Are you on LinkedIn? Did you setup an account there years ago but rarely leverage your contacts? Perhaps you’re a LinkedIn regular, but you want to take your your efforts to the next level?
This article will reveal five ways you can build meaningful relationships on LinkedIn that will lead to business opportunities.
Is LinkedIn Not Working For You?
Up to this point, you’ve probably focused on building up your connections to grow your online influence and visibility. However, the greater challenge lies in actually going deeper with those connections that you’ve made online. If you’re simply connected to someone but have no further dialogue, what have you really accomplished?
The lifeline of new and existing business is relationships, and having meaningful conversations and in-person meetings are crucial in order to move from the connection phase into the relationship phase.
How can you leverage your professional presence on LinkedIn to connect on a deeper level with people and turn those connections into more meaningful relationships?
#1: Timing Is Everything
The time to go deeper with a connection is when you’re top of mind; after you’ve made a new connection, an introduction, received an introduction, answered a question, received an answer to a question and even after someone has commented on your status update or group discussion!
Action Step: All of these situations give you a reason to take the next step and initiate a related conversation. Give a compliment, ask a question, ask for a favor, ask for advice, or ask for an introduction soon after you’ve had a basic interaction with one of your first-, second- or third-degree connections. Conversations can lead to phone calls, ongoing dialogue and potentially even in-person meetings!
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#2: Leveraging Events
If you’re paying attention to what your LinkedIn connections are up to, you may be able to see if they’re planning to attend an upcoming event if it is highlighted in the LinkedIn network. Look for events in your area that you’re also planning to attend or may possibly attend. Live events provide an excellent opportunity to meet and converse with online connections even if they’re second- or third-degree connections!
Action Step: Visit the event RSVP page, determine who’s attending and reach out to one or two of those individuals. You can either send a message (if you have a first-degree or group connection) or an InMailTM (if second or third degree, or no group connection) letting them know that you’ll also be in attendance and that you look forward to the opportunity to meet them in person. This is a very nonthreatening way to get face-to-face and go deeper with your connections of every degree.
Find events in your area and reach out to connections that you can potentially meet in person
#3: Sync Geography With Travel
Perhaps you have clients in several geographical locations. Where does your network live and work? Under the “My Connections” tab, you can see the location of all of your connections. Let’s say you have a business trip planned to New York City to visit one client, but 15 connections are there whom you might also be able to get in front of. Or perhaps there are a number of connections within the same city whom you can bring together for a special lunch or dinner!
Action Step: Contact connections to let them know you’re going to be in their area soon and ask them if they’d like to meet for coffee or lunch so you can spend a few minutes learning more about their business. Or contact several connections who have complimentary businesses and live in the same area and invite them to a small-group networking dinner!
Reach out to connections based on your travel in order to arrange for face-to-face meetings
#4: Ask for Advice
Most influential people don’t like to have their brains picked, but everyone loves to give advice whether they admit it or not! People love to give their opinions when asked, and asking for advice can actually endear you to people because it makes them feel important.
When you reach out to an influential connection, first explain who you are, reference a common thread, give a genuine compliment, ask for advice, and explain your reason for doing so. Always have a reason when asking for advice. You’ll be amazed at how you can open the door to building a deeper relationship around common personal and professional interests by asking for advice!
Action Step: For example: “Hi John, we connected recently here on LinkedIn and I noticed that you commented about the upcoming technology event taking place next month in Seattle. It appears that you’ve attended in the past and you really seem to have a grasp on the subject matter. I’d like to ask whether you think it’s a good fit for a marketing team to attend, as I am thinking about taking my company. Thanks so much in advance for sharing your thoughts!
#5: Be a Resource
Going beyond basic listening and serving as a resource to your connections is a powerful way to stay top of mind and develop more meaningful relationships on LinkedIn. Review status updates, discussion topics and questions from your connections frequently to determine where you can add value, provide insight or resources, or help promote your connection through a key introduction.
Once your connections see you as a resource, they will classify you as a valued relationship in their network. Acting as a resource can create opportunities to move from online social networking to offline conversations and face-to-face meetings.
Action Step: Look for opportunities to reply to connections’ status updates, questions or discussion topics publicly, and then send a more detailed message to them privately with additional tips and resources that can help accomplish their goals.
Take time to reply privately to connections where you may be able to offer more detailed resources, tips, or guidance to them
If the purpose of social media is to build your network of connections, you must also think about how to engage those connections to turn them into true relationships. As you build solid relationships, you’ll create more opportunities for introductions and referrals into your own business.
