Tag Archive: LinkedIn Advice

5 Ways to Use LinkedIn for Conferences

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January 24, 2012

by VivekaVonRosen

January 24, 2012

Double the ROI of your Conference or Tradeshow

LinkedIn: Pre and Post Conference

Double the ROI of your Conferences

LinkedIn is an excellent tool for both preparing for conferences and as follow-up after a conference. Let’s talk about some of the ways you can use LinkedIn to have more success, more sales, and more engagement before, during and after your conference and tradeshow travels!

1. If at all possible, see if you can get an attendee list for your conference. This is easier to do if you are a presenter. As an attendee, you might have to pay for this list – or it might not be available at all. However, if the conference is also posted as an event in a meetup, Facebook or LinkedIn Event, you will be able to see the other people who have marked themselves as interested or attending. Its worth doing a quick even search in Facebook, LinkedIn and Meetup.com to see if your conference is listed there.

If you can get a list of conference attendees, it would be a great idea to look them up on LinkedIn and see if you are connected. You might want to use the advanced search in order to do this. The reason for that is you can check specifically by location and not spend a lot of time looking for people who might have the same name – but not be the same person – as the attendee you were looking for.

2. Once you have found an attendee that you want to connect with, send them an invitation. If you aren’t comfortable sending them an invitation, see if they are a member of the group and send a message through that group. If you have a paid account you can also send them an Inmail. But what a great thing to do! Set up a meeting before you ever meet.

3. If you don’t have an attendee list, you can always set up meetings for LinkedIn members in the city that you’re traveling to! There’s no better way to make connections than to meet face-to-face. For more information about how to use LinkedIn when you travel go to http://linkedintobusiness.com/10-ways-to-use-linkedin-when-you-travel/.

4. As you begin to meet people make sure you gather their business cards. When you get back to your hotel room in the evening, invite them to connect with you on LinkedIn. Do it as soon as possible. While they still remember who you are. Once you’ve added them as a connection, make sure you tag their profile. For more information on how to tag a connection go to http://linkedintobusiness.com/tagging-your-way-into-toma-with-linkedin/.

Tagging will allow you to more easily communicate and follow up with your connections. Tag your connections:

By the industry they work in
By the company they work for
By the name of the conference
By their area of expertise
Or all of the above….

…you can ===–in one fell swoop - reminding them who you are and what you do. Or even better, space use one of Bob Burg’s great referral techniques. Ask them what they do and who is their best client is so you can keep them as a referral partner.

It’s great to learn things at conferences and trade shows, but it’s even better to make connections whom you can do business with later on! That will vastly increased the ROI of the conference.

5. Use the CardMunch App if you have an iPhone or iPad (BB and Android app coming soon) LinkedIn recently bought CardMunch and it is one of my favorite new tools. It allows you to take a snapshot of the business card and upload that information directly into your database. You can then invite those people to connect with you on LinkedIn or just add them to whatever CRM system you are using.

The power of conferences is in the follow-up – so use these tools to follow up with the people that you meet!

Tonight’s #LinkedInChat is going to be all about how to use LinkedIn at conferences and trade shows here are the questions will be asking:

Do you attend conferences or tradeshows?
How do you prepare for conferences and trade shows?
What kind of research do you put into finding out who will attend or be speaking at the conference or tradeshow you’re attending?
Do you use LinkedIn when preparing for a conference?
How do you use LinkedIn when you are preparing for a conference?
How are you at following up after the conference?
Do you follow up after a conference or trade show?
How do you follow up after a trade show or conference?
Do you use CardMunch.com?

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Tags: #LinkedInChat, LinkedIn Advice, LinkedIn Conference, LinkedIn Expert, LinkedIn Tips, LinkedInExpert, Viveka von Rosen

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Permanent link to this article: http://linkedintobusiness.com/5-ways-to-use-linkedin-for-conferences/

Treat Your LinkedIn Profile Like The Website It Is!

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LinkedIn Tips

November 8, 2011

by VivekaVonRosen

November 8, 2011

Formatting Your LinkedIn Profile

Make sure your LinkedIn profile is as least as professional in appearance as your website. Is it formatted, clean, and free of spelling and grammatical errors? I strongly suggest creating your LinkedIn profile first in a word document – not only so you can “catch” errors – but to get a better idea of what your profile will look like on the LinkedIn website.

Some sections of LinkedIn (“Current Experience Description”, “Summary” and “Contact Me” sections are the most visible) will allow you to “pull” in bullets and special characters.

In the product and services section of your LinkedIn Company profile you can now use bold and italics, but so far that is the only place. (We’ll talk more about the great new features of the “Company Profile” in weeks to come.)

