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By Caitlin Rambo in Featured

social networksHow much time do you spend online?

According to a time use survey compiled by ComScore Media Metric, the average American spends 33.9 hours on the Internet every week. Depending on age and other demographics, this number can double! And for those lucky individuals whose occupations rely primarily on computers: the Internet commands their lives and they are never not connected.

Computers have drastically changed the technological landscape. The Internet has facilitated efficiency in a number of offline processes. We use the web to communicate with our family, friends and business acquaintances in real-time chats. Books and other multimedia are available for online viewing and instant download. We can even shop for gifts online – often offered at a deeper discount than in brick-and-mortar stores! The Internet has revolutionized the way that we live, as we now spend one-sixth of our lives in the digital world.

Exhibit 1: 100 Most-Visited Websites by category, according to Google Ad Planner

Where are We Actually Spending Our Time Online?

Google has compiled a list of the 100 most-visited websites in the United States. (Being the modest company that they are, Google has chosen to omit their website and statistics from the study.) These 100 websites are sorted into six categories: social networking, search engines, shopping, entertainment, business and software.

By Kristina Jaramillo in Featured

linkedin1LinkedIn is reportedly the most popular business social networking site used by attorneys. In fact, a recent report shows that 70% of corporate counsel use LinkedIn as a tool, and half rely on it. Executives from every Fortune 500 company are using LinkedIn.

To help law firms attract and retain more clients using LinkedIn, I have identified ten different opportunities attorneys should take advantage of.

10 Ways Law Firms Can Use LinkedIn to Attract and Retain More Business

1. Build relationships with potential clients – If you deal with corporate business, small business or real estate issues then you can use LinkedIn to network with potential clients – and educate them so they will want to come to you with their problems.

2. Build relationships with potential referral sources – For example, an attorney who specializes in social security law can network with partners or employees at general practice firms so they can pass business on to you. Business lawyers can network with accountants and business advisors.

Lawyers that work in the real estate industry can connect with realtors who can refer business to them. Elder care attorneys can network with assisted living homes and care giving service providers and associations who can refer business to them.

3. Create a community of like-minded professionals – For example if you are a real estate attorney educate a group of real estate agent so they can refer business to you or use you if their clients need your advice.

Within this group, you need to create conversations and link prospects, referral sources and the media back to your blog or website where they can get even more information. Notice, your LinkedIn group is part of the lead generation funnel.

4. Build relationships with the media – 92% of all media professionals are on LinkedIn, which is more than any other social networking site. That means editors, journalists and reporters of local, regional and national publications and other media types are available to you on LinkedIn. You can reach out to these individuals and invite them to your group so they can see the type of information you can offer their readers, listeners or viewers.

5. Spread your content and prove you are a thought leader – Placing your content, expertise and messages in front of targeted prospects is the absolute best way to attract new clients and referral sources. That’s why you need to join groups where your prospects are going to for information you can provide and engage in conversations.

6. Nurture relationships with existing clients. Your marketing and relationship building efforts should not stop once someone becomes a client. That’s why attorneys should have a group specifically for providing ongoing, exclusive content and information just for clients where they can answer more specific questions. This will help you with client retention.

7. Perform market research that you can promote with articles and press releases.Recently a client of mine who is a workplace communication expert conducted on LinkedIn a study of CEOs, Presidents, Vice Presidents and manager. From his research he found that 44% of the executives surveyed were unhappy with their employees’ performance and their own communication style. Using his survey questions he was also able to uncover what problems they were encountering.

With this knowledge he then created:

* A report that showcased the results.
* Press release to reveal the results and position him as a thought leader.
* Webinars to discuss solutions to the problems his audience were encountering
* Articles and LinkedIn discussions to promote the study, the report and the event
* A complete marketing and PR plan and strategy based off this study

8. Build an extensive network of connections who can be expert witnesses for your clients. By building a relationship on LinkedIn with connections who can be expert witnesses for issues relating to your law specialty, you give prospects and clients a reason to hire you. Now, you are combining your expert knowledge in the industry with support that other law firms may not be able to offer.

