4 Ways to Profit From LinkedIn
Are you a LinkedIn newbie?
Do you struggle to network and show off your expertise? Do you want to secure new business?
If so, the most important thing to know is that LinkedIn is not just a modern Rolodex or a glorified resume.
It contains more valuable information about a contact than you could imagine.
All this information can be used to start an interesting conversation that could lead to great business opportunities between you and him or her.
LinkedIn contains information that offers great business opportunities. Image source: iStockPhoto.
LinkedIn Relevance
Bill Waterhouse is a regional director for Technical Innovation, a company that provides audiovisual products, streaming media, videoconferencing and other services. He has a sales background and was the first person at his company to use LinkedIn. 
3 Easy Steps to Engaging Your Customers
Are your customers spreading a good word about your business?
Are you happy with your volume of referral business?
If not, it could be that your “engagement marketing engine” is not revved up.
What is Engagement?
Engagement is not just about unending, feel-good conversations on your blog or Facebook page.
According to Gail Goodman, author of Engagement Marketing: How Small Business Wins in a Socially Connected World, engagement is when people qualify themselves – when a prospect raises her hand and says, “Yes, I’m interested in your company. Help me to get to know you a little more.”
Invariably people who have engaged with you online become customers at higher rates, and they in turn tell their friends about you, revving up your marketing engine over and over again.
If you’re a small business owner who wants to strengthen engagement with existing customers, get more repeat sales and even more referrals, Engagement Marketing is exactly the book for you.
Here are a few things you should know about it.
Author’s Purpose
Gail Goodman, author of Engagement Marketing.
How to Attract Customers With Pinterest
Imagine your ideal clients.
Now think about what kind of pictures or visual images they would enjoy.
If you can create (or curate) visually compelling content, then Pinterest could be a great social platform for you.
When used the right way, Pinterest can drive massive traffic to your website, build loyal communities around your brand and convert fans into buyers.
Beyond the Pin
In February 2012, Pinterest bypassed Twitter in terms of referral traffic. But that’s not all.
A survey from PriceGrabber indicated that 21% of Pinterest users purchased something they saw on a pinboard! Suddenly the sound of ringing cash registers could be heard by marketers around the world.
Unlike Facebook where images of products are annoying or intrusive, Pinterest offers a beautiful and exciting new interface (much like a mall) where users actually expect and look forward to shopping!
In her new book, Pinfluence: The Complete Guide to Marketing Your Business with Pinterest, Beth Hayden gives business owners a lesson in visual marketing techniques that are bound to attract new customers and generate more revenue for their brands.
Here’s what you should know about the book.
4 Reasons You Should Attend Social Media Marketing World in San Diego
Do you attend in-person conferences?
Imagine an event where you rub shoulders with the social media pros you follow and admire online.
Then imagine networking with 1,000 fellow marketers in beautiful San Diego, California.
Now add the waterfront San Diego Marriott Marquis hotel, an opening-night party surrounded by dinosaur relics, an evening networking cruise on Southern California’s largest private yacht and 49 expert-led sessions.
That’s a small sampling of what’s in store for you at Social Media Examiner’s new conference: Social Media Marketing World!
What? Social Media Examiner is hosting a physical conference?
Social Media Examiner is known for its signature online summits like Social Media Success Summit and Facebook Success Summit.
And yes, these events bring together the world’s top social media experts and entrepreneurs, and gather huge worldwide audiences.
But social media marketing doesn’t need to be strictly an online experience. There’s great value when you make those online relationships come alive in person.
How Likeability Impacts Marketing Success
Do you care about being liked at work?
Do you think likeability should even play a role in business decisions?
If you’re struggling to answer these questions, you might be confusing ‘likeability’ with being considered ‘nice.’ The two are not the same thing.
In his latest book, Likeonomics: The Unexpected Truth Behind Earning Trust, Influencing Behavior, and Inspiring Action, Rohit Bhargava explains that likeability has nothing to do with being nice, and everything to do with being believable.
Having sat through hundreds of pitch meetings, I can tell you one thing for sure… unlikeable entrepreneurs never get funded. ~ Guy Kawasaki
The Jobs Paradox
Steve Jobs was clearly a visionary with a brilliant mind. But he is often described as having been an egomaniac and ‘hard to work with.’
When Nike CEO Mark Parker was asked about the best advice he ever received, he recalls Jobs telling him some months before he died:
Nike makes some of the best products in the world—products that you lust after. But you also make a lot of crap. Just get rid of the crap and focus on the good stuff.
