This video is only 7 minutes long but it’s packed with good information.  Also, check out Biz Sugar.  It seems to be a great place to hone your writing skills and get plenty of exposure for your content. I registered already. If you do too, let me know what you think.

Anita Campbell from Michael A. Stelzner on Vimeo.

What are you doing to gain attention for your business content?

Ready to get your blogging on? First you need a good hosting service. I recommend Blue Host.
(Disclosure: I am an affliate with this company and a satisfied user of the service.)

With 100 million members, many of whom are executives from Fortune 500 companies, it is hard to overlook the impact that LinkedIn is having on the professional’s career.  How many connection invitations have you received lately?  No doubt, you have received enough of them to catch your attention.  If you are not using LinkedIn for personal and business branding, have you been feeling as if you might be missing something?  It is possible that you are missing more than you know.

Can an incomplete LinkedIn profile hurt me in business? 

Short answer:  yes.  In the same way that an incomplete or amateur website says something about you or your business so does an incomplete profile. Nowadays, people ask Google for answers long before they phone a friend. Google indexes LinkedIn profiles.  When yours comes up in response to an online search, wouldn’t you want it to be a link that people will actually click on and get the answers they are looking for. When an incomplete profile starts to affect your business or personal brand then it is time to take corrective actions.

What corrective actions should I take to improve my LinkedIn profile?

Photo and Headline:  Make sure you have one.  Nothing is more disappointing than searching for someone only to find that there is no photo to help identify if you have the right person.  The photo helps to add a human element to your business.  Take the best headshot you can.  There should be nothing in the background or any other people in the picture.  Save that one for Facebook.  The headline should be descriptive.  Avoid putting only your job title or company name as this does nothing to explain why a person should open your profile.  Try to use your best keywords.

 Status updates:  This is one simple way to keep fresh content coming.  Any updates or linked conversations from Twitter show up underneath your headline.  Keep your conversation appropriate for business, however, that doesn’t mean you can’t let your personality show.  If you wouldn’t talk about a subject at the water cooler at work then don’t on LinkedIn.  With that said, if anyone wants to talk about Design Star, I’m available…just saying.

Summary Section:  Here is a place where you can tell people what you really do and why you are unique.  The description gives details to help prospective clients see that you can solve their business problems.

Recommendations:  This is one of the most important areas of the profile. Recommendations are the best form of word of mouth marketing.  Make an effort to ask for a recommendation for every appropriate situation.  For example, did your boss just give you a pat on the back and thank you for your service?  Then send a request for a recommendation for that specific action.  Long ago, a note added to your personnel file was the norm.  It’s the same concept in digital, sharable format. The recommendation of others is a powerful tool that gives you credibility.

Websites:  Where else do you have a presence online?  LinkedIn provides three opportunities for you to publish them.  Give your links a name other than Company Website.  Try using a question like, Need A New Home?.    Or, put the name of your blog like, Talking Social Today.

OK, I’ve done all of the above, now what?

That’s a common question.  Here are 10 ways to keep your profile exciting and keep your connections returning for more.

• Add your blog feed
• Publish your events
• Embed a video or slideshow
• Email your profile to a prospective client
• Stream your Fan Page and Twitter accounts
• Print your profile out and use it like a brochure
• Use your profile URL on all your printed materials
• Share your upcoming trips so colleagues can find you
• Collect data from your connections by creating a poll
• Collaborate on work projects by creating a team space or huddle

Your LinkedIn profile can enhance or detract from your online presence.  When it detracts, you run the risk of looking unprofessional or worst than that being invisible.  Either of these can hurt you in business.

Do you have an exciting LinkedIn profile?  We’d love to see it in action.  Post your profile URL in the comment section below.

The social ask is when you ask someone to fan, like, follow you on social media.  What do you think?  Is it time for us to stop asking people to get on board with us and just let them make up their mind without the push?  I’m not saying that we should stop putting links or buttons on our various sites to give people a way to find us.  Sarah isn’t saying that either.  But it seems that by now people know what to do once they get to your site.  Won’t they like you if they really like you?

Let’s talk about it in the comments section below. (Opps, I think that I just made a social ask.) Well, you know what to do.

For business-to-business professionals, LinkedIn is the definitive social space where you must have a presence or else risk online extinction.  With 10.3 billion people using Google to find whatever they need, your presence is required. The business buyers and decision makers of today are looking for you to help them solve their business problems by offering your company’s unique perspective and solutions.  Think of Google as your new business card.  