There are plenty of resources available to help you grow your influence on LinkedIn. Here’s a great resource for learning more about the basics of LinkedIn and also some top marketing tips that can help you gain greater visibility on this powerful, professional social network.
Challenge yourself to go out and participate on LinkedIn with a strategic focus on getting to know your connections better, and use the steps mentioned in this article to help you generate conversations and face-to-face meetings. You stand to gain a greater return on your social networking investment if you can turn connections into relationships. Good luck!
What do you think about these tips? Have you tried any? How is LinkedIn working for your business? Please leave your comments in the box below.
Most of us use the Internet every day. Whether for work, school or play, the Internet is woven into the very fabric of our lives. Although we spend so much of our time online, we rarely give much thought to what actually makes up the content of the Internet.
Let’s be clear, the Internet is really divided into three types of stuff: (1) terribly addictive, uncomfortably funny or tremendously valuable content, (2) average, run-of-the-mill, “I already knew that” -type content and finally (3) utter crap.
As a marketer, you’ve created content in all three buckets before (nobody bats 1.000…), and as a web surfer, you know that the Internet is almost 99.999% composed of bucket #3.
No, seriously, the Internet is almost completely filled with useless, boring content that probably only appealed to the one person that made it.
Not to be a downer, but I only harp on this fact to say that I had a dream. I had a dream that I lived in a world where the Internet was only filled with interesting, valuable and funny content.
Things that would make me look 100 times smarter than I am, and content that would make my potential customers flock to my accounts and talk to me for days about whatever I had shared.
Then one day, I was asked to review Amplify.com, and I thought my dreams had come true…
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Yes… that is a water cooler.
Ampli-Who Dot What?
On the surface, Amplify.com just seems like another site that wants you to share what you like (stop me if you’ve heard this one before) and connects you with friends who do the same. The front page graphic gives off a music site feel. I even thought it was a bit rock-star (like myself)… until I saw the water cooler in the middle of the crowd.
Amplify.com is as simple as the graphic on the front page suggests. They want you to share interesting things from the Internet with your peers, but only “water cooler-worthy” stuff. More on that in a second…
What Can It Do?
Like Twitter, But Longer
Amplify.com lets you microblog just like Twitter, but your limit is 500 characters. The days of showing restraint online are numbered.
Blog Via Email
You can post content (blogs, snippets, photos, etc.) to your Amplify stream via email. Amplify.com gives you a personal email address to send content to, which will automatically add that content to your stream. Unlike other sites with this feature, Amplify.com doesn’t make you memorize a 6,000-character email address. You have a short convenient address customized to your username. I consider that a victory for the little guy.
Don’t try to post to my blog. I’m keeping my eye on you guys…
Find Content Based On Subject
Want to find all of the best content for social media? Easy. Just click “social media” and browse the best stuff. There are several categories to choose from and the content is sorted chronologically.
What’s The Main Event?
Ok, I’ll be honest; none of these features by themselves are impressive. You can do all of these things on Facebook without ditching your friends and setting up another profile (which we all LOVE to do… right?). Fortunately, Amplify.com redeems itself from a life of redundancy by adding one simple feature that can save the entire Internet. Interested? Let me explain.
Remember when I said that the Internet is 99% utter crap? That’s true, but if we’re really being honest, even the really good articles that we read are at least 30% filler (not this one, though J). It reminds me of a lesson I learned when I took a speed-reading class:
“There are plenty of good books to read, but more importantly, there are plenty of good chapters to read.”
Think about that. What if you could share a fantastic article without having to share the part that isn’t amazing? Amplify.com has the answer. They allow you to clip any section of any site and share only that section on Amplify.com, or one of the several social networks that you can post to automatically.
Amplify.com’s clip tool in action.
Find a great couple of paragraphs in a New York Times article? Great, only share that section. Find a blog with three great tips? Take the tips, leave the rest.
Amplify.com has given us a chance to trim the fat off of the Internet. Yes, my heart just fluttered.
This is a TechCrunch article clipped for Amplify.com, all fluff removed (no offense, TechCrunch).
Why I’m Not Doing A Cartwheel Right Now
Unfortunately, it’s not all butterflies and candy corn with Amplify.com. While bringing us one of the greatest tools online, they’ve also allowed some of the tools that kinda make the Internet suck in the first place.
The site needs a filtering option. I click on a popular topic and about half of the options are in a language that I can’t understand, and that’s bad news. Chronological order is OK, but if the section is called “popular topics,” I expect the links to be… you know… popular. That leads me to my real point.
Amplify.com is a great site, but it would be amazing with a ranking system. The problem with the Internet is that anyone can post anything on it and you have to sift through the junk to get to the goods. Amplify.com’s clip functionality is useless if I still have to sort through everyone’s junk to get to the best clips.
Allowing the site’s users not only to comment (they allow this already) but also to rank content would really “Amplify” the best clips and move the site to the “water cooler-talk” level that the front page suggests.
Final Thoughts
As with most dreams, my love affair with Amplify.com was slightly soured by having to sift through so many posts. As with any new site, there will be kinks along the way. And while there is a “Recommend” feature, it works more like a retweet than a content judgment system, which is what it would take for me to really like it.
Amplify.com has a bright future ahead of it, and the issues I see now seem more of the “growing pain” variety than the “death knell” variety. As of today, Amplify.com scores a 7 out of 10.
Have you used Amplify.com yet? What did you think about it? Do you know of another site with the “clip” functionality? Have a site that you’d like to see reviewed? Let us know in the box below!
Sometimes for a small business the hardest part about trying a new strategy is just getting started. It’s not difficult but it takes time to consider and think your ideas through. Below are the first few steps every business should consider.
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Identify Your Goals
Your very first step should be to create goals. Why are you engaging in social media? What do you want from it? Are you trying to increase sales, want a better way to control your public relations, just want to be able to identify influential consumers?
Make a list of what you hope to accomplish. Don’t worry about how you’ll track it, or even how you’ll make it happen. Think about it from a higher level and keep your goals abstract.
Creating goals lets you identify what your strategy will be. Without knowing what you’re working towards your campaign will misshapen and dysfunctional. Create goals to create a focused strategy.
Determine Your Value Added
Once you have your goals, your next step is identifying what you are going to do to convince consumers to interact with you online. You need to know what your value added is.
Why should a custom because a fan of your Facebook page? Why am I following you on Twitter? For each action you expect a consumer to make, you must give them something.
Potential strategies include giving loyal fans coupons, access to special deals, updates on news, and exclusive looks at new products.
Build an Online Identity
After you’ve determined your goals and have an idea of what you’ll offer your customers online, you have to decide how you’ll do it. Not only do you have to figure out how, but also you need to know whom. So the question left to answer is, what is your online identity?
What is your online identity? How are you going to interact online? What is your personality? Will it be the CEO or is the brand going to have an online identity? What can be shared online, what can’t be shared online? What are your social media guidelines?
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Create an Online Presence
Identify where you will be online. Does Facebook or Twitter make sense?
Populate your profile, create a hub, and build a blog. You determined what your identity would be, now make it happen. Create your online presence.
Interact With Your Consumers
You’re the company; everyone wants to talk to you. Now it’s time to talk back. Follow the general best practices of customer service (customer is always right, don’t get mad, keep your cool, and use humor).
Make your marketing a two way street, answer consumer questions, reply to comments, invite them to events. Post news and be part of the conversation.
Conclusion
Social media isn’t difficult to get started in. It’s easy to create a Facebook page or have a Twitter account. The question is can you build a community that not only is loyal to you but markets for you? Can you convince your community to buy your products and sell them too?
Taking the first steps to outline a social media strategy and create a basic online presence, will help you on your way to creating a successful social media campaign.
5 Steps To Get Your Business Ready for Social Media is a post by: Samir Balwani
Facebook adds more granular controls for admins of pages
I was excited to read that Facebook now lets page administrators ban fans and spammers! I tweeted it, and several people replied back, “couldn’t we always do that?” The answer is that yes, you used to be able to, but recently that ability has been taken away from several areas.
The functionality of this is back, and it’s well done! I love it, if for no other reason than page admins can now ban users based upon pictures they upload! Up to this point, it’s been a real cat and mouse game, trying to pull down questionable pictures before they were up for too many people to see.
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This has been particularly problematic on some of the larger pages we manage…those with over a million fans. Porn spammers have been getting around the Facebook rules by putting up bikini or semi-nude models in the fan pictures section, then putting the porn URL in the description. Tricky…there wasn’t really any way to ban this before, and it couldn’t be reported as pornography because it didn’t show certain body parts.
Starting now, we page admins can flag the photo AND request to permanantly ban the user from the page, as well as take down all content they have previously posted. This is most certainly worth the price of admission.
This may be a part of a larger effort by Facebook to crack down on spam; as I take a casual glance around some pages that I know are often targeted by these types of photo-spammers, I can’t find a single questionable image. Either the admins have really stepped it up, or Facebook has, or both! Either way, I applaud the effort.
It’s nice to see Facebook make such a pro-admin move. Well done, Facebook.
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