Personal Branding

LinkedIn: My 5 Tips to Getting Started

LinkedIn: My 5 Tips to Getting Started

I am always amazed of the people I meet at networking events or social media conferences that are heavy on Twitter or Facebook but light on LinkedIn. Or others that are on LinkedIn but are not really on LinkedIn. In other words, after realizing the potential value of LinkedIn, what’s next? I have become good friends with Bradley Will, the role model who is empowering young entrepreneurs, and we have a similar goal of helping others better utilize social media.  My blog post for today I actually wrote for his demographic, the Gen Y entrepreneurs who have been intimated by …

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LinkedIn vs Facebook – Do You Use Them Differently?

LinkedIn vs Facebook – Do You Use Them Differently?

I signed up for Facebook several years after I joined LinkedIn.  In fact, I even joined Twitter six months before becoming a Facebook member.  A year ago you could of said that a Gen X guy on Facebook was not the norm.  But now that there are as many Facebook users aged 25 to 54 as there are those that are aged 18 to 24, I would consider my demographic fairly average these days. So you can imagine how surprised I was when I uploaded my LinkedIn contacts to Facebook and found an acceptance rate of only 10 to 15% …

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Is Your LinkedIn Profile More Accurate Than Your Resume?

Is Your LinkedIn Profile More Accurate Than Your Resume?

Today’s blog post is influenced by an article I read from the comments made by LinkedIn at the Social Recruiting Summit.  Let me further expand the argument for the case of LinkedIn. Like many others who have learned to embrace LinkedIn, I did so when I was in transition.  I realized that I had not been digging my well before I was thirsty, and I vowed to not only build up a larger network, but also to both stay in better touch with that network as well as provide more value to those in my network. As I mentioned in …

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Young Entrepreneurs: 5 Reasons Why You CAN & SHOULD Leverage LinkedIn!

Today’s blog post is one that I created for Bradley Will, a self-proclaimed “gnarly entrepreneur” who is also the leading voice for empowering a new generation of young entrepreneurs.  If you haven’t read his blog you need to check it out.  The blog post that I did itself you should read on Bradley’s site here.  But I wanted to give you some background about the post because it explains two important things about Windmill Networking (which will be detailed further in my book to be published in August).

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LinkedIn Introductions: How Do I Ask for One?

LinkedIn Introductions: How Do I Ask for One?

LinkedIn Introductions are an integral part of the social networking platform.  After all, LinkedIn has given us the ability to search for someone and see how we are connected to them, and it is with this information that we can request an Introduction from our connection just as we request a referral from a friend in real life.  Unfortunately, very few people actually ask for an Introduction on LinkedIn in the same manner that they ask for a introduction in a real-life.  And this bothers me.  Thus, I blog.

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LinkedIn Branding Tips: Should I Indicate on My LinkedIn Profile Status Update That I am Unemployed?

Before I event start answering this question, I will tell you that I am going out on a limb on this one.  I am going against what a lot of people are actually doing.  You may think that I am crazy or just wrong, but my intention is only to help those that are unemployed with the best advice possible.  You can take my advice or leave it.  I welcome all opinions, but I do hope you will continue reading to the very end of this blog post to better understand me. This question came recently from a LinkedIn/Twitter friend, …

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What is a Social Media Expert?

What is a Social Media Expert?

There’s been a lot of buzz recently in the twittersphere and world of blogging about the explosion of so-called “social media experts.”  Everyone seems to be branding themselves an “expert” in something, and it leads to the question of just what it all means, especially in this blog with regards to the context of what a “LinkedIn Expert” is.  Today I will cover “Social Media Experts” in general while my next blog post will look at “LinkedIn Experts” in particular. First of all, if you missed it, there was an excellent article yesterday on “6 Reasons You Shouldn’t Brand Yourself …

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How Should I Utilize LinkedIn Differently than Twitter?

How Should I Utilize LinkedIn Differently than Twitter?

Many of my LinkedIn contacts have started sending me emails asking me to “follow” them on Twitter, so I thought this was a good time to take a look at what you should be doing differently on each site.

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My LinkedIn Profile: Should I Include My Photo?

My LinkedIn Profile: Should I Include My Photo?

There has been some heated discussion this morning on a LinkedIn Group Discussion Forum that I belong to concerning this topic of displaying your profile picture (I hope you’ve also been maximizing your LinkedIn Group membership!).  One of the Group members attended a LinkedIn seminar where the presenter said that those in transition should NOT include their picture as part of their profile, the reason being that it would be an Equal Opportunity violation if a recruiter selects you after seeing what you look like.   Furthermore, the presenter went on to say that most recruiters actually restrict their search …

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LinkedIn for Lawyers 101

LinkedIn for Lawyers 101

I have had the opportunity to engage with many lawyers recently, both in person as well as online through LinkedIn, and the sudden interest in social media that they seem to have has been surprising to me.  I had always envisioned the legal profession as more of an old-school, conservative group of people that would not have an interest in social networking.  The interest from them that I have seen clearly shows that LinkedIn, and social networking, are phenomenons that are here to stay. If you are in the legal profession and are already on LinkedIn, you may not be …

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