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Monthly Archives: February 2014

31 Twitter Tips: How To Use Twitter Tools And Twitter Best Practices For Business

22 Saturday Feb 2014

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Twitter

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Best Practices, hashtags, Twitter

For as long as I have been doing social media marketing,  I have wondered what the value of Twitter is for sales and business. Everyone knows the indisputable value of LinkedIn for B2B sales, marketing, , and entrepreneurs in general. But Twitter is finally gaining traction in B2C?

This article shares some of the latest Twitter strategies, tactics, tools, and best practices.

GETTING STARTED

1.  Decide your purpose. Why are you using Twitter?

Some Twitter users utilize the social media site to build their company brand or generate leads. There are bloggers who use the platform to share ideas and articles and to see what others are writing about. Some people check Twitter for news, while others want to see what celebrities or friends are up to.

Defining your purpose will help you decide who to follow and what kind of information to share.

2.  Focus on your passion. There are millions of Twitter users tweeting thousands of pieces of information every second. It is easy to get overwhelmed by and lost in the noise. Rather than trying to soak it all in and repurpose everything, focus on your passion.

Don’t be a jack of all Twitter subjects and a master of none. Tweets surrounding your passion are going to be stronger. Plus, you will attract users who have similar interests. If you don’t focus, you will attract meaningless followers, if any at all.

3.  Define your brand. Once you have zeroed in on your purpose and passion, decide how you want the Twitter world to view you.

Do you want to specialize in one subject to attract a targeted audience? Or do you want to be more general, tweeting about numerous topics? Do you want your tweets to be funny and casual or very professional? Is your goal to be a thought leader or celebrity? This will give you direction on who to follow and what to tweet.

4.  Determine your strategy. Is your strategy tocommunicate?

If your goal is to influence, promote or sell, your strategy should be communication based. You are going to want to attract attention. To attract attention, you are going to need to tweet, direct message, engage with other users and focus on getting information out in the Twitter world.

Is it to listen?

If you are using Twitter to keep up on news, learn, provide customer service or perform market analysis, your strategy should be to listen. You are going to want to decide who will provide the content you’re interested in and follow them. You will also want to learn how to utilize filtering tools, including hashtags and Twitter lists. 

5.  Learn how to use Twitter. Reading this article and articles like it is a good first step. However, to really learn how to utilize Twitter, you’re going to need to get your hands a little dirty and roll up your sleeves.

  1. Go to Twitter.com, and create a free account.
  2. Learn Twitter terminology. When you post something, it’s a tweet. When you repost something from another user, it’s a retweet or RT.  Trending topics, or TT, are topics discussed by many users at a given time. You can Favorite a tweet by clicking on the star. That is a great way to recognize someone for sharing your content.
  3. Explore. See who is on Twitter and what people are tweeting.
  4. Engage. Follow the guidelines in this article and become an active user.

6.  Grab your name, brand or persona. (@KenKrogue)

When you are signing up, you will need to decide your Twitter name, which is how people will tag you in tweets and ultimately how you will be known on Twitter. Mine is my name, @KenKrogue. If you can’t get your own name, add your passion or function like @KenKrogueSells or something. My company address is @InsideSales. Choose something that fits you or your business.

7.  Take a good picture. Use a close-up headshot of yourself or a logo of your business. This image will show up on your profile page and next to any comment you make on Twitter. You want people to recognize you. Make sure the image is clear and well-lit, with your face in the center. (Or you can be off-center, like me, if you are a little different.) You want to avoid having other objects beside you in the picture.

If you are using a logo, try not to make it too wordy, or it will not be readable at the small image size. Your image can be formatted as a jpg, gif or PNG.  The size limit for upload is 700KB. Twitter reformats the image for the profile picture and the smaller image that goes next to comments.

Changing Your Profile Image. To change your profile image, click on the gear icon located at the top of the page, and select “edit profile.” Next to “Photo” select “Upload photo” from the drop down. Upload your photo from your computer.

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8.  Find your keywords. Use the Google Keyword Tool (now Keyword Planner as of Aug 26) to find the keywords that make up your industry or market. Remember to divert a river, don’t dig a well. In other words, tap into existing traffic rather than generating it from scratch. It is better to know about keywords than even about hashtags, because a hashtag is a keyword or a “theme” that can help amplify your exposure.

9.  Research and identify your #hashtags. Hashtags are a tool to make words more searchable. To create a hashtag, place # before a word. Hashtags allow Twitter users to tap into a Twitter-wide conversation. Discover the trending conversations, and decide which ones you want to be included in. This will also help you connect with users who have similar interests.