9. Stay up-to-date on what’s happening in your industry – Join groups that your peers, colleagues and competitors belong to. This will help you way stay current on trends, problems, concerns and even cases in your industry. You will be able to see what others are talking about and what they have to share. And, you can use this as an idea bank for articles and press releases that you can write to promote your law firm.

10. Showcase your attorney’s abilities – Every attorney in your practice should have a LinkedIn profile and there should be a link to it on the company website. This will enable clients or prospects to reach out to your practice in another way and on a more personal level. And, the lawyers will be able to update their LinkedIn profiles to showcase their skills, abilities, articles that were published and media mentions without having to pay expensive webmaster fees.

Now, as I said earlier, LinkedIn is reportedly the most popular business social networking site used by attorneys. In fact, a LinkedIn search for the keyword “legal” gave me more than 1 million results. However, only a small percentage of these attorneys are using LinkedIn to its fullest potential for bringing in more clients, referrals and publicity. The question is:

Are you willing to breakthrough the pack – and become part of that small percentage who of attorneys who are using LinkedIn effectively to market their law firms?

LinkedIn Marketing Expert Kristina Jaramillo creates online marketplace opportunities for lawyers and law firms who want to attract more clients.

Now, you can uncover the LinkedIn marketing mistakes you are making the opportunities your law firm is missing by grabbing Kristina’s free special report at: http://www.Free14LinkedInMistakesReport.com <= Get this report for free and start getting more publicity, more clients and more referrals!

By Debralee in Featured

Guest Post by Karl Walinskas

linkedin1LinkedIn is a rapidly growing social media platform that caters more directly to business people than do Facebook or Twitter; particularly, business-to-business (B2B) opportunities. You probably know that already. Most of those folks are looking to succeed with LinkedIn marketing and generate new leads, business, or career opportunities. What you may not know is how profoundly you can fail on LinkedIn as a super-busy entrepreneur or small business owner. It’s easy! Just follow these 10 easy steps.

1. Don’t fill in your Profile Summary section
This is critical to failure on LinkedIn. Many people want to come up in People searches, but not a maverick like you. Leave that Summary section blank since it is the primary area that the LinkedIn search, and Google for that matter, index to learn about your value. Who needs it? Anonymity rules!

2. Limit how many people can see you and contact you
People can be downright annoying, so keep your settings such that you’ll minimize contact with them. Go to your privacy controls on the Settings tab and select the most minimalizing restrictions, like turning off your activity broadcasts (you’re not doing them anyway!), making sure only you can see your activity and networks, and ensuring that you snoop other profiles incognito. Victory is yours.

3. Put your current job only
Reality says that no one is concerned about your past work history anyway, so only post your current job. Remember the KISS principle, so keep it simple and short and avoid using redundant phrases that these SEO types call ‘keywords’. By posting only one job, you won’t have to worry about having to mess around with the boring writing of keywords in your former positions either.

4. Don’t post a photo
Photos are for supermodels. As a programmer, consultant or other business pro your work speaks for itself and your face ain’t your money-maker, so screw the personal comfort level that humans since date of birth seem to feel when they see a real person’s face behind the computer lingo. This is business, not warm and fuzzy socialization!

5. Avoid References
These are faked and everybody knows it, so why bother. Who cares if LinkedIn references actually hyperlink back to the referrer for easy verification of who’s doing the talking? If I ask other business schmos for references, they’ll just want something back from me, and who has the time?

6. Be Picky About Connections
Hold your connections close to your vest and only have that handful of network contacts that you currently do business with, that way you can call on any of them with a request and not feel guilty about it. What good can a large number of contacts do for you anyway, they’ll just bug you for their little pet projects you have no interest in whatsoever. It’s not as if LinkedIn works like Google and those contacts are like backlinks that increase your search relevance to get on page 1 when your keywords are—Ouch! No keywords written into our profiles in an easy to understand manner.

7. Don’t show your work
LinkedIn offers Applications for you to post more stuff about you, supposedly to distinguish you from other professionals. The “theory” is that when people get to your profile, you stand apart by already demonstrating what you do well via slide presentations, case studies, video (ah-hem!) and the like. Balderdash! Just something else to maintain. Why put something up that only 10 or 20 people might read or look at.

