I’m a long-time fan of LinkedIn, and LinkedIn Groups, particularly for B2B marketing. I’ve used LinkedIn and groups for myself and for my clients whose goals generally include building credibility and establishing thought leadership status. A business contact recently asked me what my “top tips” would be for participating in LinkedIn and, particularly, for participation in LinkedIn Groups–one of the big benefits of this social media platform in my opinion.
Tag: linkedin
CEOs and Social Media: Getting the Boss on Board
Socializing Your CEO, a report released by Weber Shandwick, indicates that only 18% of the CEOs of the largest companies in the world have their own social network pages-a 2% increase from the 2010 report. It would appear that CEOs are simply not jumping on the social media bandwagon, at least not personally. Don’t believe it? Do a quick search on LinkedIn, arguably the most “professional” of the various social media channels, and see how many CEOs you find.
You’ll find some, but they don’t represent the CEOs of the Fortune 500 — or even 1000. Most, like me, are CEOs of their own small firms or consultancies.
So, what gives? Continue reading “CEOs and Social Media: Getting the Boss on Board”
How Should You Measure Your Social Media Activity?
We work with clients regularly to help them evaluate or establish various channels of online communication with their key audiences. Social media is obviously often part of the process we use in helping them connect with these audiences. Often, but not always. When it is, just as with any other form of communication, one thing we want to establish right up front is a means of measuring the value of this activity. Continue reading “How Should You Measure Your Social Media Activity?”
Why You Should Be on Google+
Google+ is one of those relatively new social media tools that puzzles many, myself included. I’ve checked it out, dabbled with both a personal profile and a business page, deleted both, and started all over again. I have a few people in my circles and some people have me in theirs (many who are absolute strangers to me).
Recently, though, I had one of those “a ha!” moments about Google+ and why, for just about anybody hoping to be “discovered” online, it’s a must-use tool.
Here’s the thing: Continue reading “Why You Should Be on Google+”
How to Use Social Media to Grow and Market Your Business
The wide proliferation of social media sites–from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to Pinterest, Google+ and Instagram–provide a myriad of opportunities for businesses of any size to connect with their target audiences. That can be good news and not-so-good news for marketers. Why? Because while the out-of-pocket costs for using most of these tools is low to none, the time investment can be significant. Add to that Continue reading “How to Use Social Media to Grow and Market Your Business”
Using Social Media to Grow Your Business
We use social media for our own business and also work with clients to help them use various social media channels effectively to meet their business objectives. Many of our clients are in service (e.g. healthcare) organizations or are independent consultants hoping to establish themselves as thought leaders. All are hoping that social media can help to raise awareness of their services and, ultimately, drive business. We’ve successfully used Continue reading “Using Social Media to Grow Your Business”
New LinkedIn Product Pages – Go or No Go?
LinkedIn recently announced the introduction of product pages—the ability for brands to create pages to highlight specific products. The big question for brands is: “worth it,or a waste of time”? Call me crazy, but I’m going with the latter. In fact, as I work with and monitor my own accounts as well as client accounts I’m very cognizant of the potential to dilute brand messages by using too many channels. Continue reading “New LinkedIn Product Pages – Go or No Go?”
What NOT to do on LinkedIn—or other social media sites!
We’ve been fairly active in social media for quite some time and manage several accounts for our own marketing efforts and to experiment with techniques that we can use to help boost clients’ awareness levels and levels of engagement online. We’ve reached that point where it is more common for people to reach out to us to connect than it is for us to be actively seeking new connections. To manage our connections, we have some guidelines in place to determine whose invitations to connect we accept and whose we ignore. Continue reading “What NOT to do on LinkedIn—or other social media sites!”
Top Social Media Missteps: Are You Making These Mistakes?
There is no doubt that the rapid introduction of various social media platforms has dramatically changed the communication climate for businesses of all kinds. Whether you’re an independent consultant or author, work in a small “mom and pop” retail outlet, or a large multi-national conglomerate, social media is likely to play a part in communicating with key audiences. Unfortunately, sometimes the role of social media isn’t carefully considered. Messages are shared, but is anyone listening? Most importantly, are the right people listening? Continue reading “Top Social Media Missteps: Are You Making These Mistakes?”
Narrowing Your Audience: Be Clear to Connect
One of the key decisions that communicators must make is how to segment their audience. Segmenting is basically dividing the overall audience into groups–or segments–that share commonalities so that they can be targeted more specifically. For instance, if you’re a health care organization, you could segment your audience into: women and men. You might further segment the women into audiences of: women of child-bearing age, pre-menopausal women, menopausal women, elderly women. Even among these audiences there might be some need to further segment.
There are (at least) two key points to consider about segmentation:
Continue reading “Narrowing Your Audience: Be Clear to Connect”