Use a maximum of two hashtags per tweet.  Hashtags are a useful way to get your tweet out to people who are actually interested in its main subject, but too many hashtags in a single post can be overwhelming.

#Hashtags can be a #useful #tool, but this is #toomany in a #single #tweet. #annoying #overwhelming

Five Tools to Help Research Hashtags:

  1. Twitter Toolbar: You can search terms, keywords and people by entering them into the toolbar at the top of the page on Twitter. For example, if you are in sales, try searching #sales and related keywords you have identified using the Google Keyword Tool. If you want to see tweets surrounding a certain topic enter that term into the search bar, and it will bring you to all related tweets. For example, if you wanted to see tweets related to the Inside Sales Virtual Summit, enter #SalesSummitinto the search bar, and all tweets tagged #SalesSummit will show up.
  2. Hashtags.org: Hashtags.org provides research to help businesses improve social networking strategies.
  3. Topsy
  4. Twitter Reach
  5. Social Mention

(3-5 are social analytics tools that can provide analysis of your tweets and hashtags.)

10.  Wordsmith your profile with keywords for search and fun facts for people. Once you have decided why you are using Twitter, what your target audience is and gone through the initial setup, now you want to show up in search. Include keywords in your Twitter profile.

11.  Publish your Twitter ID in your other media. I post my Twitter ID (@KenKrogue) in my email signature, at the bottom of articles I write and anywhere else I think applicable. This lets people know I’m on Twitter and helps them find me. A great way to grow your following is to start with people you know and connect with them in various ways.

BUILD YOUR NETWORK

12. Check out Twitter Tools like TweetAdder or Tweepi to target who to follow or who you want to follow you. The best way to build your network is to target your content specifically to those who would be interested in following you and make it really interesting and valuable.TweetAdder or Tweetpi are perfect tools for this. Check out How to Build a Targeted Twitter Tribe of 100,000 on Jeff Bullas’ blog. Two other useful tools are Twitonomy, which provides analytics, and Twtrland, which offers up social intelligence.

13. The follow-first rule: I follow you then (hopefully) you follow me. This is by far the most common way to get followers. Twitter puts limits on how many users you can follow. Here are the guidelines: “Every account can follow 2,000 users total. Once you’ve followed 2,000 users, there are limits to the number of additional users you can follow. This number is different for each account and is based on your ratio of followers to following; this ratio is not published.”

14. The favorites-follower rule: I click ‘favorite’ on your Tweet, then you follow me. This method helps you gain targeting following by first finding Tweets that match your interests and targeted keywords. Then you click ‘favorite’ and often they reciprocate. This takes more time, but gives you a much higher quality and engaged following.

15. The offer-follower rule: You follow me, I give you something: information, ebook, etc. Make sure to give away something that your target audience will value. Make it easy for people to claim their reward. 

16. The fan-follower rule: You follow a celebrity, they tweet you about them. You follow a celebrity types to keep up on their tweets. Twitter helped this process a lot by featuring the Twitter address of famous people in the Twitter registration process.

17. Choose your lists: Twitter lists allow you to listen to relevant conversations, identify influencers and filter out the noise so you can focus on the people and topics you care about.

18. Two ears and one mouth rule: Listen (and research first) before you speak. It is much better to listen about twice as much as you tweet if you want a strong following that is engaged and targeted to your purpose and passion.

19. Listen with Topsy. Topsy.com is a Twitter search engine that let’s you see if anyone listens or cares. Let’s you see the latest Twitter results in the past hour, day, week, 20 days, month or all time — with a cool trending graph. Also, be on the the lookout for a great social media tool called TinyTorch. This premier tool enables you to easily find relevant social content in your industry.

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31 Twitter Tips: How To Use Twitter Tools And Twitter Best Practices For BusinessKen KrogueKen KrogueContributor
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20. Use Tweetdeck or HootSuite to listen to the conversation about you, your company, or your industry. Serious listeners step up to Radian6, what is now the saleforce marketing cloud.

START COMMUNICATING

21. Create and tweet great original content that fits your purpose. Create content that is informative and entertaining. Write about industry news, especially if you’re in a position to break the news. Stay on top of trends and provide commentary that adds context. If somebody releases groundbreaking research in your industry, write about this research. But don’t just regurgitate it. Use your own expertise to explain why this research is important. Show others in your industry how they can apply it to their work.

Use a combination of short-form content, like tweets, and long-form content, like blog posts, to establish yourself as a thought leader.

