Six Tips For The Care and Feeding Of Your LinkedIn Account

Today’s  ”Social Media for Old Folks” webinar topic was LinkedIn. Here are six recommendations we made that may be useful for you too:

1. Make invitations personal. The form-letter invitation generated by LinkedIn is not all that friendly. “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn” just doesn’t strike the same tone as “Hey, Joe. Great to see you today. Want to link?” In the same vein, when you accept an invitation to connect, take two seconds to send a message back that acknowledges you’re both human beings. It takes two seconds to type “Thanks for the invitation. Hope you’re doing great.”

2. Don’t make your personal update too personal. LinkedIn is not Facebook. Let your LinkedIn update be some fairly major business milestone or at the very least, business related. Also, you don’t need to update this one as often as you might on other networks. It’s perfectly acceptable to leave the same update up there for a month or so. (As long as it doesn’t say something like “Two days before the Christmas rush is over!”

3. Skip asking for recommendations. If you’re a high-level professional, we don’t recommend having recommendations on your profile. If you’re still in the early years of your career, or job hunting, they’re fine. But everyone knows how those recommendations get there (a message from you asking your contacts for a recommendation) and that they’re sort of a command performance of glowing praise.

4. Participate in the Answers discussions. If you see a question that you can answer, take a minute to do so. It’s good to invest in helping others, so you’re not using LinkedIn exclusively for getting what you need. Besides, it’s nice exposure to be the guy who knows what’s what. Also, when you need to know something, use this Answers feature. You can access some legitimately useful expertise on just about anything you need to  know, and it gives other people a chance to be an expert on something.

5. Join groups. Your group memberships offer a quick snapshot of your interests and affiliations. If a friend or contact invites you to join their group, it’s showing support for them to join, as long as it really is a topic appropriate for you. Then, participate in the discussions. Making comments there is a good way to be involved in the LinkedIn community.

6. Start your own group. This is an excellent way to claim your area of expertise, particularly if you can narrow the scope of the group to a small niche or audience. You can begin to own that niche (or at least to be recognized as one of the players) by starting and maintaining an active group.

“Have you made any money from your blog?”

Yesterday, we gave a Webinar on how to start your own blog. We talked through the business reasons for having a blog, worked with participants to help them define the topics of their blogs and then walked them through establishing the beginnings of their blogsites on WordPress.

Afterwards, one of the participants called my office and asked me, “Have you made any money from your blog?” The short answer is no. A blog is not a direct sales channel.

But the answer would be yes, if she’d asked a slightly different question. Has blogging been good for our business? Definitely. Has blogging helped us connect with people who are key prospects for our company? It has.

One of the most important benefits of blogging is that it changes the dynamics of the sales process. Instead of making cold calls, trying to set meetings with people who’ve never heard of you, blogging allows you to reach out as more of a peer. Instead of trying to force your foot in the door, you start out as part of their community already. As a blogger with a special expertise in your narrow niche, you’re beginning the relationship as someone who has something to offer, as opposed to someone trying to get them to buy something.

A blog also can give you a great excuse to introduce yourself to a key prospect. Call them up and ask to interview them for a post. If someone is a highly desirable prospect for your company, that person probably has plenty to say that would be interesting and helpful for the readers of your blog. Rather than having your first conversation with a prospect be all about you and how wonderful your company is, you begin the relationship by listening to what they have to say. Just like your mother always said, one of the best ways to make new friends is to ask questions that get them talking about themselves.

Chris Brogan and the Spirit of Helping in Social Media

Who could not love Chris Brogan? He looks like some tough guy, and he turns out to be sweet as pie. He’s been doing some video blogs the past few days on his “Overnight Success,” mostly it seems, to prove the point that it’s not all that glamorous, and that his fame in the social media arena certainly didn’t happen overnight. In his Part 2 video, he opens shooting down from his hotel balcony to the pool below, surrounded by palm trees and lounge chairs. Then he shows us around his room, explaining how it’s not a big vacation, but is actually where he gets a lot of work done. “It ain’t all pretty,” he says, “This is where it all gets done. It’s just doing what needs doing.” (One of my favorite parts is when he’s swooping the camera around to show his laptop on the hotel room desk and pans by a row of miniature Maker’s Mark bottles lined up neatly in arm’s reach of the computer.)

