You keep hearing me say that LinkedIn is the go-to place for growing your business. Whether you are trying to expand your reach, discover new talent, or stay up-to-date on industry happenings, LinkedIn is your one stop shop for all of it.
But, is there a right and a wrong way to go about growing your business on LinkedIn? There most definitely is! Below, you will find 20 DOs and DON’Ts to keep in mind when creating your LinkedIn growth strategy.
DO share your LinkedIn URL everywhere to encourage connecting with your current customers and business associates. This includes adding your URL to business cards, email signature, live stream broadcast profiles, etc. Authentic connecting is key.
DON’T send connection requests to perfect strangers only because you want to grow your number of connections. Doing so can lead to complaints, and with enough complaints you’ll be banned from LinkedIn.
DO send messages to people thanking them for connecting with you. Find something in their profile you can mention so they know it’s not a copied and pasted message (even though it likely is, just personalized!) It’s a great way to engage quickly with new connections.
DON’T immediately message new connections about YOUR products and services.
DO make sure your profile is “client facing.” Let people know what you can do for THEM.
DON’T list your accomplishments just to impress or brag. List them to position yourself as someone worthy of your followers’ time.
DO tell your new connections where you first came across them! Build upon that common link.
DON’T use the default connection request when reaching out to someone. Be sure to personalize the message to better catch the attention of the recipient.
DO get written recommendations from past clients or business partners.
DON’T forget to write an engaging summary to include in your profile.
DO post a professional photo of yourself in your profile.
DON’T just list facts and figures about your positions. Describe the work that you did, paint a clear picture of your responsibilities and accomplishments.
DO write an eye-catching headline and insert emojis to standout in the crowd.
DON’T neglect your privacy settings. Make sure you’re aware of the settings and change them as necessary.
DO take the time to nurture the connections you make, build upon your commonalities, and grow your network the smart way.
DON’T forget to save all those business cards you collect at conferences and meetups and connect with these people when you get back to the office.
DO join groups and engage with fellow members by posting new discussions or commenting on previous posts.
DON’T miss a chance to communicate with your connections. Comment on updates they make, congratulate them on promotions, and stay in the know on what’s happening with your connections.
DO regularly post status updates on your page. Engage your connections, talk about your business, ask questions and encourage interaction.
DON’T forget to add keywords to your profile. Think of the words that people will search for when looking for the service or product you provide. Incorporate these words and phrases into your profile.
Growing a business can take time. But, with the proper LinkedIn growth strategy and tactics in place, your network will grow, opportunities will arise, and you and your business will reap the benefits.
Have any other dos and don’ts to share? Jump on over and join my LinkedIn Group and let us know!
Periscope is a revolutionary live-video streaming app that has transformed the way we communicate with prospects and customers. From demonstrating new products and soliciting customer feedback, to announcing breaking news, and building relationships, Periscope can help you do it all with a simple tap of an app on your smartphone.
Here’s a list of everything you need to know from A-Z about Periscope.
A – Authenticity is key to a successful broadcast.
B – Build relationships on this valuable and growing platform.
C- Consistent broadcasting means you are regularly in front of your followers.
D- Demonstrate your genius by choosing inspiring topics.
E- Emojis make your title stand out.
F- Find a new audience and increase your marketing reach.
G- Grow your email list regularly through regular broadcasts.
H- Help your followers understand your value and give them a reason to keep coming back for more.
I- Increase your following with consistent and engaging content.
J- Join Periscope and follow me to get more social media tips.
K- Know what you want to cover during your broadcast. Make notes beforehand to help keep you on track.
L- Listen to the comments and reply when you can!
M- Mention the names of people watching your broadcast so they feel connected to you.
N- never miss a comment on Periscope when you install Chatterbox.
O- Optimize your profile description.
P- Pump up the energy during your broadcast.
Q- Questions engage your audience. Take note of responses for future broadcasting topics.
R- Recap your message as new followers start watching your live feed.
S- Stay positive! No one want wants to buy from a Negative Nelly.
T- Twitter lists of your Periscope followers help you stay engaged with the people who consistently show up for your broadcasts.
U- Understand what your followers want and adjust your conversation accordingly.
V- Virtual connections? YES! Nurture those relationships and watch your following grow.
W- Welcome your viewers and always be sure to introduce yourself.
X- XOXO – Ask your followers to give you some love by tapping on the hearts.
Y- Yield more results on Periscope by following others, responding to comments, and being consistent.