22. Summarize and curate great content that fits your purpose.

Share facts, insights and statistics in 140 characters or less. Try to keep your tweets to about 100 characters to leave room for links and hashtags and to increase the likelihood that somebody will retweet your content. Use your Twitter lists to curate relevant content. Set up keyword searches to track content by keywords.

23. Spend your time on really great headlines with keywords. Your headlines have the greatest impact on how many people share and read your content.

Here are some proven headline formulas:

  • Lists: Headlines with numbers in them consistently perform well. Example: 7 Undeniable Reasons People LOVE List Posts.
  • How to: “How to” titles promise a benefit to your readers. Example: How to Use Sales Data to Increase Sales Productivity.
  • Target a Shark: Refer to a shark, which can be an important company or person in your industry. This allows you to feed off the shark’s popularity to call attention to your content. Example: What Steve Jobs Can Teach You About Startup Success.
  • Include Keywords: If you want to be known for sales motivation, make sure to include that keyword phrase in your headlines. Example: 6 Insanely Useful Sales Motivation Secrets.

24. Keep tweeting — Resend tweets with different angles. Some social media experts (Guy Kawasaki for example) recommend that you send the same tweet four times to cover all four U.S. time zones.

If you want to mix things up, here are some different angles you can take:

Use statistics to show significance: 90% of your sales come from 10% of your list

Address tweets to the individual by including the word “you”: Why You Should Focus on 10% of Your Prospect List

25. Alternate tweets by time of day and day of week. Social media scientist Dan Zarrella says that the best time to tweet if you want to be retweeted is on Friday at 4 p.m. EST. That’s based on aggregate data he has analyzed for millions of retweets.  The engagement levels on your Twitter account may vary based on your industry and other factors.

Use the Buffer App Tool (one of my favorites) to schedule your tweets. Test different days and times. Monitor engagement by using Buffer’s Analytics tab. Identify patterns among your Twitter followers. Schedule your tweets for your optimal days and times. >Don’t overlook weekends. Some Twitter users see higher engagement over the weekend. But the only way to know is to test and monitor your results.

26. Bridge Twitter with other media. Create a dynamic experience for your Twitter audience by including different types of media, such as images and videos.

Here are some tools you can use:

  • Twitpic: Go to Twitpic.com, create an account, upload photos and easily share them on Twitter.
  • Yfrog: Yfrog is another popular photo-sharing service.
  • YouTube videos: Simply paste a YouTube video URL into a tweet. Your followers will be able to view the video right in their Twitter stream by clicking on the “View Media” link that appears in your tweet.
  • AudioBoo: Use AudioBoo to share audio files. Once you have an account, sharing an AudioBoo link is super intuitive.

Twitter is a very passive media, but great to build awareness and start conversations. I recommend bridging to more assertive media like email, Chatter, LinkedIn, phone conversations, and live meetings. Live meetings are the most assertive, and work great at common events like Trade Shows, etc. Use Twitter to bridge to more assertive media as soon as you can.

27. Retweet great content. When you see something worth sharing in your stream, retweet it. This means that you are sharing somebody else’s Twitter content with your own followers. Retweeting somebody else’s content accomplishes two things:

  1. It helps you make friends with other influencers on Twitter.
  2. It shows your followers that you’re an active member of your online community.

Retweeting is simple. Here’s how:

Click the Retweet button on any tweet. This will publish the original tweet in your followers’ streams. The tweet will appear exactly as it did when it was first tweeted, meaning it will appear to come from the person who originally tweeted it. A message will appear at the bottom of the tweet telling people that you retweeted it.

Retweet the old-fashioned way. When viewing a tweet, click Reply. Copy and paste the original message into your tweet box. Place the letters RT in front of the original tweeter’s Twitter handle, or @ sign. Click Tweet. The post will be published in your followers’ streams as if it came from you. Many users prefer this method of retweeting because it’s better for building your own brand.

28. Send direct tweets as a great form of communication. Direct tweets are one-to-one messages as opposed to one-to-many. So, these tweets are more personal by nature. Use direct tweets to build strong relationships and to communicate important messages.

There are two types of direct tweets:

At-replies: Send an at-reply to another Twitter user by hitting the Reply button on any tweet. Type your message into the box that pops up and click Tweet. Your at-reply will show up in this person’s Interactions stream, which means it is more likely to be seen than a regular tweet. Just remember, your at-reply will also be visible to the public as part of your general Twitter stream.

Direct messages: If you don’t want anybody but the intended recipient to see your tweet, use a direct message. Click on the gray gear icon at the top of your Twitter profile. Select Direct Messages and create a new message. Once you submit it, it will appear in the recipient’s inbox. 