8. Groups are for wussies
Subject matter interest groups abound on LinkedIn, from job search groups to industry verticals. Who has the time to listen to a few “experts” spout off about one topic or another and post links to their blogs to generate conversations. Besides, why should I share my valuable knowledge about my industry for FREE? I’m not crazy! I get paid to offer expert commentary. Damn straight!

9. Once and done it
The beauty of a LinkedIn profile or any website is that once you get it ‘live’, you are done with it forever. The more you change it the more you can mess up your search engine rankings, right? That is the perfect slogan for LinkedIn failure. Don’t you wish you thought of it? Changing stuff around takes a lot of time to boot. Post the darn thing and be done with it.

10. SPAM your contact list with mail
If you’ve got a few contacts, you can make it even fewer by making frequent request or pitches to buy your product or service or go to your website. Contacts will drop you faster than if you tried to delete them, because they’ll do it in mass, so send out a few overly smarmy emails every week and your LinkedIn failure will be complete.

The reality is, you’re not trying to fail on LinkedIn. You want to succeed as well and generate more Linkedin business leads and use LinkedIn as a bona fide marketing took for your site, but maybe you just don’t know how. If you’re like a lot of small business owners, however, and can look yourself in the mirror and see any of the Top 10 LinkedIn Failure Methods listed above in your talk or actions, perhaps it’s time to question assumptions and change your approach. It’s opposite day and this ain’t Seinfeld, so take a look at what NOT to do, and do something else and then notice your LinkedIn statistics rise and your phone start to ringing.

If you actually want to SUCCEED on LinkedIn, check out LinkedIn Profile Optimization help by Smart Company Growth, a company owned and operated by Karl Walinskas to provide unique lead generation tools to white collar professionals. He’s authored Getting Connected Through Exceptional Leadership and many, many articles published in print and online.

By Donna Gunter in Featured

socialmedia2Social networking can take up more time than you realize. You’re online checking your Facebook status updates, and suddenly an hour has passed before you know it. Is there any way to authentically outsource your social networking so that this marketing activity doesn’t become another drain on your already too-full schedule?

The answer is both yes and no. The nature of social networking is to connect and create bonds with others. So, it would stand to reason that it would be difficult to outsource your personality. And, of course, anyone that you hire to help you with this doesn’t know the people that you know nor does she have your depth and breadth of knowledge.

Given that, what are the kinds of tasks that you CANNOT delegate in social media marketing? These would include:

a. Replying to personal messages on Facebook or Linkedin or responding to direct messages (DMs) on Twitter .

b. Responding to @ replies on Twitter.

c. Giving recommendations on Linkedin.

d. Making daily conversational connections with your followers/friends/contacts and responding to their status updates.

However, there are a number of tasks that you can easily delegate to an assistant, provided that you give her guidelines to follow. Here are the 7 most effective social media marketing tasks you can outsource:

1. Prescheduled Marketing Tips or Quotes

If you use a social networking management tool like Hootsuite, you can write a series of useful tips for your target market or a series of quotes and have your assistant schedule those to be posted on your behalf over a period of several weeks. Depending on your assistant’s knowledge of your business and writing skill, she may be able to draft these tips for you, and then you can edit them and return those to her for scheduling.

2. Inviting Friends and Followers to Events

If you’re planning a meeting or a teleseminar or product launch, your assistant can enter that information into both Linkedin and Facebook and invite your friends and followers to that event. You may need to write the copy for the event, however, unless your assistant does copywriting for you. And, you can ask your assistant to draft a series of 10-20 140-character promotional Tweets that you edit and approve.
Your assistant can then schedule those to go out over a specified period to promote your event.

3. Responding to Event Requests, Fan Pages, Gifts and Spam

I am inundated with invites to events. Ask your assistant to screen those and delete all but those in which you might be interested, and then you can respond to those appropriately. Provide your assistant with instructions on which fan pages you want to “like”, as well as what Facebook “gifts” you want to receive. All the Facebook gifting annoys me, and I know that many times accepting these gifts opens your account up to be hacked, so I routinely delete all drinks, flowers, etc. sent my way. Ask your assistant to delete spammy direct messages in Twitter and Facebook, as well.