Z- Zip on over to Fullscope and checkout the latest analytics available for live broadcasting.
Have any favorite Periscope memories? Comment below and share it with us now!
If not, it’s time to jump on the social selling bandwagon. According to a recent survey conducted by The Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, LinkedIn is the most utilized and effective B2B social media platform.
The days of cold calling are quickly coming to an end and we are now immersed in a new age – social selling.
Customers are savvy. They are extremely knowledgeable about the products they are buying and people with whom they conduct business. Marketing can no longer solely focus on flashy sales tactics that promote a product or service. Instead, businesses need to spend time learning about their prospects and engaging in conversations with them.
Social selling is a combination of active listening, learning, and sharing insightful and meaningful information. With LinkedIn being the most effective social media platform, its true power lies in growing a network and building strong relationships. To get started, you need to create a standout profile page, one that will captivate your audience and leave a lasting first impression. It needs to be well written, look professional, and establish your credibility. Once you have a killer profile in place, it’s time to start networking.
Finding the right people is the key to social selling. Who have you worked with in the past? Who are they connected to? Who do you want to worth with? Identifying your ideal customer and communicating with them to better understanding their needs is a crucial part of the sales process. From there, you can develop an individualized and targeted approach. Leveraging your LinkedIn network can open so many doors resulting in introductions, partnerships, background information on your prospects, and ultimately sales.
It really all comes down to this: the best sales opportunities are a result of referrals. And with a solid social selling strategy and proper execution LinkedIn becomes an invaluable marketing tool that will position you as a trusted leader in your industry result in sales.
Want to share examples of great social selling? Jump on over and join my LinkedIn Groupand let us know!
This past Friday I spent the morning hanging out with Hoda Kotb, of Today Show fame. I wanted to share this story with you and talk about how this all came about and what it’s doing for my business!
I listen to EVERYTHING I can find about LinkedIn. I wasn’t born knowing this stuff, and I like to hear what every single LinkedIn expert is saying! I learn something from everyone, and then I can determine if it’s something I can implement and incorporate in my teachings. So I’m listening to a webinar, and Christina was the guest. She was talking about how important LinkedIn can be for your Public Relations efforts. As she was talking, I was thinking “every word that’s coming out of this woman’s mouth is something I would say”. I LOVED the interview, and reached out to her after the interview to tell her that.
I was working on Portraits and Profits at the time and we were looking for someone to facilitate the PR piece of the training. Now remember, I didn’t know Christina AT ALL, but went with my gut. She loved the project and agreed to be a part of it! Portraits and Profits doesn’t have anything currently on the calendar, but Christina and I became fast friends and we’ve been working together on projects ever since. Oh and we have some fun too! Check us out backstage at the Rockefeller Center Christmas Spectacular with the camel.
Business Lesson 1 – JUST ASK.
I reached out to a perfect stranger, introduced myself and asked her to be a part of my project. She agreed. Since that time, Christina and I discovered how much more powerful our individual work was when we combined our efforts. We started bringing each other in on private client projects, she does her PR magic, feeds me names of journalists and publications she’s targeting, and I incorporate it into the social media strategy. MAGIC happens folks, I’m telling you. Our clients are getting amazing results.
Which led to Get Seen Be Heard. Working privately with us is an investment, it’s a ton of one-on-one time with us both. We wanted to find a way to bring these techniques to more people! #GetSeenBeHeard was born and we’re interviewing AMAZING smart successful people each week. They’re sharing their secrets on how they’ve grown their businesses, and we’re loving every minute of it. Join us live on Blab each week! Check either Christina’s profile or my profile to subscribe and get to chat with us both directly.
When Christina called me a few months ago to tell me she landed an interview with Hoda Kotb, I was THRILLED for her. She works her tail off to get these kinds of opportunities for her clients and I loved that she landed this one for herself. For months I saw her planning this event, getting amazing sponsors, pulling together the event of a lifetime.
About two weeks ago I said to her “I want to come”. I wanted to go, not only to be there to experience the amazing event, but to support Christina. I had (and still have!) no idea how or if this would benefit MY business, but I knew I had to be there. So I offered to come and do all the social media for the event, for free. Christina went into action, getting me a front row seat next to Hoda’s mom, getting me unlimited access to all of the individual events, and getting me my first press pass.