29. Use great #hashtags. Hashtags categorize your tweets, which makes it easier for others interested in your topic to find them. Turn the keywords you want to be known for into your hashtags. Create a hashtag by placing the # symbol in front of your keywords. For example, #insidesales, #sales and #salesdata are popular hashtags in the sales space. Remember the rule though: divert a river, don’t dig a well.

Find existing hashtags with lots of traffic by searching for them using the Search Bar at the top of your profile. View a list of related tweets by clicking on a hashtag inside a tweet.

Make a hashtag for every event and presentation you do. #salessummit was our hashtag for our big Virtual Sales Summit. It already had lots of existing traffic (divert a river.)

Put your hashtag right at the bottom of every slide in your PowerPoint to make it easy for people to see it and tweet while you are presenting.

30. Leverage your tweets in Facebook, LinkedIn and blogs. Share your Twitter content with your audience on other networks by re-posting your tweets on Facebook and LinkedIn, when appropriate. You also can embed a tweet into your blog or website. Click on the date in the upper-right-hand corner of a tweet. Then click More and select Embed Tweet. Copy the code and add it to your blog or website.

SEE IF IT’S WORKING

31. Check where you stand on social media tools, like Klout.com, Peerindex.com, Kred.com, Wefollow.com. Your influence on social media matters. The higher your score is, the more influential and relevant you are to others in the social media realm. One of the most popular tools is Klout. Quickly set up an account on Klout to see your score from 1 to 100.

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Hashtag Best Practices:

21 Friday Feb 2014

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Twitter

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Best Practices, hashtags, Twitter

Effective brand-generated hashtags, on the other hand, are designed for action. The best brand hashtags not only reach an existing group of people who are already interested in a specific category, they give those people a reason to talk publicly about the brand. Here are some best practices that every brand should implement.

hashtag best practices for brands

#SelfControl.

Keep it to 3 tags or less per post on any social channel or you’ll look like a spammer. If you think you need more, write a separate tweet or post.

#Relate.

Don’t hijack a popular trending hashtag to get attention—especially one with any whiff of controversy– unless you can find a solid connection. Remember when Entenmann’s decided to get glib with #notguilty during a high-profile murder case? Coffee cake won’t fix that faux pas. On the other hand, there are no hard and fast rules to trendjacking. It can be worth the risk—like Google’s global greeting card for the #RoyalBaby or JELL-O’s controversial but buzzworthy #FML hijack. The bottom line? If you’re going to trendjack, do your homework, be prepared to handle backlash, and monitor, monitor, monitor.

#GetSpecific

Think of general hashtags like #donuts or #donutshop like general search terms. Yes, they will put your company’s post in front of the masses, but they don’t really improve your connection with the people willing to talk about your brand. A specific made-by-you hashtag, however, is more like a targeted ad campaign. Promote #DonutsForDinner and your existing fans will collectively deliver a whole world of brand-specific content to their own networks (read: soon-to-be fans of yours). Whether it’s an Instagram gallery of strangers’ donut meals or a long list of Tweeps upping their caloric intake with your tasty product, the conversation is 100% about YOU.

#SearchTermSavvy

Think beyond your brand for a minute. If a consumer clicks on your gym’s #LetsGetSweaty hashtag, what else will they see in that list? And does that help or hurt your brand? Find out before you tag, not after.

#DoubleCheck.

And then look at it again. See if someone else can catch a red flag you’re not seeing. We’ve seen some grand hashtag mishaps that happen in a hurry, including Susan Boyle’s recent international record release and an unfortunate mixup that left readers wondering if it was Cher or Margaret Thatcher in the morgue. #susanalbumparty or #nowthatcherisdead anyone?

#KnowYourDarkSide

Don’t ask the public to join in the conversation if you have reason to believe they might run toward the opposite goalpost. McDonald’s asked the Twittersphere for their dining experiences– #McDStories– back in 2012, and they didn’t get glowing recommendations. Who saw that coming? Everybody except McDonald’s. Even your most loyal fan won’t cover for your brand’s shortcomings. Play to your strengths, period.

#Readability

Keep it short, memorable, and easy to spell. Think #OpeningAtAmys vs #amysartgallery. Capitalization is your friend (just ask Cher and Susan Boyle), and the social media universe gives bonus points for hashtags that can be used in a sentence.

