Friday 12 October 2012

Understanding Endorsements on LinkedIn


LinkedIn has a cool new feature that is being used by many. Maybe this use is because of it's visibility, often being the first thing you see on a profile.

Endorsements allow you to easily recognise skills and expertise of your network. In a click you can endorse your connections for a skill they've listed on their profile or recommend one they haven't added yet.
It is great to pay it forward and endorse your colleagues, but be sure only to use for those you do actually endorse. This sounds obvious, but don't be too nice and endorse someone's skills when you haven't seen evidence of the skill.

Having an endorsement from an industry leader or decision maker can be a powerful marketing add-on tool to your profile. If you are a leader yourself, endorsing someone gives them a stamp of approval and adds credibility if done for the right reasons.

By endorsing someone you may be asked about them and what you endorsed them for, so be sure you can back it up.

How to endorse your connections:
At the top of a connection's profile, you'll see recommended endorsements for them. You can endorse on the suggested skills, which come from their profile, or suggest additional skills.
When you endorse someone they receive a notification. Same applies if someone endorses you.
It is an easier faster process than writing a recommendation for a connection. These still have a place and are highly valuable because they are specific and show someone has taken the time to put some words together about you.

With the feature prompting your network to endorse you, is it time to revisit the skills you have listed and revamp them?

Are your current skills listed? Does the list actually include skills or are they more like qualities?
Use the skills area to list things you want to be known for - things that are part of your brand, your business offering or skill set as an employee.

What words are being suggested to your network for endorsement? are these words a good representation of your brand and actual skills? Do you want to be endorsed for being 'open minded', 'emotional' or 'average' as in some examples we have seen?

Schedule a profile review this week. Ensure your keywords are being used throughout your profile, including in your skills.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7310768

Wednesday 10 October 2012

Twitter Publishes Bizarre Online White Pages


Ever wished you could just leaf through Twitter profiles like you were looking through a phone book?
Probably not. But if there is a situation where that could conceivably be useful, you’re in luck. Twitter quietly launched an online profile directory this week, with profiles neatly arranged at roughly 100 to a page.
The profiles are listed by first name, rather than Twitter handle, which is odd enough. But to find them you’ll have to burrow down through encyclopedia-like category pages — which for popular or common names is worse than useless.

For instance, Justin Bieber’s profile is under “JustBooks.in — jzzzzzzzzz.” But to find the actual singer, you’d have to wade through pages of “Justin Bieber-Justin Bieber.” Turns out it’s quite a popular name to claim to have on Twitter. (The company doesn’t require you to enter your real name on a profile.)

So why would Twitter publish this? One word: Google.

The two companies fell out over search results in January; the search giant announced plans to push Google+ results, which Twitter decried as “bad for people.”

Google fired back that Twitter had ended a real-time search agreement and taken itself out of search results with a piece of code that instructed its search bots not to follow tweets.
Now it seems Twitter is much more keen to be indexed on the world’s largest search engine. As Search Engine Land‘s Danny Sullivan points out, a search for the Twitter directory on Google already yields about 700,000 results.

That, along with a number of other under-the-hood tweaks Twitter has made in recent months, should make your tweets a lot more searchable. The user directory, therefore, is effectively little more than an SEO anchor.

Do you want your tweets and your profile to be more searchable? Did you try finding yourself in the directory? Let us know in the comments.

Monday 8 October 2012

Social Media For Your Online Business


Are you looking to profit with your Online Business, then, you need to find creative ways to promote. The internet opens up opportunities to a huge number of people. Millions of people are on the internet, and this makes prospecting easier. Social networks are very well-liked to targeted online users.
YouTube and Facebook are very popular networking sites. These sites enable you to find new leads at zero cost. You can find twice the amount of leads at half the amount of time. You can prospect, and at the same time, develop a relationship.

Over the recent years, social networking has become popular. With these networks, you can have thousands of friends. Escalating your online presence and doubling your chances of finding quality leads. Targeting potential leads is very easy using these networks.
Learning to apply this strategy can be very profitable for your online business. Once you find the marketing method that works for you, duplication is no problem. The benefits cannot be ignored, many people build MLM businesses using only the internet. This brings more prospects, and also more visitors to your business opportunity website.

Another advantage of a good social marketing strategy, is to be able to position yourself as a leader in your group or business. New marketing methods are being utilized daily by many people. Using these methods raises the bar in your online business. The more you learn and study about these strategies the better your results will be.

Remember, Social Media is a good way for you to place yourself as a leader in your business. The name of the game is to develop relationships. When you create these relationships you also create trust. It is more important to have trust than to just promote, this in itself brings more business.
There are other Social Networking Sites like, Twitter, LinkedIn, Stumbleupon, Google+, and the latest Pinterest. These sites are well-known and very effective, when used properly, for social networking. Knowing how fast things work on the web, I'm sure that there will be more social sites that will be added shortly. These sites allow the average marketer to get out to more people. The more people, the more prospects and well you get the point. If communicating to new people is your forte', then social marketing would be the way to go for your business. People with such a gift, would enjoy to be able to reach out to so many with such little effort.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7284543