What I really love about his Overnight Success, Part Deux, is Brogan’s ernest plea that we all reach out and help other people. This willingness to help seems to me the most powerful undercurrent in the social media world right now, and it’s a far cry from the business attitudes that were prevalent in the early part of my career, back in the 80s and 90s.

That makes me wonder if some of this might be the influence of Millennials in the workplace. The under-30 crowd offers a much less selfish approach to business, and they believe they can change the world, starting right now. When people my age were coming along, nobody was talking about win-win. We believed if one person one, someone else necessarily lost. Us Boomers also assumed we had to pay our dues before we could have much of an impact. These Gen Y kids seem to believe they’re ready to be the CEO from day one. I like that about them.

In fact, that attitude of doing it right now is another part of Brogan’s hotel room rant. He urges his viewers to take action, to quit talking and get in the game, to get some projects out there in the world. He says, “Let’s help people. Let’s lift each other up.”

What’s not to love about that?

The Cliff Notes of Social Media for Old Folks: Webinar One

This afternoon, we sat on the couch in my office and took about six or seven small business owners through an overview of what social media can do for them. My business partner Jennifer and I were presenting to a creative director, a literary agent, a strategic marketing person, a sales rep, an account planner, an expert on world poverty and an accupuncturist — all of whom were sitting in their own offices in front of their own computers.

Social Media for Old Folks is our five-part Webinar, covering everything from blogging to linking to friending to tweeting. We’re not social media experts, by any means, but we have learned a great deal about using social media in the last year or so. We’ve also discovered that we’re quite passionate about sharing that knowledge with others.

If you’re in a business that involves sharing what we call Odd Knowledge, social media is the most powerful way out there to build your business. Whether you’re a financial advisor or a large animal vet or an event planner or a Pilates trainer — or a world poverty expert or accupuncturist — you offer an expertise in a specific niche.

If your business depends on clients trusting you to be the one with the right answers, then social media is a powerful way to establish that trust. It’s also a place for you to share your unique perspective on your particular field of expertise.

Here are a few highlights from our Webinar today:

1. Social media can connect you with the whole world — but make it feel like you’re doing business in a small town. Despite the fact that it depends on technology, it can be an extremely human and personal form of contact.

2. The two most important things social media can do for your business are to A) promote your expertise and B) build your connections (which can become a following). This creates a beautiful dynamic: Instead of you always reaching out for new customers, you’ll find them seeking you out instead.

3. The model we recommend is this: a blog to showcase your expertise and social networks to drive traffic to that blog. Your blog is your content; the social networks are ways to start conversations about that content.

4. Your website and your blog are two different things. The website is your company talking, and is a destination for background information and evergreen materials. Your blog is you talking, is more fluid because it’s updated more often, and gives you a venue to share your expertise in a narrow niche, usually more narrow than your actual business. We recommend keeping your website and your blog separate, although each would include links to the other.

Next week we cover Facebook in more depth, and in the following weeks we’ll talk about LinkedIn, Twitter, and how to develop your own blog. If you’re interested in  more details, you could go to the Seminars page on the Starter Cards site.

Social Media for Old Folks, in Five Easy Pieces

Plenty of reasonably (or even exceptionally) intelligent people still resist social media. Some don’t see the value in it; others just can’t quite figure out how to jump on that escalator. Social media keeps moving and changing every day, so it’s not easy to figure out where to start.

One problem is that there’s so much information out there on how to use social media. Try Googling “Using LinkedIn,”  ”How to Facebook,” or “Learning Twitter,” and you’ll find yourself millions of links to explore. Not hundreds of links, not thousands, but really — millions. Most reasonably busy people will decide they don’t have time for that.

What you need is someone to break it down into simple, actionable steps. You don’t have all day, but maybe you could spend an hour a week. If you didn’t have to go anywhere. Like while you’re sitting at your desk.

That’s where the Social Media for Old Folks Webinars come in. If you’re young enough that you grew up with a mouse in your hand, then a lot of this material will be too basic for you. But if you’re one of those who remember when a fax was the new cool thing, then this might be right up your alley.

We break it down into five one-hour webinars, each Wednesday for five weeks. We’ll walk you through how to build your brand with social media, from a basic overview of the landscape and etiquette to specific, actionable steps to get yourself set up on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and finally, to start your own blog. (You’ll also learn why you really do need your own blog.)