#CallToAction

Hashtags only work for brands when consumers use them, so you’d better tell your fans what to do with yours. Do you want feedback on a product? Asking for content? Seeking advocates for a cause? Holding a contest? Give them a reason to use what you’ve made. With the right call to action, your hashtag is a conversation starter that can earn you a spot in social feeds around the globe; without direction, it’s nothing more than a misplaced pound sign.

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The 7 day plan to transform your sales results using LinkedIn – in just 15 minutes a day

21 Friday Feb 2014

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in LInkedIn

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LINKEDIN FOR BUSINESS, LinkedIn Insights, Social Media Marketing, social media tools, Strategy

Any sales people out there remember the good old Rolodex? When I say remember, I should explain that Rolodex is still going ‘strong’ producing the device that holds specially shaped index cards that the user writes on the contact information of any new contact or company.

Times have moved on though, with client management systems (CRMs) such as Salesforce.com and Infusionsoft, to name just two, providing salespeople with the ability to input hundreds, in fact thousands of companies and individuals for the purposes of follow up – you’d need a great number of Rolodex systems on your desk to achieve the same level of client recording.

Now LinkedIn is far from being a CRM system but most of us will have noticed in the past 12 months a significant number of platform enhancements from the professional online networking site, most are useful, some extremely annoying. Nevertheless, from a sales perspective, LinkedIn has a significant number of benefits, which, if applied consistently, will transform your ability to create more sales and importantly, more profitable sales.

 

One of the most useful and recent enhancements, especially if you can’t afford a fancy CRM system, is the new LinkedIn ‘Relationship‘ tab. Accessible from other’s profiles, this new feature enables you to record personal notes about your new LinkedIn contact, including how you met them, a reminder of who introduced you and it will even allow you to schedule a reminder for when you want to get in touch with your contact again.

Photo originator www.bluewaterbrand.com

Photo originator http://www.bluewaterbrand.com

With all this in mind, here is my 7 day plan to help you create more profitable sales, using LinkedIn, in just 15-20 minutes a day:

  1. Monday – Using a scheduling tool, such as Hootsuite, schedule useful posts, 3 times a day, for the next 7 days. Consider the times of day when your target audience is most likely to be on their SmartPhones or PCs e.g. commute times – Time 10 minutes. Respond to any relevant invitations to connect or inbox messages – Time 5 minutes
  2. Tuesday – Search relevant LinkedIn company pages, groups or use LinkedIn’s search platform to find 5-10 relevant target contacts and invite them to connect. Time 15 minutes. – Check who’s viewed your profile and respond to any relevant individuals by inviting them to connect – Time 5 minutes.
  3. Wednesday – In the 2 or 3 LinkedIn groups you have decided to be most active in either a) start a discussion that you believe will encourage responses from members or b) respond to any existing discussion where you feel your comments will add value and create recognition for you personally –Time 15 minutes.
  4. Thursday – Search relevant LinkedIn company pages, groups or use LinkedIn’s search platform to find 5 relevant target contacts and invite them to connect – Time 15 minutes. – Check who’s viewed your profile and respond to any relevant individuals by inviting them to connect – Time 5 minutes.
  5. Friday – Send a useful and relevant content message to your connections that you have saved in specific LinkedIn tags. Using tags you can send a LinkedIn email to up to 50 of your connections in one bulk message. – Time 15 minutes. Respond to any relevant invitations to connect or inbox messages – Time 5 minutes
  6. Saturday – Check who’s viewed your LinkedIn profile and any invitations to connect received and invite relevant people to connect with you. – Time 10 minutes.
  7. Sunday – Plan what key messages you will share with your LinkedIn network next week. What current issues or challenges are your target audience facing at the moment and how can you help solve these problems for them? – Time 15-20 minutes.

7 days?! I know, 7 days – ‘I’ve got to work 7 days?!’ I can hear you say. No, you don’t – in fact you don’t have to do any work at all to try and generate more sales. However, what I have presented you with is a schedule of just 15-20 minutes a day, where, before breakfast, at tea time, in your lunch break, on the train, bus, taxi, in fact at any point in your day, you can undertake simple but effective LinkedIn tasks that if done consistently, week in, week out, will ensure that you:

  • Raise your brand profile with your target audience
  • Increase the size of your professional network with relevant prospects
  • Share your expertise with your target audience and attract interest in what you do
  • Build relationships with many LinkedIn connections who will come to know, like and trust you – meaning they will buy you, more so than your price. This equals more profitable sales.
  • Manage your prospects by easily accessing them in tags
  • Are focused on growing your sales and not just daily operational tasks

And if you can’t find time for the above? Clearly the more time you can devote to sales & marketing, the better and at the bare minimum, even if you can’t find time to perform any of the above tasks, ensure that for any new sales prospect you come into contact with that you give yourself the edge. How? By finding out as much as possible about this potential new client by finding them on LinkedIn and researching their personal profile as well as his/her company page to find who the other key influencers might be.