In your “Current Experience Description”, “Summary” and “Contact Me” sections I recommend CAPITALIZING WHAT YOU WANT THE EYE TO SEE. Yes, I know its considered shouting, but when you are limited to formatting styles, you use what you have!

Also..

Make

Good

Use

Whitespace!

Another bonus, if you’ve already created your profile in a Word document, sections of it can easily be copied into other social media platforms to keep your branding unified. I’m a big fan of re-purposing content!

Finally, its just good to have a copy of your profile in case LinkedIn does something weird like closes or bans your account. (Yes – I’ve had both happen). Rather than throwing your hands of in the air and quitting LinkedIn forever, you’ll only have a few hours of work cutting and pasting to create a new account. But don’t worry. I’m going to tell you what to do – and what NOT to do in the coming weeks.

Steps to take RIGHT NOW:

Open a Word doc
Open LinkedIn
Click on ‘Select All” and copy your whole profile
Paste into the word doc
Take a look at the sections of your profile that have formatting potential
Format those sections
Cut and paste those sections back into LinkedIn

For these and other great tips, not only on LinkedIn – but Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Blogging too – consider joining the SocialMediaBizSchool. For only $37 a month and get access to some of the most successful social media “teachers” in their fields.

Here’s my Summary Section – Feel free to use it as a template:

WHY SHOULD YOU HIRE VIVEKA VON ROSEN TO DO YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA?

• 25 Women Who Rock Social Media in 2011: http://www.toprankblog.com/2011/06/25-women-rock-social-media-2011/

• #44 in the 200 most fearless women on the web: http://bigmoneyweb.com/200-most-fearless-women-online-and-in-social-media/

• Listed by Mari Smith as having the niche quality of a social media superstar: http://www.marismith.com/ten-qualities-of-social-media-superstars/

BUT WHAT’S IN IT FOR YOU?

• I will get you and your company found on LinkedIn which will get you more business leads

• I will teach you the correct ways of creating business and relationships on Social Media

• I will help you craft your company story, so that your branding crosses all social and marketing mediums.

• I’m easy to understand so what I teach you will stick.

• I’ve taught over 10,000 business people so I know what I am talking about – see my 86 recommendations.

• I’ve made the mistakes so you don’t have to!

►WHAT DO I DO?: I train individuals & companies to create a more powerful social presence via seminars, webinars, implementation, one-on-one training and consultation.

► MISSION: Linking people into their potential, MAKING SOCIAL MEDIA WORK FOR YOU.

►If you are feeling OVERWHELMED by LINKEDIN and all its new features, please ask about the TRAINING WEBINARS and WORKSHOPS we provide. We are not Authorized LinkedIn Trainers, nor Certified LinkedIn Trainers and do not provide Authorized LinkedIn Training or Certified LinkedIn Training. We provide training for basic as well as strategic use.  I WELCOME LINKEDIN INVITATIONS.

►Linked Into Business offers individuals, companies and groups LINKEDIN HANDS-ON WORKSHOPS and WEBINARS, and consulting as well as other social media presentations and trainings.   WHY I AM HERE ON LINKEDIN:

• To network with other active, intelligent and generous B2B networkers.

• To offer LinkedIn training & advice.

• Drive attendance to our entrepreneur’s WORKSHOPS, WEBINARS AND SEMINARS

Social Media Business School’s Upcoming Schedule

“How to Use your Fan Page to Bring in Leads” Monday October 31st 11 a.m. PT (noon MT, 1 p.m. CT, 2 p.m. ET) – Andrea Vahl
“Creating Your Editorial Calendar: How to be More Efficient and Save Time on Your Blog” Monday November 7th 11 a.m. PT (noon MT, 1 p.m. CT, 2 p.m. ET) – Denise Wakeman
“Let’s Get Engaged! The Dream Wedding of Online Video and Social Media.” Monday November 14th 11 a.m. PT (noon MT, 1 p.m. CT, 2 p.m. ET) – Lou Bortone
“Twitter Etiquette: The Do’s and Don’t’s of Tweeting” Monday November 21st 11 a.m. PT (noon MT, 1 p.m. CT, 2 p.m. ET) – Lori Gama
“How to Connect your Social Media Sites to Save you Time” Monday November 28th 11 a.m. PT (noon MT, 1 p.m. CT, 2 p.m. ET) – Andrea Vahl
“Getting Found and Getting Business on LinkedIn” Monday December 5th 11 a.m. PT (noon MT, 1 p.m. CT, 2 p.m. ET) – Viveka von Rosen

Remember, if you can’t attend the classes, they will be recorded and posted shortly after the class to watch at your convenience.

To sign up for the Social Media Business School just click here. Or go to: http://www.SocialMediaBizSchool.com/?ap_id=linkedinexpert

And don’t forget to join our #LInkedInChat every Tuesday night at 5 PM PST, 8 PM EST

See you next week when we talk about finding your keywords and knowing where to put them to get found on LinkedIn!