4. Approving Friend and Connection Requests

Outline your friend acceptance policy for Facebook and LinkedIn. In Facebook, you may have your friends segmented into groups, so you’ll need to describe who goes into those groups. If you have a followup strategy that you employ upon accepting a friend/connection, you’ll need to document that process, as well. Once you have shared these processes with your assistant, she should be able to accept friend
and connection requests on your behalf and follow up accordingly.

5. Sending Birthday Greetings

Facebook notifies you of your friends’ upcoming birthdays. Create a birthday greeting message to send to those folks, and add a video to the greeting as well. My assistant checks for birthday notifications daily and sends out the Beatles birthday song video with my birthday greeting.

6. Adding Members of Your Target Market

You need to outline clear guidelines and criteria about the characteristics of your target market and where they can be found. Your assistant can then go out and search for these folks and send out friend/contact requests accordingly.

7. Setup of Automated Social Networking

There are a number of social networking tasks that can be easily automated. For example, your WordPress or Typepad blog can be set up to automatically post to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn each time you submit a blog post. If you use aWeber for email marketing, each of your ezines can be set to be sent automatically to all of your social networking contacts. If you submit articles to EzineArticles.com, your account can be linked to your Twitter profile so that each accepted article is also posted to Twitter. If you submit slidecasts to Slideshare or documents to Scribd, you can set up your account to share those on your social networks, as well.

Bonus tip for LinkedIn users: Screening of questions at LinkedIn Answers. Talk to your assistant about the kinds of questions you are able to answer from LinkedIn Answers. Have her review questions in your area of expertise and flag those you should answer.

Social networking doesn’t have to be a big time drain. Set up criteria and guidelines so that your assistant can take many of the tasks off of your hands, which will let you concentrate on making valuable connections and getting to better know your followers and friends.

Internet Marketing Coach Donna Gunter helps professional service businesses stop the client chase and create online businesses that drive clients to them. Want to learn specific Internet marketing strategies that get results? Discover how to increase your online visibility in this
free ebook, Turbocharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, at ==> www.TurbochargeYourOnlineMarketing.com

By Terri Seymour in Featured

linkedin1Social media sites are more popular than ever and with over 100 million users LinkedIn is in the top five most popular. LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network and is an extremely resourceful tool for job hunters, recruiters, business owners, etc. Once you sign up for a LinkedIn account, you must create your professional profile. The more effective your profile, the more professionals can find you and connect with you.

Below are ten things you can do to enhance your profile so it is the most effective it can be in building your network of connections.

1. Complete the Profile – This is very important in that you do not want a half-done, unprofessional profile. This will not accomplish much in the way of building your network of connections. Complete each section, completely and professionally to make the most of your online professional identity. According to LinkedIn, you are 40% more likely to be found in a LinkedIn search with a 100% completed profile as opposed to one that is not completely finished.

2. Always Use a Photo – There are many people who do not want to use photos for various reasons, but you need to post a photo on your LinkedIn profile to get more results. You do not have to have a professionally taken photo, but you do want it to look professional. People will be more likely to remember your profile, if you present a photo of yourself. Photos can also increase the chances of people trusting you.

3. Use a Persuasive Headline – Don’t just plaster your name and title as your profile headline. Add a short slogan or benefit you provide. Compare the two headlines below and decide which one would capture your interest more.

Jane Doe
Virtual Assistant

Jane Doe
Virtual Assistant – I will free up your time and grow your business.

You don’t even have to add your title, you can just stress the benefits you provide or the skills you possess. Use something that makes you the one to choose.

4. List Your Websites – Be sure to add your URL and/or blog to your profile. You can add up to three urls. Customize the tiles of your links as opposed to My Site, My Blog, etc. You can do this by choosing the “Other” category in the Edit Profile section.

5. Get Recommendations – Having people give you recommendations will increase your chances of being found as well as give people more reason to choose you and/or your business or connect with you. You can ask people who have worked with you or past customers for recommendations. If they like your work/service, they will be glad to give a testimonial. You can also trade with people you would recommend but always remember, your reputation is on the line every time you recommend someone, so don’t ask random people to trade recommendations.