One final point – content sharing on LinkedIn is easy. However, if you want to curate or create really useful content that will engage and enthral those you want to do business with, then you’re going to need to spend additional time over an above the 7 day plan outlined above.

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Creating a strategy for using LinkedIn for B2B marketing

21 Friday Feb 2014

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Best Practices, LInkedIn

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LINKEDIN FOR BUSINESS, Marketing, MOBILE SOCIAL NETWORKING, Social Media, social media tools, Strategy

Developing a strategic approach to LinkedIn Marketing for B2B companies – advice from Steve Phillip of Linked2Success

In this interview, Steve Phillip, a leading Coach and Expert on using LinkedIn shares his approaches and explains how his clients are using LinkedIn. The interview covers the basic such as overcoming barriers to entry, avoiding the common mistakes, strategy planning for first time adopters, plus more advanced tips and hints on how to use this successfully as well as his views on the hot issues in 2013. You can get more advice from Steve at Linked2Success.

Barriers and solutions to using LinkedIn to generate B2B business

Q. From your personal experience of working with companies who are new adopters to LinkedIn , what would you say have been the main barriers for companies and how should they overcome them?

I’d say there are the 2 main issues here:

  • 1. Limited knowledge base  of staff meaning they are not fully comprehending the full range of functions LinkedIn provides the business user.
  • 2. Sustained time and focus. We have trained many hundreds of individuals during the past 3 years, most of which were genuinely excited and initially determined to use LinkedIn for their business. In a number of cases, weeks or months on, they had not moved any further forward, due mainly to the demands of other more familiar aspects of their working day.

Q. How have you worked toward helping clients overcome these barriers?

Firstly, our training programmes are always linked to the client’s measurable objectives.

Where the client sees a direct link between using LinkedIn and business outcomes then they become more motivated to use it.

Secondly, our training programmes provide continuity support and follow up to review progress made by our clients and providing additional coaching.

We find that training and a well planned, focused social media strategy will help clients increase their sales, create new opportunities and gain increased ROI through this social media platform. For example, working with EnviroVent’s sales teams, he overcame their barrier to adoption by providing easy to follow steps and giving them the confidence to join in discussion groups. As a result they received an order that represented 33% of their sales territory annual target.

Mistakes to avoid with LinkedIn

Q. What have been the common mistakes which companies are making which we can all avoid?

It’s simple. Lack of a clear strategy is the biggest mistake. Users sign up to LinkedIn but then have no clear plan in mind how they will use it.

Q4. What advice would you give to a company with planning their LinkedIn strategy, if they have little resource?

They should be clear about who they need to be building relationships with and be specific – Industry sector, company, job title of relevant decision maker, geographic location and then share information; news updates; web resources; own blog content etc that will be of value to their network.

Also make a decision to focus on one or two aspects of LinkedIn, such as networking and engaging in discussions in 3-5 LinkedIn groups maximum.

With limited resource, it will become extremely time consuming to attempt to work in more than 3 groups really, whilst searching for new prospects – using Advanced search, checking who’s viewed your profile and posting status updates.

Also decide, which aspects of LinkedIn will help you to engage with the right business connections and focus on these only.

LinkedIn features for lead generation and brand awareness

Q5.  Can you name your top x features in LinkedIn which companies can use to create leads or brand awareness?

Almost every aspect of LinkedIn will have an impact on generating leads and raising brand awareness, but here are my top 5 tips of practical actions you can take to support business goals:

  • 1. Brand awareness – Post useful updates once a day from your personal LinkedIn profile and if you have one, your LinkedIn Company page (see more advice from Annmarie Hanlon) – this activity has had a significant impact on brand awareness for our business and others we work with.
  • 2 Brand awareness – Be active in 3-5 LinkedIn groups consistently – share good content, discussions and other interactions – be a Thought Leader.
  • 3. Lead generation – Use LinkedIn’s advanced search facility to locate useful business connections by name, company, university, job title, geographic location.
  • 4. Lead generation – Don’t just connect with other LinkedIn users – always send a thank you response message, particularly to relevant contacts, then share useful content monthly that directs them to your website or email database sign up.
  • 5 Lead generation – Check who’s viewed your profile daily – this is a great source of hot leads – after all, they’ve looked at your profile for a reason.