You’ll be sitting at your computer and be able to see and hear us in real time. As we’re talking about various steps, you can complete many of them right then and there. When you have questions along the way, we’ll stop and answer them.

We’ll show you how to use social media for two important goals: to build your connections and to showcase your expertise. Think it would be presumptuous to consider yourself an expert? We’re not talking about having a Ph.D. in something; Your expertise is the narrow niche about which you’re passionate, the area of your deep experience, the problems friends come to you to help solve. It’s not about bragging, it’s about what you have to give.

If  you run your own business, or are in a corporate job and want to increase your visibility in your industry, then social media can be a powerful tool for you. It doesn’t have to be that hard. But it does take some effort. The Social Media for Old Folks Webinar is the easiest way we know to get you up and running. By Thanksgiving, you could be blogging and linking and friending and tweeting like someone half your age.

For more details, just click here. Or feel free to email (elizabeth@tribeinc.com) or call me (404-256-5858) with questions. (If you register today -Wednesday, Oct 7 – you can use the promo code EARLYBIRD for a $50 discount.)

The long road to overnight success with an iPhone app

Watching our new iPhone app climb the charts in Apple’s ratings feels like watching election returns when your side is winning. On September 10, we launched the Start Your Own Company application from Starter Cards (the division of our ad agency that develops content and tools for entrepreneurs) and have spent the last ten days tracking its move through Apple’s rankings. After four days, it broke into the Top 100, debuting at 92 in paid business apps. The next day, it moved up to 66. Over the weekend, we broke into the Top 50, squeaking in at 47 and crawling up to 45 by Sunday afternoon. Today, we were ecstatic to see the app nicely positioned in the Top 25, holding steady at number 20, and by the time we all left the office at 5 o’clock it was sitting pretty at number 17. It’s starting to feel like we might be onto something here.

Anyone who runs a small business knows that there are plenty of days and months and even sometimes years when you wonder if your big idea is going to work. You have to train yourself to keep the faith, despite setbacks and quagmires and plenty of heavy slogging uphill. Some days that can be damn hard.

Then one day, everything in the universe lines up just so, and you have a major win. Suddenly, it all looks easy. It feels easy. You experience what I call the moving sidewalk effect, where you’re just strolling along yet propelled ahead at a satisfying clip.

But what makes one effort a win and another a dud? Why does one particular idea pop, while others fizzle out? I wish there were an app for that. I don’t know the answer, but this is what I think helps:

1. Sending out a lot of ships, as my old friend Chellie Campbell would say. To switch metaphors, the more irons you have in the fire, the more of a chance you have of one becoming really, really hot. Also, it helps cushion disappointment to have your hopes pinned on more than one good idea.

2. Surrounding yourself with talent. One thing you learn early on in the ad industry is that a great concept is only as good as its execution. If you have a brilliant idea for a commercial and turn it over to a lackluster director, your spot is not going to become the talk of the town. (At least not in a good way.) You want the best people you can get to bring your ideas to life.

3. Any flame begins as a tiny ember. This one comes from my old business partner B.A. Albert, now president of Grey Atlanta. Great ideas and big opportunities rarely present themselves as roaring fires. You have to recognize them when they’re  nothing more than a little glow. You blow on that ember, feed it tiny pieces of kindling, then larger sticks, finally logs. Steady as she goes, you follow one step with another with another.

4. Hope for a lucky break. In this case, our big break was Alissa Walker deciding the story of our iPhone app would be a great fit for Fast Company, successfully pitching it to her editor, and then writing a fantastic piece. That one article on Fast Company’s website is the most likely cause of the Start Your Own Company app’s amazing momentum in the Apple rankings.

5. Set the stage for lucky breaks. We had heard that the first week after launching an app was critical, and so we mobilized to maximize the moment. Before launch day, we had prepped to submit the application to reviewers, post a YouTube demo video, launch a Facebook fan page, mention it on LinkedIn and tweet about it on Twitter. We prepared a press release and jpegs to send to a core group of reporters, most of whom we’ve built relationships with over months or years. (In fact, I’ve known Alissa since she was an intern in my ad agency in the late 90′s, and have watched her blossoming career from afar.) Sometimes luck just happens, but it happens more often if you prepare the ground for it to take root.

