • Use Search to connect with company. If you use the search function within LinkedIn, it helps you discover who, within your network, may be connected with someone at that company. Try it – it’s very cool!
    Ask for introductions. If you share how you can help the person you are requesting an introduction to, and if you have a good relationship with the person from whom you are requesting the introduction, this can be a powerful tool.
  • Post periodically. Recently LinkedIn introduced the ability to have articles posted. It’s wonderful exposure – you never know who you may reach! If your post is intelligent and has good content, you will get some attention.

 

There are many new and exciting ways to utilize the power of LinkedIn for connecting and generating new leads. What are some of the ways that you have had success? Have you tried any of these ideas? What was the result?

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Social Media Fail: Are You Using Linkedin Wrong?

Linkedin Fail

Linkedin: Are You  Doing It Wrong?

If you had a dollar for every mistake that someone made using social media, you’d be a very wealthy person! In the meantime, the catalyst for this post was an email that I received from someone I am not well acquainted with, but who asked to connect with me on Linkedin.

The letter began with, “Im sorry to bother you but…”

For the record, I really like LinkedIn. It’s a resume online and also a living Rolodex (yes, I am dating myself), but the cool thing is that it enables me to keep up with my professional network despite years and distance and career hops and leaps and changes. I love the fact that each person updates their contact information so I can congratulate them on the promotions, or encourage them through the changes. It’s remarkable because it’s a tool for business relationships, unlike Facebook or Google+ or Twitter or Instagram. In this respect, Linkedin is unique and I love that about this interface.

Common Linkedin Mistakes:

1. LinkedIn is a BUSINESS Social network platform

So, my first gripe with new users is a big mistake of not understanding the nature of Linked-in as a business platform. It’s fine to connect with friends and expand your relationship to include business. What is not fine is to undermine your professional account with a casual, non-business profile photo. That means the picture of your beautiful dog or amazing cat will not do – unless you want to give the impression of being less than credible. Also, the photo of you swinging a bat at the company softball game, not a good choice. You should pic a photo of you playing baseball if you are a pro baseball player, otherwise, it’s not the right image to project. Leave the sweatshirts, tank tops, cocktail hour, family vacation shots on Facebook – this is not the place for them.

2. Don’t spam the Linked in Connections

My second gripe – ok, so we are connected. Now is your chance! Develop a social media relationship, right? Send an email, get to know each other… or wait, try to sell me something? What? I don’t really know you, I connected because perhaps we met at an event and had a nice conversation… the reality is that you don’t know me, don’t know my company and you are sending me the same template email you sent to everyone else. Do you really think I am going to jump out of my seat now that I got your email and pick up the phone to buy what you are selling? I don’t think so. In fact, most sales take place after you have developed a relationship. Social media is “social” for a reason – to use it as a device to create more emails to send out letter to is a disservice to you, your organization and it’s disrespectful of the connection. If you use Linked in to attempt to sell to me, you risk being disconnected. If I like you, I may reach out to you first, to try to explain why what you did was a bad idea… if that doesn’t work, will disconnect. Part of the power of linkedin is the ability to potentially connect with the connections of the person you are connected to. Yes, that sounds complicated, but what it means is that my network is now open for you to peruse. Why would I open my network to someone who seems to be ignorant of the protocols? I don’t want to be associated with that behavior, nor would I do business with someone who utilizes a network that way, so it’s not a loss to disconnect.

3 Linkedin is about QUALITY not QUANTITY

My third gripe and a very common mistake, is the false belief that someone who has a lot of connections must be very important. There are some people on Linkedin who will connect with anyone and everyone – this is called an “Open Networker” To say that someone has the “most” connections on Linked in does not say the same thing as having the most relationships. There is greater power in having relationships where you can ask or share or tell and it has some influence. The relative amount of influence if directly correlated to the depth of the relationship and the mutual respect. If I met you once at a networking event, and you immediately stared spamming my inbox, there is no mutual respect, no relationship, and no reason to continue to stay ‘connected’.

Bottom line: I suppose if you start an email with “I’m sorry to bother you, but…” you already know it’s not a good idea to send the email, right?

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How To Identify A Social Media Friend or Stalker?

Jody RainesThere seems to be a strange phenomena that is taking place and it’s a “new” way of connecting that is difficult to classify. The line between a new friend and a overly curious acquaintance has created a curious change in the way we protect or fail to protect our privacy.

The Facebook post that becomes a chat, for example, is an introduction of sorts. It’s a way that various people who may otherwise never connect, wind up discussion a topic with each other.

A few weeks ago, I was chatting about the season finale of The Walking Dead with several of my friends. As you can imagine, it was a lively post because as things happened, someone would make a comment and then others would chime in.  All was cool, until a male friend made a comment about one of my female friend’s pets.  They did not know each other, they live in different states, and their only connection to each other was through my association with both of them.   The reason this was odd – was because the woman did not have a picture of her pet on her profile photo, so my conjecture is that my male friend went to her profile page to “check her out”.

I’ve noticed several connections made this way, and most of them are harmless.   For example, a male friend of mine who is married is now connected to a female friend who has a life partner.  Although they are dichotomous extremes in a political sense, ironically their sense of humor is shared, and therefore, they connected.   I think that is kind of cool because under any other circumstance, these two people would never have ‘met’.

Another association is with a friend of mine who recently got a Siberian Husky puppy.  Just so happens another friend of mine breeds and shows Huskies.  By bringing the first person’s attention to the adorable videos of irresistable baby Huskies, he wound up connecting with my friend the breeder.  Of course this ‘friendship’ now has a life of it’s own.

Every now and then, I have a friend request from someone I don’t know.   I typically check to see how we are connected – what mutual friends we have.  In most instances, I will send off a quick note to the mutual connection to ask how they know the person and whether the individual is legitimate.   Periodically, I find that my friends have not been diligent in evaluating whether the profile is genuine.  I’ve seen several situation s where I’ve been asked to connect with someone I thought I was already connected to, only to learn that their profile picture had been used to make a ‘fake’ account that was now harvesting their friends.  A quick call to the original person may tip them off to potential fraud.

My advice is as follows:

1. Don’t post anything that is too personal or that you don’t want the world to know. Regardless of privacy settings the first rule is that NOTHING is private.

2. Periodically check your friends to determine if there are duplicates.  If you find the dupe, a little bit of research may help a friend who may be unaware that their profile was duplicated or compromised.

3. Don’t open attachments that you are not sure of.  I get these emails almost every day – an email that appears to come from a Facebook friend’s name, but it only has a link to a masked url.   These can contain trojans or viruses, so you should be absolutely cautious before clicking on them.   In fact, if you look at the name and then click on the name to see the email address it actually came from, you may be surprised it is also masked.  In other words, it’s an email from an unknown person that appears to be coming from someone you know.

4. If someone you recently connected with starts commenting on old pictures, it can be disconcerting.  Even more upsetting is they start posting pictures of you!  I had a situation recently where an individual started posting pictures of people who had deceased during the year and tagging the family indicating that they hadn’t forgotten.  In this instance, I think it was supposed to be a caring gesture, but it came across as very unsettling.

5. Be suspicious.  I know, it sounds awful, but in this day and age where profiles can be created and deleted in the blink of an eye, there are too many charlatans intent on obtaining personal information.  A healthy skepticism can save a lot of future grief.

What strange connections have you encountered?  Have you been friend requested by a clone of a friend and you caught it?  I’m curious what you are seeing, and if you have additional thoughts with regard to staying safe on social media sites.

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