Benefits for Non corporate LinkedIn members

Q6. From your experience of working with non corporate LinkedIn members (individual profiles), what benefits have you seen them realise?

Benefits have been varied, from saving time, to generating new sales and raising brand awareness and increased website traffic. Many are finding the quality of resource information available on LinkedIn incredibly beneficial, probably one of the reasons that LinkedIn is placing considerable emphasis on content sharing going forward.

Hot 2013 LinkedIn topics

Q7. Do you have any thoughts to how LinkedIn will grow in 2013, any hot topics?

Content is becoming increasingly important to LinkedIn. The recent introduction of ‘Influencer posts’ where Leaders such as Richard Branson share their wisdom and thought leadership is evidence of LinkedIn’s desire to make the site increasingly content rich, rather than the slightly dull platform it has been perceived as in previous years.

I think we’ll also see considerable developments in the use of LinkedIn company pages (LinkedIn announcement) which until mid 2012 were fairly static domains. The ability for companies to promote and share their news is attracting a lot of interest currently.

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What Characters Can A Hashtag Include?

17 Monday Feb 2014

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Hashtags, Twitter

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Tags

Best Practices, hashtags, MOBILE SOCIAL NETWORKING, Online Marketing, Twitter

I have posted something similar way back when, but as the use of Twitter and hashtags has, like most other social media channels grown over the last couple of years, it is worth posting again.

Now I make no claims to being a Twitter/Hashtag expert, far from it. So in lieu of actual hands on information, I have gathered the best information I could find on the subject. So a special thanks to the folks at Hashtag.org for helping a girl out!

A hashtag is simply a phrase or keyword that is preceded by a pound (#) symbol and used by the micro-blogging community to create a thread of conversations around a specific theme or topic.

The purpose of the hashtag is to categorize topics, bring ideas together, inspire exchange and encourage others to join in. And because the conversations under hashtags, or any other part of the social networking community for that matter, are not regulated, micro-bloggers have more freedom to express what they want.

This is why hashtag usage is very popular in the likes ofTwitter, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Google+ and other social networking platforms that read hashtags. You can find a list of the most popular hashtags at certain times atHashtags.org.

Limitations on Hashtag Characters

Length

You only need to add a # before a word to make it hashtag. However, because a Tweet is only limited to under 140 characters, the best hashtags are those composed of a single word or a few letters. Twitter experts recommend keeping the keyword under 6 characters.

Use only numbers and letters in your keyword. You may use an underscore but do this sparingly for aesthetic reasons. Hyphens and dashes will not work.

No Spaces

Hashtags do not support spaces. So if you’re using two words, skip the space. For example, hashtags for following the US election are tagged as #USelection, not $US election.

No Special Characters

Hashtags only work with the # sign. Special characters like “!, $, %, ^, &, *, +, .” will not work. Twitter recognizes the pound sign and then converts the hashtag into a clickable link.

Don’t Start With or Use Only Numbers

Hashtags like #123 won’t work, so don’t use only numbers. Similarly, #123yo doesn’t work. But numbers are great for recurring events like #conference2012 or #SXSW12.

Be careful with slang

Slang words can mean different things in different countries, so be very mindful about the words you use. Effective hashtags are those that are concise, direct to the point and very relatable across cultures.

For a hashtag to serve its purpose and generate a following, don’t pepper your post with more than two hashtags. Overuse is annoying and defies general social media etiquette. You don’t want to be accused of being a hard seller, don’t you?

Read more are about hashtags in Why Use Hashtags?

Related Articles You May Enjoy

  1. Why Use Hashtags? Guide To The Micro-Blogging Universe
  2. Which Social Media Networks Use Hashtags?
  3. #Hashtag Is 2012 “Word of the Year”
  4. How To Start A Twitter Hashtag
  5. Starting A Twitter Hashtag For Business

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Google’s Acquisition of DeepMind Hints to More Intelligent Web Searches

14 Friday Feb 2014

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Google Analytics, Google SEO, Google+

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Google Analytics, Google+, Social Media, social media tools, Strategy

It seems that Google is venturing into sci-fi territory with its latest acquisition. Or is it? Google has shelled out $500 million to acquire the UK startup DeepMind, according to TechCrunch. DeepMind focuses on artificial intelligence and machine learning.

screen-shot-2014-01-27-at-9-16-52-am

To date, Google’s true intentions regarding the acquisition of DeepMind have not been released. Google X Labs produces some innovative and helpful products (i.e. Google Glass and self-driving cars), so there is no shortage of opportunity to utilize artificial intelligence there. Google’s primary mission, though, is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” So it may very well implement new applications in artificial intelligence in more practical instances such as its Web search algorithm instead of trying to create self-aware machines.

