Did you know… As of January 2011, LinkedIn counts executives from all 2010 Fortune 500 companies as members.  As of March 22, 2011, its hiring solutions were used by 73 of the Fortune 100 companies. With over 100 million members now in over 200 countries, LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network and it’s totally business focused. Now, there are LinkedIn Company Pages.

For all you business owners out there, if you haven’t already done so, maybe it’s time to capitalize on LinkedIn’s announcement back in November 2010 of its Company Pages. More than 2 million companies now have a LinkedIn Company Page. Have you got a Company Page yet?

Company Pages allow you to bring your brand to life by showcasing your products and services.  They help you grow your company’s business virally through word-of-mouth – the most trusted form of advertising . You can also get endorsements in the form of testimonials on your company page and by displaying your strongest recommendations to your prospective customers, your Company Page can help you accelerate growth and trust in your brand.

In addition to product and service testimonials, you can post a job, display videos, featured product information and targeted ads on your Company Page to drive sales and interaction.  These features however, require you to have an upgraded profile on LinkedIn, meaning these are features you pay for. However, for some businesses, the ability to secure quality connections may be worth the investment.

In addition to company pages, LinkedIn also recently added more features for the personal profile. If you haven’t visited your LinkedIn profile recently, you might have missed the new sections that LinkedIn now allows you. Things like adding your specific skill set and certifications.  You can now drag and drop your profile sections in a priority sequence thereby allowing you to highlight the sections you deem most important first.  I still recommend that you have your Summary at the top however, as most visitors to your profile will look at your ‘job’ title first followed by your summary.

Take the time to explore all the features that LinkedIn has to offer.  For example, if you have written a book and it’s available for purchase on Amazon.com, then add the Amazon app to your profile and showcase your book! Import your blog and don’t forget to add your website, Facebook business page, a link to your YouTube channel perhaps and your Twitter handle.

5 Tips for your profile:

1. Make your title at the top of the page a show stopper.

2. Make your summary engaging. Speak in the first person and ‘talk’ to the person whose business you are trying to attract.

3. Ask for testimonials. Not only do they appear on your own profile, but on the profile of the person endorsing you. And, testimonials get flagged in the weekly summary of LinkedIn updates that are sent out to your community. This keeps you top of mind and this kind of endorsement can be key to securing more business.

4. If you are a business owner, create a company profile. Make sure you populate it with proper keywords so that the company search feature will pull your business into targeted search results.  Fill out all the pertinent information. Consider the paid-for options if appropriate.

5. Keep it up to date!  This is your digital resume for yourself and for your business.

I wrote a more comprehensive list of items and things to consider in another blog post.  Feel free to check it out here.  If you need help, engage the services of someone who understands this space.  As a Certified Social Media Specialist, I encourage all my clients to complete a LinkedIn profile and maintain it as part of the ‘big three’ in the social media realm.

Please feel free to comment! I love getting feedback. Here on my blog, you’ll get commentluv. This is a a plug-in that gives you the opportunity to leave a link back to your own blog when you leave feedback.

Until next time,

Joanne

While physically located in Newmarket Ontario, where Joanne lives with her family, she is virtually yours, anywhere…

Who’s Next? Have you Googled Yourself Lately?

I wonder how many businesses out there are paying attention to the change that is going on in terms of brand and reputation management.  With the proliferation of Social Media,  the power to define and control  a brand is now shifting from corporations and institutions to individuals and communities.

Back in 2005, before Social Media became popular, blogger Jeff Jarvis who, among other accreditations, was creator and founding editor of Entertainment Weekly, Sunday editor and associate publisher of the New York Daily News, TV critic for TV Guide and People, purchased a Dell computer which he considered a lemon. When he wasn’t able to get the customer service he was looking for, he proceeded to take Dell down a very lonely path after writing a blog which he entitled “Dell Lies.  Dell Sucks”.  Not an attractive headline.

At the time, Jeff was not able to get Dell’s Executive to respond in the online forum. It was only after their customer satisfaction, market share and share price took a beating that they started paying attention to Social Media. Since that time, Dell has done a complete turnaround and in 2007, they began using Twitter to market its used and refurbished equipment.

Recently, they announced $2M of revenue directly attributable to their @DellOutlet Twitter id and another $1M of revenue from clickthroughs to their Dell.com site.  Jeff now says he blew Dell a big wet kiss.  If you check out their website, you will see a “community” section where they have incorporated a solid SM approach to doing business. Even their employees are now blogging on Dell’s behalf.  Bravo Dell!

This should have been a road map for other organizations to follow!  Fast forward to 2009.

Earlier this spring, Domino’s Pizza were blind-sided when a couple of its employees uploaded a video to YouTube, portraying them breaking every health rule possible while involved in food preparation.  With no one from their organization paying any attention to reputation management online, it took a consumer to bring it to their attention.  There is now a lawsuit pending.   Not surprisingly, I am now seeing Domino’s ads everywhere professing their high customer sat ratings in 2009.

I can only imagine how expensive this recovery effort is to say nothing of the cost of the lawsuit compared to the cost of  some reputation management software and a little awareness. To their credit, Dominos’ President addressed the incident by publishing its own YouTube video shortly thereafter.

It’s time for businesses to sit up and take notice.  Keeping track of what’s being said about your organization online is becoming increasingly important.  And it’s not just big business that needs to pay attention.  Small business owners are just as much if not more vulnerable to having their reputation sullied from a dissatisfied consumer.   Social Media is word of mouth marketing, and bad press can really hurt you.

It’s time to jump on the bandwagon people!  And, if you’re unsure how to track your own or your company’s reputation online, there is help out there.  While you are at it, it’s probably time to take a look at an overall Social Media strategy for your business.  As a Social Media Specialist Virtual Assistant, I can help you from strategy and action planning to profile building and on-going maintenance and support.  It’s much easier to create a positive flow of communication at the outset than to back pedal and recover from a media disaster.

So, do you know what’s being said about you?  Go ahead Google yourself…regularly.

While physically located in Newmarket Ontario where Joanne lives with her family, as a VA, she is virtually yours anywhere….