With Facebook’s recent implementation of Timeline for Pages, we are quickly reminded that we have no control over what direction Facebook might take with their platform. Regardless if you are a fan or not of Facebook, however, there is still no better way to reach out and engage with both present and potential consumers in social media than through a robust Facebook Page. The problem is: Are you truly maximizing your Facebook presence to reach your marketing objectives? Many businesses that I meet are not. Maximizing your business presence on Facebook begins with truly maximizing all of the functionality that …
read moreNeal Schaffer
The founder and editor-in-chief of Windmill Networking, Neal Schaffer is a leader in helping businesses and professionals strategically leverage the business potential of social media. A Forbes Top 30 Social Media Power Influencer and creator of the AdAge Top 100 Global Marketing Blog Windmill Networking, Neal is a popular social media conference speaker who is also known for his two award-winning and critically acclaimed social media books: ”Maximizing LinkedIn for Sales and Social Media Marketing” and “Windmill Networking: Maximizing LinkedIn.” As a leading social media strategist, Neal has created social media strategies and coached implementation for companies ranging from a Fortune 50 software company to a Grammy-award winning musician with one million social media fans. Neal on Google+
Neal Schaffer's Posts
Whether we admit it or not, the opinions of other people matter. Whether it’s about simple things such as which brand of laundry detergent to buy, or bigger decisions such as who to consult with on critical business matters, we’ve always taken into account the points of view of those we deem important in order to get the information we need to make the best judgement calls. This is exactly how we can define word of mouth from a marketing perspective: the passing of information, hopefully beneficial to our brand, from one to another via oral communication. The potential influential …
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Disclaimer: This blog post is in no way condoning the gaming of, or attempts to “buy,” a higher Klout score. This post is also in no way stating or inferring that any given user of the platforms mentioned below, regardless of their metrics or “prices” on the respective platforms, has ever utilized the method I am about to explain. The purpose of this post is only to suggest the potential for activity which might increase your Klout score in order to expose potential shortcomings of a human algorithm attempting to calculate online influence in order to suggest ways to improve …
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Almost six months ago I blogged that marketers would decide on the fate of Klout. However, with the continued buzz about Klout scores that I hear from new and potential social media consulting clients, as well as the continued presence of its main competitor PeerIndex and the emerging metric for influence Kred, the debate over how social influence is measured continues to rage on. In fact, as Google Trends suggests, we have had a pretty stable interest in the metric to measure social media influence for the last several months: Let’s take a step back and try to understand what …
read more![Improving Your Social Recruiting on LinkedIn: 5 Tips to Optimize Your Company Page [INFOGRAPHIC]](http://windmillnetworking.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/iStock_000002738619XSmall-150x150.jpg)
Employment expert Alison Doyle defines social recruiting as when companies and recruiters use Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and and other social media sites to source and recruit candidates for employment. Although LinkedIn is notorious for headhunters contacting potential candidates, it should be noted that Twitter and Facebook can be equally used for social recruiting, although in different manners. That being said, no other social networking website is geared towards making it easier to find your ideal candidate – or fill your talent pipeline – than LinkedIn is. You can check out the infographic below from Jobvite with more statistics on the subject, …
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Consulting with clients on their social media strategy and implementation for more than two years has led me to one conclusion about how businesses should be using social media: The closer you can bring your brand to your customers, the better it will be for both of you. In exposing as much of your brand to your customers as possible, fans hopefully become more passionate about your products, and your company learns more about how to please fans. In doing so, assuming that these fans are social media users, online word of mouth spreads goodwill about the company, brand loyalty …
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Let’s face it: Facebook is the new Farmer’s Market. Every business wants to be there because every consumer is there. There are amazing things you can do with Facebook applications, community development, and engagement to help better brand your company and increase your social following of present and potential customers. On the other hand, when I recently spoke on a panel on social media for the agricultural industry in Japan, there was a watermelon grower who sold one of his watermelons simply through a conversation on his Page’s wall. When we think of selling products or services to consumers on …
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One of the biggest challenges in sales prospecting on LinkedIn is in how to find and contact those who are difficult to message through the site: The Untouchables. Luckily, LinkedIn offers several tools to aid in communication with your prospects. Though LinkedIn is a virtual trade show, there are those who attend industry exhibitions but don’t spend time on the floor or in the breakout sessions. If your efforts until now have not allowed you to gain access to those key decision makers behind locked doors that haven’t showed up but have a profile, there are many innovative ways to …
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I don’t know if that title surprised you, but I thought the time had come to face the fact that this blog gets very few comments when compared to other blogs with similar or even less website visitors. I see a lot of bloggers trying to get more comments for their blogs to the point that they enlist in “tribes” to comment on each other’s blogs, a tactic introduced in a famous blog post by a famous blogger some time ago. In fact, some bloggers go so far as to install WordPress plugins for comments that actually inflate comment numbers …
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This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Broadband Genie. All opinions are 100% mine. As the cost of smartphone handsets and mobile broadband drops across the globe, the popularity of social media, particularly Twitter and Facebook, shoots up dramatically. The convergence of these two trends is influencing and vastly changing the way we live, how we work and how we communicate with each other. The folks over at Culture Label share with us some relevant statistics that back up this development – and I have included their excellent infographic at the bottom of this blog post. …
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I was recently interviewed by Haydn Shaughnessy of Forbes for the article “How to Power Your Professional Networking Through LinkedIn.” Haydn did an excellent job of interviewing me by posing questions that others have never asked, and therefore I provided advice there that I have never provided anywhere else. Make sure you check out the article for the full details, and please share with your networks if you think the advice would help them. One of the questions that resonated with me was his question, “When people share content on LinkedIn it just seems to be part of the usual …
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Due to the professional demographic of LinkedIn, it’s only a matter of time before more businesses leverage the professional opportunities available by searching for products and services through LinkedIn Company Pages. It is in every business owner’s best interest to ensure that his or her company be found prominently in the Company search results when someone decides to look for a business that specializes within the company’s niche area. To further enhance the experience, the page for your company should be complete, accurate, and enticing for potential customers. Here are five strategic tips to help you properly establish your firm’s …
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As companies become media publishers as part of their social media marketing strategy, one topic that always confuses my clients is the topic of content curation, or sourcing information from 3rd party sources and then sharing them on your social media properties. Windmill Networking Content Marketing contributor Bob Geller wrote a great post yesterday on how content curation can help complement your content marketing and social media marketing efforts. If you’re still trying to get a grip on content curation, let me frame the topic the same way I do for my clients: There is a certain frequency at which …
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When it was launched last year, Google+ set out to be part of the burgeoning social networking space already dominated by Facebook and Twitter. While admittedly it has been a slow climb for the newest social network, things appear to be changing with the introduction of brand pages. It’s the search giant’s version of Facebook Pages, allowing businesses to connect with followers or “circlers” in Google parlance. If you have a Facebook Page, now is the time for you to invest in Google+ Brand Page - and our G+ contributor Mark Traphagen has already given you great advice as to how to set …
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If you haven’t noticed this website underwent a facelift sometime ago. Like most others who blog or work in social media, putting a default “Follow Me!” widget with our social media icons or even Facebook and Twitter widgets showing our latest tweets or posts is a common practice. Often these elements are displayed in the prime areas of a website – top righthand corner and above the fold righthand sidebar. Let’s take a step back now. While we engage in social media to build community and communicate with our customers and prospects, we also use social media to attract social …
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