Search Results for: linkedin
How LinkedIn Has Turned Your Resume Into A Cash Machine
via Little #LinkedIn Changes you’ll want to Ignore — Integrated Alliances.
Everyone now has “Skills and Expertise”, which is a much more data-rich section full of keywords that can be compared, measured, and analyzed
– No one told people they should list skills in order of importance. Instead, like I first did, you likely listed them in the order you thought of them.
– LinkedIn didn’t tell anyone when they started Skills and Expertise that they would soon be listed in order of the number of endorsements (with the most endorsed skills being at the top).
– The way Skills are offered to people to endorse is a) how they are related to you and then b) how they already rank in your profile. And they even nicely list the “Top Ten Skills” based on the number of endorsements.
LinkedIn doesn’t care if the method is not the most accurate, it just keeps pushing to gather the data of YOU so that it has more value to offer those who purchase that data: subscribers, marketers and advertisers, and of course, recruiters (who will want to search for endorsed skills!).
LinkedIn – Use colour to connect behaviour
The strongest platform to build a business relationship has got to be LinkedIn. Everyday I speak to new people, some to learn from and others I spend time helping, and I enjoy it.
So here’s something I would like to pass on to you.
Firstly I am assuming that you have a professional style photograph, this is your opportunity to leverage every opportunity to convey your self in the best possible way.
What I would like you to consider is your back ground. What do you have currently?
Consider having a gradient background, from Blue to White. Here is why…
BLUE:
Blue is the colour of the sky and sea. It is often associated with depth and stability. It symbolizes trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, intelligence, faith, truth, and heaven.
Blue is considered beneficial to the mind and body. It slows human metabolism and produces a calming effect. Blue is strongly associated with tranquillity and calmness. In heraldry, blue is used to symbolize piety and sincerity.
Light blue is associated with health, healing, tranquillity, understanding, and softness.
Dark blue represents knowledge, power, integrity, and seriousness.
WHITE:
White is associated with light, goodness, innocence, purity, and virginity. It is considered to be the colour of perfection.
White means safety, purity, and cleanliness. As opposed to black, white usually has a positive connotation. White can represent a successful beginning. In heraldry, white depicts faith and purity.
In advertising, white is associated with coolness and cleanliness because it’s the colour of snow. You can use white to suggest simplicity in high-tech products. White is an appropriate colour for charitable organizations; angels are usually imagined wearing white clothes. White is associated with hospitals, doctors, and medical practitioners (click here to know more about them). This is so you can use white to suggest safety when promoting medical products.
This is not something you can control, this is subliminal messaging. So if you want to be trusted, convey intelligence and all round goodness, perhaps this is something to consider.
My Background (by accident) has blue to white with a plant thrown in for good measure. Green by the way is “harmony and growth”.
What do you have as your background right now? Use the comments area below and say hello.
LinkedIn: Edit On The Go Feature
Just days ago LinkedIn released an update to their app, for both iOS and Android. In this update one of the most requested features appeared. Now you can update your profile with a new headline, add recent skills, or add a new position so your professional identity is always up to date.
There is also this video to show how easy it is to update your profile from your phone:
A feature I would like to see on LinkedIn app is the ability to tailor the message when sending an invite.
What would you like to see? Enter you ideas in the comments below
How should your Linkedin profile be written? 3rd or 1st Person? [The Results]
LinkedIn is one of the most powerful tools to demonstrate the value of YOU. I have always pondered what is the best way to convey your persona, should your writing style be in the third person “Ben always takes time to help” or the first person “I enjoy helping people”
To answered this I ran a poll on LinkedIn and I was delighted to have one hundred and seventy one people respond, here are the results
What were the demographics for each answer?
There were over 28 comments add here are some of the highlights:
Guy likes when an applicant can express themselves to Guy effectively and accurately.
I for one think that first person is the only way to go with both. To me, a CV or LinkedIn profile written in the third person reads like a film promotion
I think your LinkedIn profile should be written the same as a resume where you never use the word “I”
I think in case of 1st person, too much of “I” sounds arrogant.
1st is always the best in speaking or in writing terms.
3rd person implies arrogance or ignorance, both of which are an automatic turn-off
Unless you’re royalty, I think the 1st person reads better… makes one sound less pretentious
I think first person definitely, after all its all about you!
The first person unless you are a novelist!
To summarize the comments there seems to be two trains of thought. If you are using the platform to find your next job most are saying that a third person style is preferred. If you are using the platform to build relationships and demonstrate the value of YOU then first person wins hands down.
If you would like to read more of the comments please see the link below.
As the poll is now closed why not add your thoughts in the comments and keep this debate going! Thanks for reading
LinkedIn unveil new Profile layout
LinkedIn are rolling out further changes to their members over the next three months. These enhancements will help you to; tell your professional story easier with better visual elements, discover people and opportunities with greater insights and simpler ways to uncover common interests and engage with your network.