 

Improving Search Results

Currently, Google’s internet search results rely on information and content that is properly labeled online. This is why SEO still involves a lot of care toward meta information, word content and descriptive anchor text for links. The exception to this is Google’s image search, which uses a mathematical algorithm to analyze image features to find the same or similar images that have been posted elsewhere online. But these internet search algorithms are woefully inadequate when searching for videos, audio files and interactive content like video games. Yes, these file types can be located when they are labeled correctly in their titles or descriptions, but otherwise these media types are completely missed by search engines.

Here is where artificial intelligence would be useful. By 2012 Google had already developed a neural network that made use of machine learning to recognize the content within YouTube videos. In this case, a “deep learning” model of artificial intelligence was used, where the machine’s conclusion was not based on pre-loaded knowledge and detailed sets of conditional statements but rather on a framework where the machine was able to create its own concepts. The result of this experiment: the computer was able to create the concept of, and identify, a cat, according to the Verge.

 

Artificial Intelligence: Separating Fact from Fiction

The fast-paced development of technology in the 21st century as well as our fascination with the possibilities presented to us through the world of science fiction has built up our belief that science makes just about anything possible. While we have in fact made extraordinary strides in technology thus far, we are still a long way from creating a machine with the intelligence to match anywhere near that of a human being.

The concepts of common sense and even understanding are still elusive in the field of artificial intelligence. Will Google Search ever be developed to the point where it can determine if Web content is humorous or not? Whether Web content is offensive? Google already dealt with this issue back in 2009 when, according to ABC, offensive images appeared as results for the search term “Michelle Obama.” The incident prompted Google to issue the following statement:

The beliefs and preferences of those who work at Google, as well as the opinions of the general public, do not determine or impact our search results.

So while Google does not ultimately feel responsible for the search results it provides, that doesn’t necessarily mean Google doesn’t want to offer users the refined search results they desire. Currently Google Safe Search for Web images censors search results by examining the content of the page hosting an image. It also analyzes images for being potentially explicit, although Chris Crum fromWeb Pro News found that many webmasters are finding their innocuous content blocked from search results because of such efforts. So it seems that an internet search engine that can reliably vet Web content is still an elusive goal.

Deep learning in artificial intelligence forms the foundation for automated machine learning. This can be applied to accomplish relatively simple things such as creating smart home appliances that can program themselves based on the unique activity in a home, teaching a robot how to climb stairs or, more importantly, understanding the purpose of stairs. Deep learning’s goal is to have the machine learn how to climb stairs and why they are used, instead of being programmed step-by-step on how to climb them. In this respect, the idea of machine being intelligent enough to be on par even with a seven-year-old human is still a good way into the future, although some experts say creating such a machine will be possible within the next 100 years.

 

What Makes DeepMind Unique

DeepMind’s moniker comes from an area of machine learning called deep learning. Deep learning tries to mimic the natural neural network in the brain by processing data by means of context, memory and positive reinforcement. Some of DeepMind’s coolest work has been training software to play video games where no information or rules about the video game were loaded onto the program before it started playing. The software learned how to play the video solely upon the positive/negative reinforcement of the game performance or score.

At one point, Facebook was also interested in acquiring DeepMind, according to Re/Code. Facebook’s interest may have lied in deep learning’s potential to make targeted online advertising truly dynamic. It turns out, however, that the world of deep learning experts is pretty small, with a good number of them still in, or fresh out of graduate school. So to say that the professionals at DeepMind and their work are in demand would be being quite modest.

In the end it seems that Google and other companies are looking towards the latest trends in artificial intelligence and determining how to use them in practical applications. While artificial intelligence will always be the mainstay of science fiction fantasies where it is a key feature of the autonomous computers and robots of the future, it’s fascinating to see how artificial intelligence is being used today to enhance our own personal daily technology uses and experiences.

 

This just in.

Google Acquires Artificial Intelligence Startup DeepMind For More Than $500M

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Great clip of them both! http://ow.ly/tB

13 Thursday Feb 2014

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Uncategorized

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Great clip of them both! http://ow.ly/tBkID

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how cool is that. http://ow.ly/tBhtk

13 Thursday Feb 2014

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

how cool is that. http://ow.ly/tBhtk

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Pretty good insights- http://ow.ly/thGcr

04 Tuesday Feb 2014

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Uncategorized

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Pretty good insights- http://ow.ly/thGcr

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