Posts Tagged ‘linkedin’

5 Ideas for Executing a Rockstar Social Media Plan

Saturday, April 9th, 2011 by jrajani

You have a great product or service and you want to share it with the world. Social media can help you do that. There are communities already living online that need what you have to offer. The trick is to find them and engage them in a way that they are comfortable with. Before you run into their virtual space and start telling them all about your company, it’s a good idea to have a rock solid plan.

Here are a few things to consider:

1. Develop a Great Message

It does not matter how amazing your product or service is if you can’t articulate what it is you are offering in 15 seconds or less your potential customers will most likely pass you by. Short and concise sentences are a must. Simple and snappy logos and graphics are also key. The goal is easy dissemination of your inspiring and original message. The result of achieving that goal is a burgeoning base of loyal customers.

2. Make it Easily Sharable

Thought leaders and game changers love to be the first people to tell their networks about the new and innovative product/service you have to offer. Make your info subscribable, sharable and Re-Tweetable. This will give you more of a chance of being picked up by one of these active engagers and passed to their squadron of loyal followers. Once you’re in with them, you’ll have access to a whole new level of rich demographics to look at.

3. Give People an Incentive

Want your audience to stop in your digital neighborhood and stay for a while? Give them a reason to do so. This could include an engaging competition (think photo or video submissions), free e-book or webinar, or a discount on your services. There are also a litany of ways you can make your site or social media presence more interactive including using Facebook pages, games as well as a creative use of effective Twitter tools. In this fast paced world, people have increasingly short attention spans, so again, keeping it snappy is a good idea.

4. Know What You Want to Achieve

This is imperative during the Return of Investment (ROI) determination and reevaluation phase. Speaking of metrics, this could be a number of Facebook ‘likes’, the consistency of page views, an in-depth analysis of your analytics software or something else.

5. Know What Tools You’ll Need to Achieve

There are several tools out there, some free and some not, that will help you measure ROI on SMM endeavors. Search for: Radian6, ScoutLabs, SocialMention or Trendrr and determine which one will serve you or your organization the best.

Above all, remember that the digital world is incredibly malleable and frequently changing. Be ready and willing to reassess and change your current plan on a regular basis. The 24 hour news cycle and hyper attentive blog rolls depend on and create the need to be nimble. Keep this in mind and you’ll be way ahead of the curve.

Thanks for reading my bio and article, I hope you find both interesting. If you do, why not connect with me online, see below for details.

People say that my coffee is too strong, what can I say, I love things in life that have taste. I also have a passion for writing about social media, education and tend to Tweet more than should. I’ve had the fortune of publishing my ideas both online as well as in the traditional book format. When asked I also provide advise on Social Media, Personal Branding and education.

I am also co-founder of 99Squared Limited where we provide a unique way of using QR-Codes for business and the public sector.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Johannes_Ahrenfelt

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6121487

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4 Tips to Improve Your LinkedIn Account

Saturday, March 26th, 2011 by jrajani

If you’ve ever come across the problem where you feel that you’re not being received well through social media networking sites, it’s probably a much easier fix that you’d think. Most of the time, if you feel you’re being ignored, it is most likely by accident, as in the person doesn’t know they are ignoring you.

I mean, put yourself in their position, do you keep up with every little request, update or message?

Typically, we’re too busy to keep up with it all so when you get a friend or connection request, you approve it, and go on with your day.

However, not engaging with others makes social media pointless. Your whole purpose of making accounts is to interact and gain valuable clients, potential clients and/or connections. You need to go past the general “hello” to make this work.

So now you’re probably thinking, “What in the heck can I do to get valuable connections?” Easy! Simply follow these four steps that will help improve your LinkedIn account and gain more value through social networking.

Mini-Step: LinkedIn differs from the other sites such as Twitter and Facebook, whereas the later are more casual and LinkedIn is more for professional connections. When you’re on LinkedIn you want to seek out those CEO’s, Directors, Managers, Business Owners and so forth.

Step 1: Send Connection Requests with a Personalized Message:

Go to the person’s page that you would like to add using the “add to your network link” feature. This allows you to add a personalized message along with your connection request. You can simply put, “Hi there, I hope to connect with you in the future,” or something similar depending on whom the person is. If you already know the person, this message can be adapted to remind them of how they know you. If you add someone from the Add Connections box, there is no way to send a message along with it. The little extra effort of putting a small message with your request can go a long way and is much more valuable and personal.

Step 2: When you accept a Connection, Reply!

More often than not, we simply click “approve” and never give the request a second thought. However, if you want this connection to be valuable, and reap the benefits of what social media offers, go a step further and tell them “hello!” What is more beneficial is to act as if the person was standing in front of you and you two just shook hands. In that particular situation, how would you react? Take a look at their profile, what do you two have in common? Do you know anything about the place they live? Can you comment about the weather? Do you know about their place of employment? Are you in a similar field? It can be very simple and quick, but something along with “hello” like “how are you?” will make a greater impact and a huge difference.

Step 3: Write and Send a Group Message:

LinkedIn will allow you to send a “mass” email to up-to 50 people at one time. This is an awesome feature since it allows you to message more than one individual at a time, but not too many to invoke spamming. When you open a new message, at the bottom you will see two boxes. You’ll need to uncheck that box which says, “Allow recipients to see each other’s names and email addresses,” so that you secure each of your connections identities. Here are some things to remember when conducting a mass email:

  1. - The opening statement: Since you’re sending a message to several people at one time, put some focus on how to greet each person within this mass email. This is simple, so don’t over think it. You can say something like “Hello everyone” or “Happy Friday to all of you!” Right after this greeting, add a sentence that apologizes for not being too personal and that this message is going out to several folks. This way, your etiquette is still perfect.
  2. - Don’t forget to un-check that box: Your connections may in fact, be happy to make other connections by you being the middle man, however, it is not okay to assume this. You should respect each person’s contact information by un-checking that box (as stated above) in order to keep their contact info from being spread around.
  3. - Content: this email is similar to a newsletter in that, you don’t want to gloat about your company but rather, provide some valuable information. Shift the focus off of what you offer and onto what you can help with, if they are having a problem. Add information about a great business book you read, or blog, or a free event that is being held soon.

Step 4: Asking for Recommendations Properly:

One great feature that LinkedIn offers is the recommendations feature. These are valuable to those on LinkedIn because, professionally speaking; it can land you a new client or gig. There are a ton of people on LinkedIn with a very small amount of recommendations, if any at all. This is one way to really stick out from the rest. Personally, a 10-recommendation minimum is suggested, but the more you get, the merrier! Start with your most reliable or notable connections. When you use the recommendations link, it will give you a template for requesting a recommendation. Although it’s nice to have, you definitely need to personalize it before sending it off and this includes the subject line. You don’t have to write a bunch of paragraphs in your message body; however, you need to be clear about exactly what recommendation you are wanting.

Overall, when using LinkedIn for professional networking, you want to always personalize whatever you can. A great way to go about that is to ask yourself first, what would I ask or how would I act if we were meeting or talking in person.

If you have any suggestions for using LinkedIn and growing valuable connections, what are they?

Dawn Pigoni
Social Media Virtual Assistant
http://BeSocialWorldwide.com
http://Twitter.com/dawntrenee
The Social Media Marketing world is important to online businesses and I bring value to other companies by offering social media marketing assistance to those small companies that don’t have the time, knowledge or manpower to keep up with social media marketing.

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Facebook is Most Dangerous Threat to Corporate Security

Tuesday, January 25th, 2011 by jrajani

The biggest threat to corporate IT comes from web based social media applications. Since administrators have no direct control over the management of apps such as farmville and others they can potentially expose the enterprise to sensitive data leaks, productivity loss and a compromise of network security.
The following sites pose the most danger to the corporate enterprise:

Facebook:
Facebook is surely the most dangerous social media site today, largely based upon its popularity. With a 500+ million user following, Facebook offers a fertile attack surface for hackers. Add in the potential technical concerns, such as a questionable, open App API and now you have a recipe for disaster.

Twitter:
One would assume that very little damage could be done in 140 characters, but this is an incorrect assumption.  In some cases, Twitter’s short form posts lead to new vulnerabilities such as URL shorteners. While URL shorteners can help save space in Twitter posts, they can also help hackers hide malicious links.  Furthermore, Twitter suffers from many Web 2.0 and API related vulnerabilities that allow various attacks and even Twitter worms to propagate among its users.

YouTube:
Because it is one of the most popular online video sites, attackers are drawn to targeting YouTube.  Hackers often create malicious web pages that masquerade as YouTube video pages.  Additionally, attackers like to spam the comment section of YouTube videos with malicious links.
 
LinkedIn:
LinkedIn bears more burden than other social media sites; it is business oriented.  Thus, it makes a more attractive target to attackers, as LinkedIn is highly trusted.  Because most users leverage LinkedIn to form business relationships or find jobs, they tend to post more valuable and potentially sensitive information to this social network.

4chan:
4chan is a popular image board, a social media site where users post images and comments. 4chan has been involved in many Internet attacks attributed to “anonymous,” which is the only username that all 4chan users can obtain. Some of 4chans image boards contain the worst depravities found on the Internet.  Many hackers spam their malware to the 4chan forums.

Chatroulette:
Chatroulette is an up-and-coming site that allows webcam owners to connect and chat with random people.  The nature of this anonymous webcam system makes it a likely target for Internet predators.

Here are some details as to why social media applications pose a big threat to business:

Productivity Loss:
Various research organizations have reported that the United States loses billions of dollars a year due to lowered productivity, as a result of time sinks such as social media sites.  Although social media sites can be used for collaboration and rich communications, IT administrators often lack the ability to manage and control business productivity web applications vis-a-vis gaming web applications.

Data loss:
With most US states enacting mandatory data breach disclosure laws, businesses are increasingly concerned about data leakage, whether accidental or malicious. Unfortunately, the attributes that make social media sites a fantastic communication medium also make them a potential risk for information and privacy leakage.  By having application control capabilities, administrators reduce risks associated with accidental as well as malicious data loss.

Malware and Attack vector:

WatchGuard predicts that social networks will become the leading malware vector over the next few years for three reasons:

Social media sites breed a culture of trust.
The whole point of social media is to interact with others. Typically interactions are with people considered to be “friends”, which implies trust.  Meanwhile, social media sites do not have any technical means to validate that the people you are interacting with really are who they say they are.  This environment of trust creates an ideal scenario for social engineers to utilize.

Many Social media sites suffer from technical vulnerabilities.
While Web 2.0 technologies provide many benefits, they also harbor many security vulnerabilities. The complexity of Web 2.0 applications can lead to imperfect code, which introduces some social network sites to Web application vulnerabilities, such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks.  Furthermore, the whole concept of allowing untrusted users to push content onto social media sites conflicts with traditional security paradigms. Simply put, this means social media sites are more likely to suffer from web vulnerabilities than less complex and less interactive web sites.

Hugely Popular.
According to online analytics firm, Compete, Facebook is now the 2nd most popular Web destination after Google. Many other social networks, such as Twitter and YouTube, follow closely behind.  Attackers are attracted to this popularity because they know it means that they can get “return on investment” for their attacks.

“Now more than ever, businesses need security tools to manage the myriad of web applications that flow in and out of corporate networks,” said Eric Aarrestad, Vice President of Marketing at WatchGuard.  “With WatchGuard Application Control, administrators can selectively allow, block, or restrict access to applications based on a user’s department, job function, and time of day, and generate reports on usage.  This keeps unproductive, inappropriate, and risky applications off-limits.” 

Source: WatchGuard Technologies

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Linkedin is Top Social Media Tool for Finance

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010 by jrajani

network

Pershing Advisor Solutions recently announced the availability of a new study, “Creating Growth: The Increased Use of Social Media by Independent Advisors” which explores the role of social media usage by registered investment advisors (RIAs) to increase business development and manage client interaction.

The growth of networks such as Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter has had a positive impact on all industries, however, useage levels have been fairly slow in the financial industry. RIAs are developing ways to utilize social networking to grow their business, the creating growth study was based on feedback from 144 U.S. based RIAs out which one third were employed at firms with more than $1 billion assets under management and 37% were working for firms with less than $100 million under management.

Key highlights from the study include the following:

Social media activity pays off:

Among RIAs using social media, 42% said it has helped them reach new prospects, while for 31% it has helped to generate awareness of their business and 27% credit social media with helping them differentiate themselves from their competition. Social media has produced tangible financial results as well. One in five attributes increased revenue or fees from existing clients due to their social media-related efforts.

RIAs that use social media outperform other advisors:
Although RIAs who use social media on average manage less assets and advise fewer clients than other RIAs, the survey found that they have experienced higher growth in terms of revenue, assets, and clients advised.

LinkedIn tops Facebook, other tools for RIAs:
The clear favorite is LinkedIn which is used by 53% of advisors who use at least one social media tool, while 39% use Facebook and 27% use Twitter. One in five advisors who use social media have a professionally-oriented blog.

Social Media is not limited to younger RIAs:
While just over half of RIAs under the age of 30 use social media on a professional basis, almost as many in their 30s (48%) and their 40s (42%) are using social media for business.

Many firms remain hesitant to endorse social media:
Financial services firms’ attitudes and policies toward social media may be discouraging its use among advisors. Nearly half of RIAs work for a firm that has a written policy governing the use of social media tools. Moreover, among those firms, 81% prohibit or limit the use of social media. Among RIAs not currently using social media tools on a professional basis, just 16% are likely or very likely to start using LinkedIn in the next year. The percentage of RIAs that plan to start using other social media tools is even lower.

Mark Tibergien, chief executive officer of Pershing Advisor Solutions, said, “Social media is a juggernaut, and RIAs can’t afford to dismiss the opportunity it affords them to engage clients and enhance their visibility with prospects. When developing a strategic marketing communications plan, RIAs need to consider the benefits of incorporating social media into an integrated marketing communications plan. They also need to understand the risks – regulatory and otherwise – of making social media a tool in their public positioning.”

Ron Shevlin, senior analyst at Aite Group added, “Considering the benefits and business impact they have experienced, it is not surprising that RIAs who use social media on a professional basis are more likely than other advisors to consider social media important for the future. Still, many advisors will be challenged by their firms’ decisions to limit or prohibit the use of social media because of regulatory and compliance concerns, as well as other factors.”

Source: Pershing Advisor Solutions

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