If you’d like to be one of the first ones to get the new Profile, you can sign up here: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/sample.
Meet the New LinkedIn Profile: A Better Way to Connect and Build Relationships
With this many changes so quickly is the platform at risk of losing members?
How to really used LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the proverbial dark horse of social media. We all know it’s there, but few of us use it to its full potential.
With just a little bit of effort you will see how the powerful social site can help you market yourself and your business far more than you imagined.
LINKEDIN BOOT CAMP
LinkedIn is the proverbial dark horse of social media. We all know it’s there, but few of us use it to its full potential. This is a major mistake, especially when it comes to marketing yourself or your business. This Linkedin basic boot camp training will give you the tools necessary to use the site for all your business and personal needs.
When it comes to marketing yourself and your business. most people go straight to Facebook because of the sheer size of its user base. But demographically speaking, Linkedin has a leg up.
Linkedin has over 170 Million worldwide members {Up date – 200 million January 2013} – 77% of Linkedin users are age 25 and above. – The average household income of a Linked users is $109,000
A RUN THROUGH THE LINKEDIN GAUNTLET
Linkedin is a network full of people who love, you guessed it, networking. They are the movers and shakers of their industries. These are the people you want to know about you and your business. Yes, Facebook ad Twitter can be powerful tools, but Linkedin users are know to be especially serious about their jobs, industry and social networks. With that in mind you must shift tactics when it comes to marketing yourself on Linkedin, as conversations and content are geared toward cultivating partnerships and advancing business than posting silly pictures from parties.
The following will get you in shape for the trials ahead.
CORE CONDITIONING – Complete your profile
Because your Linkedin profile generally ranks in the tops five google search results for your first and last name, your profile must be completely filled out. First impressions are everything, skimping on your profile will quickly decrease your value. Before moving on, take a moment to complete your profile.
AMMO – Customise your URL and websites
Neglecting this no-brainer move is a rookie mistake. Luckily it only takes a few moments to correct. When filling out your profile, customise your URL to reflect your name. Find this in the “edit profile” screen. If you have a blog or a web site to add, select “other” in the drop down menu and customise it. Don’t leave “Company Website” in there. The first web site is used by search engines. Call it what it is, allowing your page to rise in the rankings.
TONING – Spice up your image
Your profile now needs some pizazz, style, value. A bland lifeless profile turns of potential contacts, so let your personal creativity shine through. Use stories, video, recommendations etc., to quicly tell others who you are, what your about and how you can HELP THEM
STEALTH TATICS – optimise your search rankings
Many people use Linkedin to search for experts in their field, a new job, or connections. They search for keywords on Linkedin that you can rank highly in. Optimisation takes a bit of time and effort,, but it’s well worth it when you rank number one when someone searches for “social” or “management” for example. Incorporate key words into – Your headline / Your current work experience / Your past work experience / Your summary / Your specialties
HEAVY WEIGHT – Join groups
Linkedin groups give you the most mileage out of your experience. What ever your industry or business, join groups that will put you in touch with other experts in your industry. Try starting your own group and establish yourself as an expert in the field. Like a mini social network, these niche groups will foster discussion, spread your message and connect you with key people
SPECIAL WEAPONS – Add applications
There are a variety of applications that Linkedin has integrated into its site that make it easier for you to promote your work and improve your profile’s overall visitor experience. Browse through the applications and see which ones work best for you, your industry and your overall message.
All apps have been removed, we are yet to learn if they, or new ones will make a return. If you are still wanting a secret weapon that no one knows about – read this blog post “Smoke Signals”
What other hints and tips have you got……
The 30 Most Popular Passwords Stolen From LinkedIn [INFOGRAPHIC]
Why You Should Not Auto-Post Your Tweets to LinkedIn
When I am presenting to teams about the use of LinkedIn one question that always gets asked is “How do i sync my Twitter account with LinkedIn?”. So I thought I would write a quick post.
If you are not familiar with this option on LinkedIn, it basically allows you to connect LinkedIn to your Twitter feed and then automatically post all of your tweets to LinkedIn as updates.
Here is what it looks like when you send a tweet to LinkedIn…
You’ll notice that next to the name it says “via Twitter”. If you scan through your updates, you will probably see quite a few of these auto-posted tweets.
Like many things in social media, there are no steadfast laws or rules about what you can and can’t do in situations like this, only opinions and best practices. That said, I personally don’t think people should auto-post tweets to LinkedIn and here are 3 reasons why:
Frequency
The number of times most people tweet on a daily basis are far greater the number of times most experts say you should post updates on LinkedIn. The recommended frequency for tweeting is about 5-10 times per day according to some experts, while many LinkedIn Gurus agree that you should post updates no more than 1-2 times per day.
If I wanted to sift through 1000s of tweets per day from my connections, I would follow them on Twitter and do it there. I want my LinkedIn update stream to be clean and uncluttered so I can interact with my connections on a more personal level, which is why I generally will hide updates from my LinkedIn connections if they are auto-posting more than a few tweets a day.