6. Video Presentation – Add a video presentation to your profile highlighting your skills, services, products, etc. You can do this by going to Google Presentations under “More” in the toolbar at the top of your profile page. Click on More Applications… then scroll down to Google Presentations. Add the Application and follow the directions on creating your presentation. Be sure to check out the other apps as well for a more productive profile.

7. Experience and Skills – Be sure to list all your experience and skills using relevant keywords. Be thorough, precise and complete when describing your skills and your experience. Be sure to be grammatically correct and proofread every sentence.

8. Professional Summary and Specialties – When writing your summary, let people know what you are about and what you can do for them. Use short precise paragraphs. Get to the point and be convincing. List your Specialties so they are much easier to read and capture attention quicker.

9. Keep Active – Do NOT fill out your profile and never come back. You need to keep updating regularly and be active on your profile. Get involved with LinkedIn and become a participant. Nobody wants to connect with a dead page!

10. Join Relevant Groups – Joining groups is one way to stay active and become involved with other LinkedIn users and professionals. Participate in the discussions and offer help, advice, support whenever you can.

When joining networking sites such as LinkedIn, you have to take the time to create productive profiles and pages. Put the time and effort into all the above enhancements and your LinkedIn profile will be much more effective.

Terri Seymour has over twelve years of online experience and has helped many people start their own business. Visit her site for resources, $1 and $2 resell ebooks & software, informative articles authored by Terri Seymour, and affiliate programs. Sign up for the RSS Feed for a free business ebook with MRR. http://www.SeymourProducts.com

By Karl Walinskas in Featured

linkedin1Many small business owners know that word-of-mouth marketing via social media and direct business referrals is extremely powerful to grow their businesses. For small businesses and individuals in search of career change alike, LinkedIn can be one of your best sources of live recommendations. You simply have to know the process.

LinkedIn recommendations are great Proof Sources from other people, better in fact than most testimonials because they cannot be faked. I mean, do you really believe when you read on a website that “JR, Dallas, TX” who vouches for the business is a real person? Beachfront property—Idaho—you know the rest. LinkedIn recommendations link back to the profile of the person who recommended you, meaning that whoever is checking you out can learn about the people who think you’re great. Recommendations provide genuine 3rd party perspective about your business and your personal skills and character, and they help viewers get over the hump that stands between looking at your profile and contacting you for opportunities.

Recommendation Strategy for LinkedIn

Right in the Profile dropdown of LinkedIn is a sub-tab on managing recommendations. We talked about this before and you can view the videos for more info. You should have two objectives regarding recommendations:

1. Get them, as often as possible and as recent as possible.
2. Make them great.

So how do you do that? In order to get them, first ask the people you know and love who feel the same way about you, provided they’re on LinkedIn. The next best way to get recommendations is to give them to past colleagues, current business partners, etc. It takes you all of about five minutes to pen a recommendation for someone you’ve worked with. LinkedIn will send each person an email with the recommendation for their review, that when completed and accepted, it will post the recommendation to each person’s profile. As soon as that happens the person you recommended is automatically prompted to return the favor and recommend you. Guess what? 33-50% of them will without being asked.

Better yet is if the recommended contacts you to say thanks. Now here is your strategy to get a great recommendation (use this for website testimonials as well):

1. Say you’re welcome, and ask if the person can return the favor. He’ll say yes or something like, “I’d like to, but I really don’t know what to write.” Of course we both know it is laziness, so you take that burden off of the other person.

2. You say, “I know you’re extremely busy and this can be a pain. How about I rough up something and kick it to you in an email (or LinkedIn mail)? If it accurately reflects our work history, copy/paste it into a recommendation. If not, edit as you feel appropriate and do the same. Make sense? He’ll say yes.

3. You say, “Remember that project where we _____ because you were having that problem of ____? We implemented the ____ and if I recall, that resulted in ____.” If you have an example like that, he’ll remember. “How about I make it about that?”

What have you done? You took the burden of writing a recommendation off of the other person, while maintaining integrity by referencing a real work experience you both know occurred. Your recommendations on LinkedIn can also contain keywords, a little known fact when SEOing your profile. That’s why you writing the recommendation using the reference’s sentiment is key, because you have this SEO capacity within your control. When you get that recommendation back, it is going to be a solid one that helps your credibility and findability, not a simple generic character reference that sounds like it came from your spouse or priest.

