LinkedIn just announced their earnings last week for the first time since going public, and it was good to see that their membership (now at 115 million members) and website traffic (#11 in the U.S., #13 in the world) continue to grow. When I wrote my first LinkedIn book back in early 2009, LI was at 40 million users and had not yet established itself as the default social networking platform for professionals that it has become. Beyond mere networking, however, in 2011 there is now a compelling case to be made for us to rethink how we view LinkedIn …
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I recently had a chance to meet the younger sister of a high school friend who was in transition for the first time since college graduation. “I used to always have jobs lined up for me and never had a challenge finding work.” Heard that one before, right? How about, “I received all of these LinkedIn invites, but I thought they were such a nuisance!” Indeed, the only positive thing to come out of not digging our wells before we are thirsty is to finally realize the power of LinkedIn in helping us build out our personal brand, professional networking, …
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When I wrote my LinkedIn book back in 2009, I had two detailed chapters on how you can embed a video into your profile using two different applications that LinkedIn provides. What is interesting is that, for the casual LinkedIn user, there are no “video” profile sections nor applications to choose from in the main menu, but both Google Presentation and SlideShare Presentations have always supported video. This tutorial will cover the easiest way to get a video up on your profile, which I have chosen Google Presentation for. Assuming that you already have a video of yourself, the entire …
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With Seth Godin about to appear on stage in Orange County in just a few weeks time, there is a buzz around here about what new insights he will provide to us in 2011. And the event, in line with what Seth preaches about holding BIG events, is set to be HUGE – he will be speaking at the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, part of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts, a location that is host to the likes of Natalie Cole and the Vienna Philharmonic. In my eyes, but more importantly the eyes of the event organizer …
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As someone who consults and speaks on social media, I still get the newbie customer who wants me to “do” their social implementation for them. What does “doing” their social media mean? It’s means potentially representing every facet of their company with every potential new and current customer that are out there on the Social Web. Last I checked we were spending 22% of our Internet time in social media, so that’s a huge amount of influence that I could yield. Not to mention the fact that I can yield power controlling the brand image for a company, something they …
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Everyone who knows me knows that I am one of the biggest evangelists for LinkedIn. While others turn to Twitter and Facebook, I keep reminding businesses that LinkedIn should be your hub for B2B social media marketing. And while the world is going crazy about Branchout, the Facebook application for professional networking, I find immense value in new tools such as LinkedIn Signal. But as a trusted networking platform for professionals, I find that LI is falling behind its social media counterparts in one important area: Privacy Settings. Here are 3 specific scenarios in which I believe it is in …
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One of the amazing things about Twitter, when compared to a LinkedIn or a Facebook, is that it’s core functionality is so simple yet complemented with complexity by hundreds if not thousands of useful 3rd party apps because of its open architecture and growing ecosystem. Where you don’t really need any external tools to maximize your presence on LinkedIn or even Facebook for that matter, using external apps on the realtime platform for tweets can not only help save you time, it can also help you unearth critical business intelligence and allow you to truly maximize your presence for whatever …
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I had a chance to be on a CEO Trust social media panel last night with Joe Meyer, the CEO of HopStop. Embarrassing as it is to say, I wasn’t familiar with HopStop because they haven’t rolled out their service in Southern California (coming soon, L.A.!), and also because I rarely have a chance to take public transportation in the US or Canada (or Europe, where HopStop is also growing). But if you live in a major metropolitan area with a robust public transportation system, I’m assuming that you already use HopStop (and if you haven’t then you should!) because it provides a …
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As we head into 2011, it’s best to take a look back at the top 25 social media marketing blog posts of 2010 and see what we can glean to help us in the new year. Social media is fascinating in that the way we utilize these sites, and the functionality of these sites, is always changing. Therefore, as social media marketers, we always need to be staying ahead of the curve of not only the latest changes in the world of social media, but also what the thought leaders are saying about social media marketing. The algorithm I used …
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Although Facebook and Twitter always steal the social media spotlight, 2010 should be remembered as the year where LinkedIn accelerated development and released a plethora of new applications, features, and functionality to their platform for professionals. While many complain of the ever-increasing restrictions and some question the validity of potentially keyword-stuffed search results on the professional networking platform, it is clear that LinkedIn is following a path of sticking to its roots as a trusted network built upon relationships while always looking for creative ways to generate additional revenue and traffic from new sources. If you haven’t kept up with …
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