Etiquette
The etiquette and terminology on the two platforms are completely different. Many people on LinkedIn don’t know what a hashtag is or what RT means. They aren’t familiar with #followfriday or #musicmonday. They could be confused when they see me referred to as @social_ben instead of my full name.
Twitter has a language of its own and doesn’t always translate very well for non-twitter users, which make up a majority of LinkedIn’s demographic. Heck, I’ve been on Twitter for 3 years and I still don’t understand what some peoples’ tweets say.
Shareability
This is my #1 reason not to auto-post tweets to LinkedIn.
Why would I want to Favorite, Retweet or Reply to your LinkedIn update on Twitter? Many auto-tweets I see have good content, usually an article or quote that I WOULD like to share with my LinkedIn connections… but I can’t because they are tweets, not direct updates.
A Few Alternatives
It only takes a few extra seconds to jump on LinkedIn and post an update directly. I suggest you pick 1 or 2 of your best tweets each day, remove all the # and @ twitter references and update your LinkedIn profile like it was meant to be updated, directly from LinkedIn’s homepage.
You could also use a Social Media Management Tool like Hootsuite to send updates to both Twitter and LinkedIn at the same time. Just remember that your update is going to LinkedIn as well so try to limit the tweet-speak.
If you just can’t live without tweeting to LinkedIn, you could at least change your setting so that only tweets that include #in or #li will be shown in your LinkedIn updates. I’ll make it VERY easy for you to do this… just click here to go directly to your Twitter settings in LinkedIn and check the box that says “Share only tweets that contain #in (#li also works) in your LinkedIn status.”
Do you agree with me? Can you think of other reasons why you should not (or should) auto-post tweets to LinkedIn?
Generating Leads on LinkedIn
LinkedIn to many is seen as a recruitment portal. The place to be to get headhunted into that dream job. I have yet to be blessed with that experience.
To me, LinkedIn was kind of … well, boring. If Facebook is the street party, LinkedIn is a stuffy reception with piped-in music at one of those soulless function facilities.
Does that sound harsh? For sure. If your thinking the same, let me tell you, you couldn’t be more wrong.
While the early adopters flock to Google+ and our kids and moms become power-users on Facebook, LinkedIn is where business gets done. Execs from all Fortune 500 companies are there, and 59 percent of those active on social networking sites sites say LinkedIn is their platform of choice over Facebook or Twitter, up from 41 percent who called LinkedIn their most important social account a year earlier, according to a June report by Performics and ROI Research.
LinkedIn, it turns out, is a happening place. As of this spring, it has more than 150 million members in more than 200 countries, on all seven continents. LinkedIn adds around 10 new members every 5 seconds.
All of this adds up to making LinkedIn the dark horse in social networking. Or the “unsung hero” of the social platforms.
There will –as suspected– an awful lot of job searching going on at LinkedIn. But there’s much more going on over there, too. I have seen that top-level executives and entry-level workers use LinkedIn differently: Younger members use the site mostly to post résumés and network for jobs, while more experienced professionals use it to demonstrate thought leadership and expertise, promote their businesses, conduct market research and–perhaps most important–win new business.
So how might companies use it to win new business, specifically?
- Target searches for keywords you’ve identified as central to your business. Target specific roles ie: “Director of Technology” specific post codes and company names to identify key contacts to call, e-mail, InMail (send a message via LinkedIn’s internal messaging system) or forward a hard copy information.
- Track who is looking at your profile and your staff’s profiles. Understand what searches you are appearing in and perhaps strengthen your profile to appear in more. Reach out to those who stopped by “how can I help”.
- Research, or as I call it “social sleuthing’ others call it stalking, but there is a law against that now!
- Set up a company page. Setting up your business as a “company” on LinkedIn can if you do it right, generate a bunch of leads, as well as it give you an opportunity to have a presence on LinkedIn beyond a personal profile to ratchet up your company’s charisma. I like the way you can embed banner images and videos in your company page, as well as feed your blog posts and tweets. You can also feature your products on your page and seek recommendations for them. That’s a kind of social proof that only enhances your credibility.
- Discern patterns. Notice who’s connected in your industry. Noting that an individual is suddenly connected to several execs at a single company may indicate that the company is open to dialogue. “Which suggests to me that I might want to get my brand (me) in front of them”.
- Participate in LinkedIn groups catering to your target market in order to engage in conversations with the right people. Seek out groups with lots of activity rather than simply lots of members. (You’ll have to join them to get a sense of the activity.) Monitor each group’s discussion posts and respond thoughtfully with content rather than a pitch. The goal is to engage rather than sell outright.
Does all of this work? Yes, although it takes some focused effort, but its worth it. If you are interested in hearing more about the success myself and colleagues are having please drop me a line or tweet with a #wesoe (we sell or else)