4 Steps to Writing Superior Recommendations Anywhere

“Wait Karl, I don’t know how to write a recommendation like that?” you ask sheepishly. No worries. Use the CARE approach as outlined below. You can do this is a few short sentences:

Challenge – What was the work problem that you helped out with for this colleague, boss or customer?
Action – What action did you take to save the day?
Results – The happy ending details.
Endorsement – A hearty, personal endorsement for you with the offer to contact the person with any questions. The reality is (and tell this to the recommender), less than 10% of people influenced by the recommendation will actually bug that person expressly because of the offer. The recommendation itself says everything necessary.

EX: “Our sales were flatlined and we needed some help. We hired Karl and he came in and provided us with some innovative marketing strategies like Executive Video Interviews for our site and optimizing our LinkedIn profiles, as well as acting as interim Sales Manager for two months while we found a full-time person, who he screened and provided initial training for. Website inquiries tripled on our contact form and sales improved by 17% in the next 6 months. I cannot say enough about the impact Karl made on our business performance. Contact me if you need more details.”

This approach to creating and getting testimonials applies to the ones on your website as well. It works and will provide more credibility for your business. This process alone provides a ton of value over and above the LinkedIn optimization if you use it properly.

Summary

Many small business owners know that word-of-mouth marketing via social media and direct business referrals is extremely powerful to grow their businesses. For small businesses and individuals in search of career change alike, LinkedIn can be one of your best sources of live recommendations. You simply have to know the process. Learn the best LinkedIn recommendation strategy and 4 steps to writing killer recommendations for any business.

Is your repeat business 75% or higher? Learn more about Selling Solutions skills to kick-start repeat business. More small business strategies for growth can be found at the Smart Blog. Smart Company Growth is a small business growth strategies firm founded by Karl Walinskas that helps companies grow sales and contain costs.

By Resource Nation in Featured

advertisingWhen you think of pay per click advertising, chances are, you instinctively think of search engines. Online social advertising still doesn’t get the credit it is deserved. Granted, social advertising is a maturing medium, Facebook advertising has only been around a few years and Twitter less than a year but the opportunities are there for marketers.

The latest annual findings from Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization indicated that paid search marketers are turning to PPC advertising on social media channels to complement and enhance their online marketing portfolio. Traditionally these portfolios were heavily weighed by search engines, then display and affiliate advertising came along, and now social media.

According to eMarketer, “More than half (52%) of companies worldwide vouched for the “moderate” or “huge” impact social media has had on their search engine marketing programs within the last year. Add that to the growing number of social media channels offering a PPC advertising model, and it’s no wonder 47% of North American companies are running PPC campaigns on Facebook, and more than a quarter (27%) are doing so on LinkedIn.

Most of the critics of social advertising claim that “buyers aren’t in the buying process when they are browsing Facebook or Twitter.” To back up these critics, many US companies still rely on traditional placements by AdWords because simply, ROI is there. Social however, is often much cheaper than search advertising giving way to new and innovative ways to target users. For instance, on Facebook you can target an ad to every Male who likes the movie Fight Club and lives in Chicago. These innovative segmenting tools are growing social advertising.

Google is seeing their search shares drop and are trying to get in the “social” search mix. Incorporating targeted messages to users based on their Google Accounts. For instance if you are a logged in to your Google account and type “urban clothing” you will likely see different search results than if you aren’t logged in. Google takes your previous search history and demographics in to account when populating these searches to make advertising more relevant and profitable.

Social ads are still maturing and for the most part remain a branding tool for many businesses. They are able to get people to recognize a brand, interacting or “liking” a page is often the main goal. You don’t want to try to give a hard sell on social advertising, (leading users to a product page), you should put a squeeze page to capture people’s interest on the respective social media site. Getting a users engagement, email, interests or thoughts are potentially more valuable long term than a one time sale.

If you are trying to decide whether to advertise exclusively on social or search, just test it! The first month, set up a tracker and determine which site is bringing more traffic, CTR (click through rate) and ROI. If your business is highly “brandable” you may be better off shifting a portion of your online marketing budget to social, however if your business is a service or requires extensive commitment, think about search. As social advertising matures, consumers may begin to embrace social media sites as a way to buy, but for now people are just there to work and play.

Matt Krautstrunk is an expert writer on online marketing based in San Diego, California. He writes extensively for an online resource that provides expert advice on purchasing and outsourcing decisions for small business owners and entrepreneurs such as internet advertising at Resource Nation.

By Kristina Jaramillo in Featured

linkedin1Recently I read a LinkedIn article for small business owners that stated, “You should think of your profile as an online resume.” I could not disagree more. And, when you are done reading this article, let me know what you think!

Now, while you think whether or not your LinkedIn profile should be regarded as a resume, let me ask you: When was the last time you read an interesting and intriguing resume?

Most resumes tend to be boring and bland. Now, how is this going to help you attract viewers and prospects? Simple, it can’t.

As a small business owner or a business development executive, you have to start thinking of your profile as a marketing tool and not a resume.

Since you have to change your mindset about this, I have developed six distinct reasons why your profile should not look like a resume.

Why You Should Not Think of Your LinkedIn Profile as Your Resume

Reason #1: A resume is not personal enough.

The goal of LinkedIn is to connect with people and build relationships. The only way you will connect with prospects is to personalize your profile. To do this you need to tell stories and share information that gives a better scope of:

* Who you are.
* What makes you tick.
* How you can help the prospect.
* What new and exciting information you have to offer them.

Make viewers want to learn more about what you and your business can do for them. Be creative and use all the applications that LinkedIn provides you can show videos, presentations and documents.

Reason #2: Remember LinkedIn is a social human network.

Most resumes lack that human touch that LinkedIn can provide if used correctly. You need to make your profile interesting and enjoyable to read. You have to keep in mind that if you want others to read it, you should want to read it too. Here is an excerpt of my summary to give you an idea of what I mean.

With over 80 million professional members in over 200 countries, LinkedIn offers small business owners and internet marketer’s unlimited opportunities to build, and nourish profitable relationships online.

However, out of the 80+ million people on LinkedIn, only a FEW successful companies and internet marketers are using LinkedIn to its’ fullest profit-making potential.

Do you want to know some of my top secrets on how to get more business using LinkedIn? As a Social Media Expert (not a self-proclaimed expert, the New York Times called me that) who specializes in LinkedIn, I’ve uncovered…”14 Underground Secrets to Making Money And Taking Complete and Total Control Of Your Industry and Niche on LinkedIn” Here I reveal mistakes that other LinkedIn experts are even making.

Reason #3: The goal of LinkedIn profile is to get people to connect with you so that you can funnel them back to your website.

Your profile is a way to tell prospects what you and your business can do for them. Your LinkedIn profile allows you to show the different areas of your business and then lead prospects to the appropriate webpage to get even more information. The goal of a resume however, is to list accomplishments, achievements and jobs held. It simply lists your job descriptions, past and present. A resume does not mention the kind of person you are and why someone should connect with you. And, a resume doesn’t allow you to focus on the here and now and what you can provide your potential clients today like your LinkedIn profile should.

Reason #4: Resumes are usually limited to 1-2 pages while a LinkedIn profile is not.

While it’s usually not a good idea to submit a resume that is more than 2 pages long, you don’t have that kind of restriction with an online profile. You can include more information, more details, more accomplishments, more strengths and more keywords. The more information you include the more credibility you will gain, the more connected to your prospects you will become. Once you gain their trust, it will become much easier to sell your products, services or even the idea of joint venture relationship.

Reason #5: A LinkedIn profile enables you to brand yourself much better and much easier than a resume ever could.

Everything from yourself, your company to your products and services can be branded on your profile. For example, if you are the best at selling widgets, then make sure your profile clearly articulates that – and reinforce your brand throughout the profile. LinkedIn recently added some new sections that will further enhance your ability to sell yourself to potential clients. What resume will allow you to include postings about your publications, certifications or skills. Those sections usually get edited out due to space.

Now, do you think of your LinkedIn profile as your online resume?

Do you now realize the marketing potential LinkedIn gives you – if only you’d change your mindset?

Great! Now, I invite you to check out what other LinkedIn marketing mistakes you are making and opportunities you are missing.

LinkedIn Marketing Expert Kristina Jaramillo creates online marketplace opportunities for small business owners who want more website traffic, prospects and profits. Now, with her free special report, you can uncover how you can become “the trusted source for your industry on LinkedIn” fast plus learn how to avoid the top 14 mistakes. Get this information for free at: www.GetLinkedInHelp.com

By Elyse Tager in Featured

Web-2.0Most business professionals are on LinkedIn at this point.

LinkedIn tells us that:

  • LinkedIn has over 70 million members in over 200 countries.
  • A new member joins LinkedIn approximately every second, and about half of our members are outside the U.S.
  • Executives from all Fortune 500 companies are LinkedIn members.

To me that states clearly that if you have almost ANY kind of business and are prospecting, LI will be a good resource for you. But just setting up a profile and dabbling once a week or so is not going to do much for your prospecting efforts. Below are a few tips that not many folks know about, but are powerful techniques for increasing your visibility and maximizing that “inbound marketing” that Social Media is known for.

1. Create 3 saved searches. If you are doing a search on a company, person, industry or whatever, save your searches. At the top where you see the number of records in your search you’ll see a “save this search” button – you get 3 if you are at the basic level. LI will send you a weekly email, if you want, to get updates to your search.

By Cindy Hillsey in Featured

A question I am frequently asked goes something like this, “With all the different social networking sites out there, how do I know which which is right for me, and how do I find the time to keep up with it?”

Great question! One that I am sure we’ve all asked ourselves at some point or another, right? This much is clear: If you don’t have a purpose for utilizing social media you are going to feel much like a person who has been thrown into the water and can’t swim! You are going to panic, and try to keep your head above water however you can. Not only is this scary, but it is exhausting. I would answer the above question with this question, “What is your primary reason for wanting to use social media?” Please don’t say ‘because everyone is doing it’. That is not a good reason. You need to have a well-defined reason so that you can then determine which site, or sites, you wish to spend your time on.

Here are five questions to ask yourself to help you determine which networking site(s) you want to utilize:

  1. What is your *main* purpose for utilizing social media? Be specific with this question. Don’t generalize.
  2. Who is your target audience?
  3. What specific results will your social media efforts have on your target audience?
  4. What is your comfort level with social media? Are you new to social media? Are you an intermediate user? An advanced user?
  5. How much time do you want to devote to social media per day? Per week?

Once you’ve answered these questions, you can begin to explore what social networking site(s) are the best fit for you based on the answers you’ve provided.

The big three in Social Media are: LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Here’s how I like to think of these:

  • LinkedIn is like putting on a suit.
  • Facebook is like casual Friday’s.
  • Twitter is like an afterwork party or hanging out on the weekend.

Business happens on all three of these sites just as it does in the traditional workplace during the day and after hours. I use this analogy only to provide an idea of how ‘business’ or ‘casual’ the site is. I, personally, am on all three of these social networking sites. They all ‘fit’ for me. The key to finding a fit is that you will then get involved. Don’t just sign up to sign up. You *must* get involved in some fashion. Whether that is joining a group and participating, or answering questions, or tweeting about some useful information, you must be involved. Remember, people need to know, like, and trust you *before* they will consider doing business with you.

As for how much time you need to spend on these networking sites, that will really depend on your purpose and target audience (see questions 1 and 2 above). Plan on at least 30 minutes a day. Block this time off on your calendar, set a timer (here’s a really cool no-cost one: http://www.nestersoft.com/timeleft/index.shtml ) for 30 minutes, and get busy! Once the timer goes off, you are done for the day. Wasn’t that easy? Doesn’t that sound manageable? If you find you really enjoy this, do this exercise again at the end of the day. As with anything, it is all about what you find comfortable, because when it’s comfortable you’ll do it!

Cindy Hillsey, Certified Professional Coach, is a Mentor/Coach to Solopreneurs, and specializes in coaching Virtual Assistants. As an innovative and inspiring business maverick, Cindy’s number one goal is to remove the unease around being a first time business owner. For more information and FREE resources and articles, please visit: http://www.virtualpartnering.com

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