What is LinkedIn?

Surprisingly, I still run into many people who ask this question.  LinkedIn is a social media site for entrepreneurs and professionals launched in 2003.  It is a widely recognized business-networking site worldwide.  

LinkedIn is unique and very different from the other social media sites.  It is all business all the time.  You will not find games to play and you can only connect to people whom you know or to whom your connections introduce you. Connecting to someone on LinkedIn equates to giving out your business card along with some information about your company.  However, online you can keep the conversation going longer and more regularly.  LinkedIn is a tool to help you do that.

LinkedIn Demographics

• More than 100 members in over 200 countries and territories
• Executives from all Fortune 500 companies are members
• 73 of the Fortune 100 companies use LinkedIn’s hiring solutions
• More than 2 million companies have a LinkedIn company page
• The mojority of the members are very influential and affluent

How can LinkedIn Answers help me connect to decision makers?

LinkedIn Answers is an opportunity for you to go beyond your profile by participating in discussions that other members would find helpful.  You can ask or answer a question.  It is a way for you to introduce yourself to other members without feeling awkward or being pushy.

Why should you invest the time to ask or answer questions?

While there are many reasons why answering questions is important, the most coveted reason is Google.  Google indexes questions and answers.  This means when someone searches on a term related to your question or answer it could show up on the first page of Google.  There is, of course, no guarantee that this will happen but the possibility is very high. 

Remember, Google is your new business card.  When you give someone a card, you do not know if it really goes into the person’s active contact list or if it finds a home in the bottom drawer.  Does that keep you from giving them out?  No!  So think of using LinkedIn Answers in the same manner.  You never know when someone will start to see the answers you give as a possible solution to their business problems.   At this point you are one step closer to gaining a new client.

Another reason to invest the time is the This Week’s Expert leaderboard that appears when one goes to the LinkedIn Answers tab.  A person becomes an expert by answering any question that the asker then marks as the best one.  For giving the best-recognized answer, you get a point.  The ten people who have the most points are listed on the LinkedIn Answers tab main page.  Can you say free advertising?  Even when you don’t have enough points to land on the main page, you still get credit on your mini profile of the questions you answer which shows the categories where you have earned expert status.

How can LinkedIn Answers help me generate leads?

It’s true.  You can find people to network with who are ready to buy your product or services.  Here are three ways to do this effectively.

1.  Give clear, honest, good thought out answers.  When you do this, you are establishing that you know what you are talking about.  People will be attracted to you and want to connect with you because you are knowledgeable and helpful.

2.  Ask compelling questions.  This can create actual conversations with other members.    Conversations create something magical.  Ok, it is not magic. However, it creates a type of familiarity that might influence a potential buyer’s decision to pick up the phone and call you when they are ready to solve their business problem.

3.  Never network alone when you can help it.  When you are networking in person locally, invite a LinkedIn connection to join you.  Do you travel for your company?  Try to evaluate whether you have a potential customer in the city where you will be then meet with them before you leave for lunch or coffee.  No selling! Just concentrate on putting a human face on your business at first. 

This is nothing more than Selling 101 for B2B professionals.  But with the addition of LinkedIn Answers as a part of your networking strategy, you are able to connect farther and faster than you can on foot.  It’s true that you can and should use other traditional methods such as cold-calling or print/tv/radio, etc.  However, these methods have very serious limits when compared to using social networking.  Combining them with social networking increases the opportunity to widen the net and catch more prospects.

For many B2B professionals, LinkedIn Answers is still an enigma.  What do you find the most mysterious or confusing about using LinkedIn Answers?  Let’s discuss it in the comment section below.   

flickr creative commons attribution: juliocrockett

I love to read!  The only thing I love better than reading is sharing.  So, who else better to share the content that I find interesting about social media than with you, my dear reader. 

Here are a few articles I found interesting:

Social Media and Home Improvement:  This is an article about Home Depot’s development of a new social media customer service representative.  In addition to their regular duties, this employee will spend 3 days a week creating how to videos and answering customer questions through social media.  Could this be a hit?

You can learn something from a grandmother:  I’m a grandmother so this article from Social Media Today caught my eye.  It’s true that many of the ideas about relationship building with social media are just plain old stuff your grandmother taught you.

Ways to use LinkedIn to build business:  Using LinkedIn has gone from what is it to how do I use it effectively.  This article gives 16 great ways to develop your LinkedIn prescence.

Sharing is caring.  What have you been reading lately that you’d like to share?