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Tags: LinkedIn Advice, LinkedIn Business School, LinkedIn Tip, SocialMediaBizSchool.com, Viveka von Rosen

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Permanent link to this article: http://linkedintobusiness.com/treat-your-linkedin-profile-like-the-website-it-is/

Your Questions Answered…

Every Tuesday night we do a #LinkedInChat on twitter to answer those driving questions you have that have not been answered. Since some of you can’t make the chat, I decided to ask my Twitter following throughout the week what they wanted to know. Each and every one of the questions and suggestions below could demand a full hour of LinkedInChat (and maybe we’ll do just that.) In the meantime, here are the questions for Tuesday’s LinkedInChat – brought to us from our great followers on Twitter!

For those of you who like to prepare for your chats with helpful answers and valuable website links – here are the questions:

Questions:

@GetGravitas (Jay Lebo) suggests: “What are best practices for starting/running your own LI group.”
He also asks: “How about the truth about LinkedIn groups? (Is there really any value there?)”
Also: “What are some good lead generation best practices for LI?”
@AreMorch (Are Morch ) Would like more “Tips on Lead generation/conversion.”
@prforsmallbiz asks: “What is the best way contacting people without having to use InMail?
@MarcyK33 (Marcy Kremer) would like to know “more about status updates for company pages. Some have them, most don’t. Can’t find any info on them.”
@fundraisinisfun (Ephraim Gopin ) would like to know the “best way to find a job via LinkedIn”

Answers:

Groups:

I have covered (although not extensively – so please feel free to jump in!) how to use groups effectively on LinkedIn in a few blog posts and videos:

Using groups for more and better relationships: http://linkedintobusiness.com/2011/04/using-groups-for-better-relationships-and-more-business/

Groups: Your Rolodex on Steroids: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXt2Ehlig7M

1. There are a few groups I find useful (LinkChat, LinkedStrategies) and some groups I join merely for their size and ability t make my network bigger and me more visible (LinkedHR, Jobs and Toplinked).

2. Groups are a great way to connect with warm leads. If a member is interacting in a group that happens to focus on what you do for a living, especially if they are asking questions you can answer, then you have a wonderful opportunity to engage with someone who could very well become your next client or customer!

3. This is even more powerful when you own the group because you can send these folks an announcement every week! (Just don’t make it a sales message!) Some great examples of how to do this well are LinkedStrategies (with Randy Schrumm and Nathan Keivman) and LinkedSignal (with Greig Wells)

4. If you create your own group: Describe it well in the title and description! Use your keywords and pop in a USP (unique selling proposition) What do they get for joining your group? What is the WIIFM?

5. Make sure to create group rules. (No spam or selling and whatever else your DO’s and DON’Ts are for the members of your group.)

6. Use and Manage Message Templates

Create, manage and automatically send custom messages to people interested in this group.
Create template Request-to-join Message  Create and automatically send a custom message to people who request to join this group.
Welcome Message Template: Create a custom welcome message to people when you approve them for membership in this group.
Create template Decline Message  Create and automatically send a custom message to people when you decline their requests to join this group.
Create template Decline-and-Block Message  Create and automatically send a custom message to people when you decline their requests to join this group and block any future requests.

7. MONITOR MONITOR MONITOR! Don’t let the spammers get control. You have control of your group. Make sure to monitor it daily and get rid of those spammers. Or let your group do it for you in the group settings section. If you lock down what people can post to your group, you might get better content and keep and engage the members you do have more effectively.

Lead Generation on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is still a social media site – meaning you still have to engage with valuable information! Some simple steps to find and engage others:

Use LinkedIn’s many tools to see who you can reconnect with - Its always easier to sell to existing clients. As my friend Adrienne Zoble of Zoble and Associates asks: Does everyone you know know everything you do? Use LinkedIn to find those folks and update them.
Send out engaging updates –but no more than once a day. With the onset of Signal, updates are now searchable. So share your knowledge with your tribe (and make sure your updates are visible to everyone.)
Tag your connections and send them a useful piece of information in a message (and your contact info at the bottom.) This is not a sales pitch that will just be ignored. Send them valuable content so they WANT to open the letter!
ENGAGE, ENGAGE, ENGAGE!

Connecting on LinkedIn:

Last week’s LinkedIn chat was all about engagement and connecting (without InMails)– read more about it here:

Job Seeking with LinkedIn:

This one deserves its own blog post and LinkedInChat – and so will waive any responses until then. Maybe we can get Greig Wells with www.BeFoundJobs.com to be our special guest?

Miscellaneous Answers:

Company Status Updates:

A company itself cannot do an update on LinkedIn – however, what you might be seeing is when a company feeds its own blog into the company page. Like so: