Expose yourself - it's OK!

Poor old Contact Settings.  Relegated to the bottom of your profile.  Oft ignored.  But did you know that with a few minor tweaks, Contact Settings can make your profile exponentially more accessible on LinkedIn?

The trick is adding your contact information (an email address or phone number) to this section  usually found at the bottom of your profile.  once you do that, your contact information becomes exposed to your entire network – not just your first level of connections.

I know this will make some people nervous.  I have almost 19 million people in my network, I’ve had my contact info in this section for years, and I rarely get unsolicited spam as a result.

Caveat:  The more you expose yourself on Social Media, the more exposed you are to people who might abuse the system.

You can alway create a “Social  Media email account” that you use strictly for your social media communications:

• Keep your social media and “real” email separate
• Build your lists
• “Throw away” option if your account gets usurped or ‘phished’

That should keep you relatively safe.

Are you a visual learner?  Take a look at these two videos to learn how to better expose yourself with this undiscovered LinkedIn Real Estate!

Expose yourself!

Valuable Real Estate!
My friend Donna Gilliland form MOSTraining recently recorded  this brief video to show you how to fully utilize LinkedIn Contact Settings’ real estate and how to re-order your Contact Settings so that the section is more greatly highlighted in your LinkedIn Profile

I have been helping people create Professional LinkedIn Profiles for almost 5 years.  And I’m pretty darned good at it.  But when it comes to working with someone to create a business bio – for your website, for speaking opps, for anything (except LinkedIn of course) – the woman to contact is Maryjo Faith Morgan!

Maryjo interviewed me and 20 pages of notes later, this is the bio she created for me.  Wow.  I am even impressed with myself!

My new bio:

Viveka von Rosen has made a career out of helping people.

As CEO of Linked Into Business, Viveka enables business professionals to make personal connections in a professional manner.  When her clients make strides in their careers, she has met her objective.

Viveka focuses on working with female entrepreneurs, women who are either in business for themselves or want to be.  “So often they are on the verge of success but either don’t have the marketing background or self belief to make it.”

Her job, through empowerment training, is to bump these clients into having a sense of self .  To help  them  use social media to market their product or service.  She exposes inferiority and not-enough-ness as crippling mindsets to be weeded out.

“It’s all about relationship building and showing my clients how to use relationship, which they do well anyway, and make that into a path of income.”

The social media movement makes sense to her because she believes that people – at personal and professional levels – ultimately connect with other people.  Viveka saw LinkedIn’s potential early on, and pursued connections and learning opportunities persistently.

As a result she has befriended many of Social Media’s gurus.  Attending and speaking at workshops she has met some of her idols.  What impresses her is how incredibly generous these experts are with their time, whether they are grabbing lunch or sharing dinner after speaking before 25,000 people in the afternoon.  These experiences convinced her even more that she is completely capable of achieving the  kind of success she wants for herself, and enabling her clients to do the same.

“These famous people are just ordinary folks, too.  I tell my clients they can become successful in a relatively short time using the same tools, which are available to any of us.”

Viveka maintains that there are plenty of free or inexpensive ways to grow a business.  The hardest part?  Actually doing the steps it takes, focusing and strategizing.  And that’s where the mentoring comes in.

When Viveka works with clients she asks over and over, in each situation,  “How has choosing this path brought you closer to your business and personal goals?”

The phenomenon of mentoring is that everything clients are doing at her suggestions now,  they could have done on their own and did not have the discipline on their own.  But when it comes to paying money – they do it and follow through.

She tells her clients, “Social Media is a great tool to express your genius and who you are.”  It is the opposite of anonymity.. “It  gives individuals the ability to share your voice, feelings, beliefs and some people hear them, as opposed to just being an unheard peon in a marriage, at work, or in a church.  A

lot of people feel unheard and unsupported, as if they have no meaning. Social media gives each person the opportunity to speak, gain a tribe and have some meaning.”

No wonder she gets so jazzed by social media.  “Looking back on every job I’ve had, it’s been about helping people find out who they really are and expressing it.”

Viveka comes to Linked Into Business with a broad skill set, including sales, education, marketing, ministering, and competitive hang glider pilot training.  She credits her parents for her core values of honesty, faithfulness to person you love, and integrity.

She is grateful for great parents, good friends, and a good life. To her Social Media is just a tool – one that she deftly wields to accomplish what she is truly passionate about: women coming into their own,  empowered and moving into a space where they can lift other women up.  A place to get over this “not- enough-ness crap.

Once again – if you need a bio designed, you need to call:

Maryjo Faith Morgan -  maryjo@FredsUsedWebsites.com
Marketing & Customer Service ~ Fred’s Used Websites
Visit Weekly Writers’ Workshop: UnderTheCuckooClock.org
www.MaryjoFaithMorgan.com

Every Tuesday night I moderate a #LinkedInChat on Twitter.  It is open to anyone who has questions about LinkedIn, advice about LinkedIn, complaints about LinkedIn, praise for LinkedIn.  I might be known as @LinkedInExpert - but let me tell you, I’ve learned a thing or two myself!

More information about our LinkedIn chat (and tweetchats in general):

When:  Every Tuesday Night 8 EST, 6MST, 5 PST

Where:  Twitter

How: Tweetchat.com, tweetdeck.com (or any tweetchat app of choice)

Why:  To learn and share knowledge on LinkedIn

Stats:  WTHashtag.com

Bulk follow the participants:  BlastFollow

More about the LinkedIn Chat:

How to do a Tweetchat:

Please share in the comment section any Tweetchat tools you find useful!

Have you received this message: “You are not the intended recipient of this message”?  If so, you likely have more than one profile on LinkedIn.  This is one of the main reasons LinkedIn members find LinkedIn unusable.  So what do you do when you have more than one personality on LinkedIn?

How do you get rid of those extra pesky schizophrenic profiles?

1. Well, first of all, make sure you have them.  Sign into LinkedIn using all the different email addresses you think you might have (and I hope you remember your passwords).  If you are able to sign in to different accounts, then guess what – you have more than one profile.  (Not to worry.  You’ll be able to add all your email addresses to what eventually becomes your primary account and ONLY profile.)
2. Now -  sign into the “bad” profile.
3. Go to  SETTINGS on the top right of the screen.
4. Under PERSONAL SETTINGS, open CLOSE YOUR ACCOUNT
5. Then choose “I have a duplicate account” and continue
6. Be sure you VERIFY the correct account.  DON’T delete the account you want!!!  DO DELETE the secondary or tertiary accounts.  And remember, you will be able to add those email addresses to your primary account later on (so this doesn’t happen again).
7. Continue through process (yes you really do want to delete that account !!!)
8. Once you have closed all of your extra accounts, go into your primary (and hopefully your only remaining) profile and once again go into PERSONAL SETTINGS.
9. Now you will want to go to EMAIL ADDRESSES and add all your functioning (and even past) email accounts.  Add ALL email addresses that anyone anywhere anytime might try and contact you by.  And before you ask, yes, this is completely safe and spam proof.  The reason you want to do this is so LinkedIn knows that from now on, any invitation or communication will be directed to your Primary Profile account, and LinkedIn won’t be creating extraneous accounts for you.
10. Once you have picked your primary account, hit “MAKE PRIMARY”.  Then  “SEND CONFIRMATION MESSAGE” to all your other email addresses.
11. At some point you’ll have to go to Outlook and accept and confirm email confirmation messages LinkedIn sends you.  This should take care of that pesky: “You are not the intended recipient” message.

So that’s it!  Now you can put all your effort into creating a kick ass profile and building your network.  But for that you have to take my class.

This is a great power point to help you limit your LinkedIn profiles down to one.  If you have more than one profile, on purpose or by accident, LinkedIn might shut you down.  This .ppt will show you how to avoid that

You’re Listening to the @LinkedInExpert

Social media can look a lot like this:

My story

I'm sorry - were you saying something?

My story,  my story, my story, my story, my story, mystory, my story, my story, my story, my story, mystory, my story, my story, my story, your story, my story, my story, my story, my story, my story, your story, my story, my story, my story, my story…

Did you catch that?

My story,  my story, my story, my story, my story, my story, my story, my story, my story, my story, my story, my story, my story, my story, your story, my story, my story, my story, my story, my story, your story, my story, my story, my story, my story…

And that’s the problem.  The narcissism on social media can run rampant.  And the thing is, the more you talk about yourself, the less people listen.

One of my favorite jokes goes like this:  “But enough about me, let’s talk about you.  What do you think of me?”

Facebook is terrible for this, of course.  Twitter has a few more Go-Givers, although in general the stream tends to be about the author, not the audience.

LinkedIn is a tricky number, because much of what you share on you profile is your expertise.  So it really is about you.  The thing to remember, when you are participating in conversations on LinkedIn (Groups, Answers and Updates) keep your ideal client Top Of Mind and formulate your communications as if you were answering their needs, their point of pain.

Updates:

Instead of:  “Read my latest blog: The Critical Manager http://wp.me/petQg-4y”

Do something like:  “Do have you trouble with your employees? Have you considered it might be you? http://wp.me/petQg-4y”

Group Discussions and Answers:

When responding to a group discussion, pay a wee bit of attention to the profile of the person who posted the discussion.  That will give you some clues as to if the discussion is based on a legitimate need of theirs (and if it is, might you be the answer to that need) or if the discussion is just another forum for them to discuss their expertise.  Listen!  Respond to their needs.

Tweetchats:

Tweetchats are an excellent place to showcase your knowledge.  I do it every Tuesday night at 6 PM, MST on my #LinkedInChat (Please join us).  And yes, I do post links to articles I have written.  And yes, I do regularly post tips on it as well.  But what really gets the conversation going is when I ask questions.  And then the participants start conversating amongst themselves.  And occasionally I can answer a question too.  Listening!  That’s what gets people communicating.

Facebook’s Wall

Do you spend more time posting to your wall, or commenting and “liking” other people’s posts.  Guess which one will build stronger relationships?  I automate my blog posts and foursquare updates to Facebook, and will occasionally ask a question I really need answered (Like who is a good local videographer, etc.) But when I started spending less time on posting, and more time on responding, that’s when the usefulness of Facebook increased for me.

Go-Giving

Finally, if you haven’t read it yet, please please please go and get Bob Burg and David Mann’s book “The Go-Giver” and “Go-Giver’s Sell More.”  It will change your life – or at least how you communicate.

I’d love to hear your suggestions as well!

This Question about Company profiles was recently asked on our  MLT Webinar:  “How do you keep a company profile separate from a personal profile?”

If you don’t want a company profile associated with your personal profile in any way, then don’t put your company name in your personal profile.  That is the only way not to be associated (or included) in the company profile roster.

Adding a company to your profile

But let me be clearer on the difference between a company and a personal profile.

When you are invited to join LinkedIn, or sign up for the first time, what you are creating is your personal profile.  I think some people get confused because this is a business site, and so we tend to think of our LinkedIn profile as our business – or company profile.  But instead think of it more like you personal profile on Facebook.  And your company profile is your Facebook Page.

Another way to think of it is your LinkedIn personal profile has companies within it (your current and past experience) and your Company profile has people within it!

For those of you who own or are executives of a Company, LinkedIn will lead you through the company profile set up while you are setting up your personal profile.  This can be very confusing to a new user.  I recommend closing that screen, continuing with your personal profile, and then when you are ready, create a Company profile.

BTW – it might behoove you to see if your Company profile already exists.  (Just put your Company name in the Company search box)

For more on Company Profiles, best practices in creating them, concerns, and how to manage them, check my Blogsite HERE

In Conclusion:

1. Even though LinkedIn is a business social networking site, the first profile you create on LinkedIn is your personal profile
2. You should NOT use the personal profile to ONLY represent your current business
3. You can create a Company Page by going to: More:  Companies:  Create a Company
4. If you own a company, make sure to check and see if you already have a Company Profile (created by another employee)



Question I was recently asked:  What do you think about people who list their phone numbers or titles along with their names on the top line?

I understand why people put their email addresses and phone numbers, as well as keywords and keyword phrases in the last name field.  It makes their information very, very visible.  It also goes completely against LinkedIn’s end user agreement (EUA).

I went to a Social Media SEO conference once, and the speaker said that the” Last Name” field in the LinkedIn profile was one of, if not the most highly ranked search field on Google.  Essentially anything you put in that field would get you found on Google’s first page.  And that did seem to be true.

Doing this cost me thousands of dollars

The problem was, someone reported me for having something other than my last name in the Last Name field, and LinkedIn essentially made my profile invisible.

I went from getting about 100 people seeing and clicking on my profile each week, to about 15.  Which meant the warm leads I was getting from interested parties every week dried up as well.

Did I get found on Google?  Yes.  Was it worth the tens of thousands of dollars I lost from the warm interested leads no longer coming to me?  Probably not.

At the very least, if you post your  last name as: “Smith:  name@emailaddress.com (970)555-5555″,  how in the world is LinkedIn going to index you correctly in the connections browser?

Do what LinkedIn says:  Only your last name in the last name field.