Jobs didn’t play nice, but he had the type of honesty and clarity of vision that drew people to him, made him believable and even likeable, in his own way.
If you want to learn how to be more likeable and build a thriving career or business, Likeonomics is the best investment you’ll ever make. Here’s what you need to know about the book.
4 Steps to Transform Your Brand Into a Social Business
Do you listen to customer conversations about your brand online? If so, how do you respond to those conversations?
Listening on the social web isn’t hard to do.
What’s hard is creating an effective response system so that when something goes wrong (and it will!), a crisis can be averted, or at least resolved quickly and transparently.
The Johnson & Johnson “Motrin Moms” Crisis
Unfortunately, Johnson & Johnson learned this the hard way.
In November 2008, the giant pharmaceutical company created a Motrin ad for moms who experienced regular back pain from carrying their babies in backpacks, slings, carriers and so on.
Does Your Klout Score Determine Your Value?
What makes Adele a better singer than Rebecca Black?
Is it her magical vocals or her higher Klout score?
And if Seth Godin (Klout score: 0) chooses not to interact on Twitter, does that mean he’s less influential than Uncle Pete, whose Klout score is 35?
These are some of the tricky questions that are being asked since the emergence of new systems that attempt to measure people’s online influence through “social scoring.”
But the question is this: How exactly is “influence” measured? And how do those who make such personal yet inflammatory verdicts decide the scores?
Twitter would look very different if Seth Godin were on it.
You Have Become a Number
If you have a social media account, your value as an influencer is already being calculated based on how often you tweet, connect, share and comment.
Mobile Marketing: How to Reach Your Buyers Wherever They Are
Are you wondering how to use mobile marketing to grow your business?
If so, you might be intrigued by this fun fact: 4 billion people own a mobile phone. (Guess how many people own a toothbrush? 3.5 billion!)
In fact, as I write this article, I’m on a short visit to Kenya, where even a housemaid earning $85 a month routinely uses a mobile phone.
As more consumers use their mobile phones for multiple purposes, marketers like you will have the power to reach buyers at the exact time and place they’re looking for what you offer, explain Jeanne Hopkins and Jamie Turner in their new book, Go Mobile.
Go Mobile covers a lot of solid ground in mobile marketing, and while I cannot go into as much detail as I’d like, here’s a taste of what you can expect.
Authors’ Purpose
Jeanne Hopkins and Jamie Turner have set out to answer your most pertinent questions concerning mobile marketing such as SMS, MMS, mobile display ads, QR codes, mobile websites, mobile apps, location-based marketing and many other tools to increase your business revenue.
Their goal is to remove the shroud of mystery that surrounds mobile marketing so you can get started with your own campaign.
How to Grow and Manage an Engaged Online Community
Do you wear many hats at your place of business?
Do some of them have to do with reaching out to and interacting with your social media fans and blog readers?
If so, then you’re officially or unofficially performing the role of an online community manager.
If you’re doing it right, then it’s probably one of the most enjoyable jobs ever. You get to network with interesting people, make new friends, offer guidance, answer questions and so on.
But it’s not all sunshine and roses. At times you’re required to set and enforce the rules, issue warnings, deal with negative people and even ban members (when things get out of hand!).
In her book, Online Community Management for Dummies, Deb Ng shares her own extensive experience on how the different roles of a community manager work—especially as a customer advocate and brand loyalist.
Here’s what you need to know about the book.
How Social Content Attracts and Engages More Customers
When you think of content optimization, what’s the first thing that comes to mind?
Do you think of keywords, links and search engines?
Or do you focus on useful content, interesting articles, engaged audiences and happy customers?
If you’re in the second camp, you’re clearly familiar with “the big picture” of optimization. But if you’re in the first camp, then stick around—sounds like you need a new perspective!
The most important thing we learned from the Google Panda updates in 2011 is that search engines are really serious about improving search quality and user experience.
Since then, the priority for site owners has been to create original, interesting and sharable content that attracts links from other sites.
Lee Odden has written his first book titled, Optimize: How to Engage More Customers by Integrating SEO, Social Media and Content Marketing. In the book, he takes a holistic approach to content and search optimization and proposes that companies should consider all of the digital assets, data and content they have to work with in order to make both customers and search engines happy.
Here’s what you need to know about the book.
