Video: Why is Personal Branding Important?

Velvet Chainsaw's Midcourse Corrections Blog

Connect To The New Social Nervous System Or Become Roadkill

http://jeffhurtblog.com/2011/01/25/connect-social-nervous-system-or-become-roadkill/

New search feature on LinkedIn status updates!

This is a great new tool. Before this upgrade, the LinkedIn updates feed was a lot like your Twitter feed for two reasons. Many of my connections are also on Twitter and are posting identical updates to both applications. The second reason is the updates were showing up chronologically so anytime you logged in to LinkedIn, you would see only the most recent status updates.

Now, you can filter by many different categories. Just want to see updates that have been shared? You can click on Shares and see better content (in theory) because it was good enough for someone else to share it.

LinkedIn's advance search for profiles is one of the best reasons to use the application for prospecting. Now, you can search status updates with the same amount of filter capacity. Some examples:

Keyword
Relationship - see updates from people you are not connected to. This was the first feature I found useful because I saw a great blog post from someone who is a 3rd connection. I am following this person on Twitter, but hadn't seen this post on Twitter yet.
Company - see updates from a company you are tying to get as a client or as an employer
Industry
Time - filter to only see recent updates
Location - filter to see updates from people in a certain geographic area
School - filter to see people from particular schools
Topics - shows you relevant twitter hashtags. This is a great feature for those of you who are still learning twitter because you can see the hashtags people are using in the industry or keywords you are searching for!

As with other search features on LinkedIn, you can save a search once you have chosen the filters you want to use so you don't have to re-create it each time.

Click on the "NEW" next to the search updates box to view their quick video overview. This is a powerful new feature so you will want to start using it.

1/27/11 edit: I didn't realize this feature was not available to everyone yet. Here's the link to LinkedIn's blog explaining. http://blog.linkedin.com/2010/09/29/linkedin-signal/

34 case studies that prove social media ROI

"So, next time someone at your company questions whether social media demonstrates ROI, you can give them these 34 case studies..."

http://barnraisersllc.com/?p=2460

How Do You Use Twitter As A Networking Tool At Conferences?

Planners and suppliers can benefit from social networking, just as you can benefit from networking at face to face events. Like face to face networking, social media is best used as conversation, not direct selling. LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter are three of the most commonly used platforms. Check out the January Intercom for my article on LinkedIn. This article will discuss Twitter and next month we will dive into Facebook.

At the MPI World Education Congress (WEC) in July 2009, we were asked for our Twitter name on the registration form for the event. I had been reluctant to join Twitter up until that point. When I saw that on the registration form, I didn’t want to miss out on any of the education at the event, so I signed up for Twitter, then signed up for WEC. They did a great job of providing one-on-one training in an area of the conference where you could go at any time. I started to get the hang of it and am very glad that I was given a good foundation on how to use Twitter to network and learn about topics important to my professional development. If your audience is multi-generational, you might want to consider providing this type of education to your attendees so your Gen Xers and Baby Boomers don’t get left behind.

On Twitter, I have connected to and become better acquainted with many people in the hospitality and events industry who live in different parts of the world. I found a few Twitter mentors whom I could emulate. I quickly found people who were tweeting interesting and educational things. In the beginning, I mostly re-tweeted things I liked sent out from people I was following. Then, I learned how to use a hashtag to see tweets from other event professionals (i.e. #eventprofs or #mpi). Most of them have their blog, Web Site or LinkedIn listed on their Twitter profile so you can click over to it to learn more about them. You can follow big brands and celebrities, but they won’t follow you back and you will quickly lose interest. If you follow real people who are tweeting good content and engaging with others on Twitter, you will have a much better experience. If you want more people to follow you, make sure you say something interesting in the bio section of your Twitter profile.

Lists are also a good way to find people quickly who are in the same industry or have the same interests as you. The people you have already found will have either created lists or will be listed, which you can see on their profiles. You can save a list and view tweets from the people the list is following at any time, or you can simply follow everyone on that list so you will always see their tweets.

By the time WEC 2010 came around, I had a year of Twitter under my belt. I had been using it at smaller conferences and other meetings on my laptop and smart phone. It takes some practice, but you can get the hang of taking a learning “nugget” from a speaker and quickly turning it into 140 characters. By doing this, you are sharing what you are learning with the people who are following you. At larger conferences, someone will inevitably organize a tweet-up and everyone that has been tweeting from the conference will then meet in person. This is an excellent way to extend your professional network. In addition to sharing content presented by the speakers, Twitter is an evaluation tool. Your attendees will comment on the food, technical difficulties, maybe even the temperature in the room. If you are monitoring the twitter feed from your conference (i.e. #wec10), there may be issues which you can remedy immediately. Otherwise, you may not hear about it until after the conference. The feedback you get from your evaluation forms is directly related to the questions you ask. Twitter feedback is exactly what your attendees are thinking, while they are thinking it – whether good or bad! Your audience will increasingly expect you to be paying attention to what they are tweeting.

Contact me with any questions you have on social media so I can help you bridge the gap between traditional networking and the brave new world of web 2.0. eglau@basicsocialmediatraining.com or www.twitter.com/elizabethglau If you have a specific question about Facebook, LinkedIn or social media for events, I would love to include it in an upcoming article.

Can Social Networks Create Social Capital?

http://www.nten.org/blog/2011/01/10/2011-ntc-preview-can-social-networks-create-social-capital

A Guest Post on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is widely accepted as the professional network online. Many companies, who do not allow access to other social media applications, do allow their employees to access LinkedIn while at work. There are two things you should do to take advantage of this tool. First, create a company page and second, create a social media policy for your employees.


See more...
http://blog.kirkflagg.com/2011/01/04/using-linkedin-to-extend-your-brand-online---guest-blog.aspx

New Year, New Media Resolutions

Have you started thinking about your New Year's resolutions yet? This year, I am starting a business. Even though it is a risky venture, I am helping people with their personal and professional development, so it will be fulfilling for me!

 

The New Year is the perfect time for you to start thinking about your social media strategy - for you, your business, or your event. O.k., I know you have already been thinking about social media. How could you not be thinking about it? I am sure you hear the words LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter almost every day. Now, it is time to put a plan in place for you to manage it in 2011.

 

www.basicsocialmediatraining.com

 

New Year, New Media Resolutions:

• Learn how to use an application that you haven't tried yet.
• Share your knowledge or a fun fact on your status update 1 x week.
• Import your rolodex or address book on LinkedIn to stay in touch.

Wishing you the best in 2011! Let me know how I can help with your New Year, New Media Resolutions.