This questions was recently asked in our MLT Webinar:  I am unfamiliar with the term “inbound marketing”.  Can you please describe what this is?

No one describes “Inbound” VS “Outbound” Marketing better than Hubspot – so I will just share (plagiarize) their description with you here:

http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/2989/Inbound-Marketing-vs-Outbound-Marketing.aspx

What Is Inbound Marketing?

Inbound Marketing is marketing focused on getting found by customers.

In traditional marketing (outbound marketing) companies focus on finding customers. They use techniques that are poorly targeted and that interrupt people. They use cold-calling, print advertising, T.V. advertising, junk mail, spam and trade shows.

Technology is making these techniques less effective and more expensive. Caller ID blocks cold calls, TiVo makes T.V. advertising less effective, spam filters block mass emails and tools like RSS are making print and display advertising less effective. It’s still possible to get a message out via these channels, but it costs more.

Inbound Marketers flip outbound marketing on its head.

Instead of interrupting people with television ads, they create videos that potential customers want to see. Instead of buying display ads in print publications, they create their own blog that people subscribe to and look forward to reading. Instead of cold calling, they create useful content and tools so that people call them looking for more information.

Instead of driving their message into a crowd over and over again like a sledgehammer, they attract highly qualified customers to their business like a magnet.
Read more: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/4416/Inbound-Marketing-the-Next-Phase-of-Marketing-on-the-Web.aspx#ixzz0wF7fffGM

The most successful Inbound Marketing campaigns have three key components:

(1) Content – Content is the substance of any Inbound Marketing campaign. It is the information or tool that attracts potential customers to your site or your business.

(2) Search Engine Optimization – SEO makes it easier for potential customers to find your content. It is the practice of building your site and inbound links to your site to maximize your ranking in search engines, where most of your customers begin their buying process.

(3) Social Media – Social media amplifies the impact of your content. When your content is distributed across and discussed on networks of personal relationships, it becomes more authentic and nuanced, and is more likely to draw qualified customers to your site.
Read more: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/4416/Inbound-Marketing-the-Next-Phase-of-Marketing-on-the-Web.aspx#ixzz0wF7o7cSW

WordPress App

My favorite app is the WordPress app which embeds my WordPress blog right into my LinkedIn profile.

• It’s easy – all you have to give the app is your URL.  It will also accepts vanity URL’s
• It is not attached to “My Websites” and so leaves all three website links free for you to use as you like

Of course, if you do not have a WordPress blog site, this app won’t work.

Blog Link

The Blog Link app was created to work with Type Pad blogs, but I am told it works with all other blog types as well.

• You must use the third “Website” link for your blog’s URL
• You can use any Blog URL

I recently saw that one of my favorite authors, Tim Sanders, used BlogLink to upload the RSS feed from his Facebook Page.  I thought that was pretty clever and might try it out myself

How do you BEST use your 5 introductions? Does it work well?

I am not a fan of Introductions.  I think they are good in theory, but in the end you are relying on someone else to pass along your introduction in a timely manner (if at all).   As well, with the free account, you only get five introductions at a time (fifteen with the paid account).  That means if you ask five people in a company to introduce you to someone, and none of them pass along the introduction, you won’t have any more introductions to use again – indefinitely!  You can withdraw introductions, but sometimes that takes weeks as well.  Depending on if LinkedIn is having a good day or not.

Here are my recommendations:

1. Start the introduction process with the person you to whom you want to be Introduced.  LinkedIn will give you a list of people to choose as the “Introducer”.
2. When you choose a person to pass an introduction along for you, choose someone:

• You know
• Who uses LinkedIn regularly (you can usually tell by how fully formed their profile is and how many connections they have)
• Someone who likes you.

In that order.

Someone you don’t know might not pass along the Introduction.

Someone who knows and likes you but is never on LinkedIn might pass it along – eventually.  But by that time it might be too late.

1. Be very clear to the person you want to be connected to AND to the person doing the Introduction WHY you want to connect.  Give them details.  Needless to say, a sales letter is going nowhere.
2. If your Introduction hasn’t been passed within a week’s time, withdraw it and try someone else.
3. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.  Don’t use all five introductions with five different people all at once to Introduce you to a single person.  At the most ask three different people for introductions to your intended connection, and as soon as your introduction is passed through, withdraw the others.

On the other end, you might have a policy in place for passing along introductions.  Here’s mine which I post in my Contact Settings section.