And it was unbelievably amazing. Christina knocked the interview out of the park, and I was running around like an ant taking pictures and posting them all over PR for Anyone’s social media sites. Somehow, I was the only person allowed to post, everyone else had to repost MY stuff! The event was held in the Capital One corporate offices, the Capital One social media team worked through me to get their stuff posted. The Virginia Tech people worked through me to get their stuff posted. The other sponsors worked through me to get their stuff posted. It was SO MUCH FUN.
And Hoda was a doll. As was her mom and her team. They were so fantastic and warm and friendly. Here are a couple of pics.
Business Lesson 2: Be generous with your expertise, even when you’re not sure how it’s going to pay off!
And then my girl Christina. Holy Macaroni. She ROCKED the interview with Hoda. She came up with a big idea and made it happen. Christina and Hoda are both graduates of Virginia Tech, and she found that commonality and made it win-win for them both. She created an event in Hoda’s book tour that is sure to stand out from the rest, and got to know and interview Hoda personally. Amazingness. How did she land this gig? She asked for it.
Check her out.
Business Lesson 3 – ASK for what you want.
Yup, it bears repeating. If you don’t ask, it’s a no. So in your business, what big dream do you have? Who can you ask today to take a step towards making it happen?
I want to know! Comment below, tell me what your big ask is this week.
I talk a lot about social media and frequency of posting, in fact that IS a mainstay of my own personal business model. I still maintain 22 or more tweets per day, a few posts per day on Facebook, and multiple blogs a week (well it’s my goal that’s for sure).
As someone who is hired to do this for corporations, big business and small, I understand the pace is difficult to match. But remember I have to do all these posts, tweets and prompts for myself too!
A lot of the day to day questions I get are regarding strategy: online business social media strategy to be exact and I often address the answers in varying topics on this blog. However where is strategy if you just don’t know what to post?
Strategy is nowhere, that’s where.
You can’t start with strategy you have to start with the conversation. So in an attempt to provoke some inspiration on what to talk about when you have no idea what to talk about I thought I’d compile a few of my best “strategies” on social media writers block.
A Few of My best “Strategies” to Tackle Social Media Writer’s Block
ONE: Always always always start with what is trending that day on your chosen social media platform.
The day I am writing this (usually only a couple weeks ahead of when it actually posts) Twitter was trending with a really great topic: The Best Books of 2015. You can see everything that is trending that day and for how long on the lower left hand side of your Twitter home page. Anyone know why The Best Books of 2015 is such a great trend? Because there are so many different and interesting things you can say about it!
You can talk about:
The books you have read or want to read
A specific book and do a book review
Your opinion that a certain book should be on the list
Your followers opinions and take a poll (Hint: use this for future research!)
Quotes from some of your favorites on the list – everyone loves a good quote
And the list goes on. You can even create your own Best Books of 2015 and post that! Because everyone loves lists and your future clients want to know what you think.
Sometimes we aren’t so lucky on all platforms. Take a look at what is trending on Facebook today:
Not much positivity there, nor is there much you can focus on as a business. But hey this is where imagination comes in – have fun with it!
Why don’t you:
Use the trend of Yahoo’s CEO severance package post and ask your followers what they would do with $150million.
Ask if you should read the book or just watch the show in regards to the Game of Thrones post.
Mention how much you love Dancing with the Stars and who your favorite contestant was?
All of these are fun, inviting, add personality and also engage your audience while at the same time getting you more bang for the buck with each post. Every time you attach to a trending topic with a hash tag or subject you have a better chance of being found and read because more people are talking and reading about that very same thing! Make sense?
TWO: I take a look at what my competitors are doing.
What are your competitors talking and blogging about these days? What is on their mind and in their wheelhouse? Do you see a trend or a topic or two you haven’t covered yourself in awhile? Well then get to it and be inspired to write the best blog post or the most interesting Tweets this side of Tennessee!
Today while researching this post I found a random list of the top ten social media blogs of 2015 (of which I am not on…YET!) So I decided to take a look at what these top ten had to say.
What some of my competition is talking about:
Facebook ads, and a tutorial for them
Sponsored content – when, how and why to use it
Snapchat promotions
Video content creation
This encouraged me to keep talking about LinkedIn and all my strategies because it was not being talked about as much, so from there I can stand out in the crowd.
This research also showed me that maybe I could add a few new topics to my upcoming blogs such as how to create a great video to post to attracting sponsored content to using other platforms not included in the big 5 (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram).
THREE: Pay for a little help.
There are all sorts of tools out there that help you pick topics, popular posts, and viral trends to capitalize on when creating your own social media marketing and I won’t go into all of them here but sometimes all we need is a little leg up. There is so much content out there already one of the best ideas to get eyes on and likes on your page is to share posts that are the most popular already. Typically these are image driven posts, possibly with a quote or a video.
One such application is Post Planner. Membership starts at $5 or $7 a month and if you have multiple business pages on Facebook this is definitely a plus for you. They have a tool called the Viral Photo Finder that will allow you to search pages in your niche that have posted a photo that has gone viral (number of shares in relation to number of fans) you can then share that photo which may prompt the same response from your fans. Photo credit is always given automatically when you click the share button. You can even add it to your scheduler queue right from there!
Now I haven’t used Post Planner extensively nor am I an affiliate but I wanted to show you that there are options out there when you are stuck staring at a blank screen knowing you need to get something out on social media, but not sure what.
Want to test out a post or a Post Planner Pick? Join me in my LinkedIn group and lay it on us! Myself and 600 other members will be there to help you out!
“In-the-moment”, one click, instant, and privacy protection are all words and topics that will define social media marketing in 2016.
I want to make sure we are all on topic and on trend with our business social media plan as we head into a new year. So let’s dive in shall we?
1. “In-the-moment”
So much of social media thus far, with the large exception of Twitter, could be past or future events, resources and content, scheduled posts, etc. Which are all valuable and still important in your social media marketing plan. However with the advent of Periscope and Blab, posting on social media has evolved into decidedly more of a “what is happening right now” type of gig. Both of those platforms are live video feeds and they are both becoming enormously popular. So even if you loathe the thought of getting on camera, you can still take this idea of “in-the-moment” posts and run with it on all of your other platforms.
You can talk about:
your day and all the things that went wrong
current clients
funny things that happened on the way to the bus stop
an act of kindness you just witnessed or just did
This list can go on and is only limited by your imagination and your willingness to keep social media a more live version of who you are and what you do. Stop crafting every post and send out something you only thought about for 5 seconds and see what happens! I promise you and your authenticity will generate fans.
2. One Click
Have you dabbled in social media ads yet? Well you should set one of your resolutions to try a Facebook ad in 2016. Especially if you sell products online. Facebook and other ad integrations are now creating buy buttons to enhance the user experience, make it easier for them to buy, and most importantly (to the platform) keep them on their site. To you this means your customers are more likely to purchase (think of the devilish “one click ordering” on Amazon – anyone else fall prey to its convenience?) and more likely to purchase more which are all good things when it comes to being a business owner willing to pay the advertisers fees.
For now, this functionality is on each site’s mobile version, but just think how easy it will be for your customers when:
standing in line at the mall – click!
waiting for an appointment – click!
sitting in the parking lot waiting for the kids – click!
can’t sleep? grab your phone – click!
Facebook and Pinterest are the two main platforms so far to roll out this feature but Instagram may not be far behind. Both Pinterest and Instagram, with their image driven visual sites are perfect for this kind of ad functionality.
Click here for a great article on what this means if you haven’t already experienced it on your mobile device or tablet.
3. Instant
As in instant information. Facebook and Twitter have just launched (or are launching) the ability to search for articles, stories, inside the social media application itself without having to follow certain people or search for specific hashtags. This allows users to pull up an instant list of “moments” as Twitter calls it, to their feed without crafting a single tweet. On Facebook you can do a search and post the link directly to your status update.
Why is this important? One, it’s instant information for you, and two, you never have to leave the platform to go search on Google. That’s the goal anyway. The longer you stay there the more ads you see, the more information they gather, and the more “Buy Now” buttons you click.
Your actions for 2016?
Try out instant publish on Facebook.
Search for ‘moments’ in Twitter to use as trending topic research, inspiration, or leads.
Pick one platform a day and learn to use these features in your social media campaigns without having to jump around, logging in and logging out.
4. Privacy Protection
This is a hot topic now and will only get hotter in 2016. Think of the Ashley Madison scandal and the in-your-face advertising that follows you from platform to platform a split second after you have clicked on that couch you would only dream about buying. This trend is hard to ignore as business owners and consumers ourselves. The best way to jump on this hot topic is to make sure your own clients feel secure and safe when they interact with you, your social media, and your website. Be up front, be honest, and never sell or rent your lists. Treat your consumers with respect and you will earn their money.
Have your own ideas of what will be big and hot in 2016? Jump on over and join my LinkedIn Group and let us know!
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