That’s all I know. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

4 important reasons to start a company when you can’t find a job

In this recession, many companies are being launched by people who never meant to be entrepreneurs. These people haven’t long harbored the dream of being their own boss; They just haven’t been able to find a job and are thus taking matters into their own hands. The New York Times published an excellent piece yesterday  titled “On to Plan B: Starting a Business,” by Mickey Meece that touched on several of what I consider to be important themes in today’s entrepreneurial landscape.

1. It’s not crazy to launch a business during a recession. Contrary to the general assumption that  starting a company during an economic downturn is particularly risky, it appears to be no more risky than at any other time, according to a 2009 report from Ernst & Young. In fact, the survival rate is about the same for companies started in good times or bad. The Kauffman Foundation offers some reassuring statistics supporting the idea that companies fare no better or worse when launched in a recession or bear market.

2. Technology and social media make it easier than it’s ever been to start your own company. Just imagine how much harder it would be to start a company a decade or two ago — without the Internet, without email, without cell phones. You can research competitive companies and potential customers online. You can find legal services online, so you can incorporate without even leaving your desk. Creating a website no longer requires the services of a programmer, since there are numerous website templates and tools out there, from inexpensive to free. You can even use social media to market your products and services. A tremendous amount of business resources are available now that just didn’t exist before.

3. Starting your own business can give you some measure of control over your future. The current job market can be tough on egos. While the jobless rate is almost in the double digits, many companies are sidestepping much of the etiquette that once was common practice. You send out resumes, email decision makers and place phone calls, and it might seem as if you’ve just launched them all into a black hole somewhere, judging from the response you get. You may score an interview, but then never hear back from that company again, even to tell you that you didn’t make the cut. Launching a business at least gives you some concrete actions you can take that will result in visible progress. Week after week, you can see that your efforts are beginning to materialize into a company you created out of thin air.

4. Even if you get another corporate gig, it’s still good to have that Plan B. Let’s say you launch your company and then you get that big job offer you’ve been waiting for all this time. If your business is something you can continue to do on the side, it might be helpful to  have that additional income. That side business is also just as useful for your mental health. When you have a bad day at work, or your job future seems  uncertain, it can be enormously reassuring to know you’ve got something else to fall back on.

Everyone’s got something to blog about

You don’t have a blog yet? What’s that? You don’t even really get what a blog is? You don’t know what you’re missing.

As Seth Godin says, “The word blog is irrelevant. What’s important is that it is now common, and will soon be expected, that every intelligent person(and quite a few unintelligent ones) will have a media platform where they share what they care about with the world.”

What do you care about in the world? No matter how narrow the niche, there is an audience who will be interested in what you have to say. There are blogs out there about a guy who crochets (The Crochet Dude), reading programs for the incarcerated (Prison Book Program Blog) and on everything related to perfume (Now Smell This).

Think about what you know best and then think about your particular point of view on that topic. For instance, Kim Gay of Match Healthcare Consulting knows nursing homes like nobody’s business. Her specific point of view on nursing homes is that everything from profitability to patient advocacy depends on building relationships. Her company provides leadership development and change management for healthcare, and I bet she’d find plenty of interested readers for a blog on the importance of relationships in her industry.

No matter who I’m with lately, I start thinking about what their blog would be. For instance, I had lunch the other day with Chris Wauton of Narrative Planning. Chris is an Oxford-educated account planner known as a leader in his discipline. He’s worked with some of the ad industry’s best agencies and has provided the strategic thinking that led to many well-known campaigns. Over our Persian kabobs and a glass of Sauvignon Blanc, he started telling me about his approach to understanding consumers — based on methods he’s gleaned from crime investigators. Chris has always been able to spin a good yarn, so he entertained me with a handful of stories and insights related to his unusual approach, any one of which would make a fascinating post.

Starting a blog would be a good business move for both Kim and Chris. It would provide an opportunity to showcase their expertise in their industries, as well as a starting point for conversations and connections with interested (and interesting) people all over the world.

But another benefit of writing a blog is that it keeps your mind nimble and active. The exercise of writing a short  piece every day or week (or however frequently you post) provides a nice warm-up for your brain, sort of like doing a crossword puzzle over your morning coffee.

Once you begin posting with some frequency, you’ll find that you have an endless stream of ideas for more posts. Everything you read, everyone you meet, every trend you notice in your industry –or in the world around you — is fodder for your blog. Writing your posts encourages you to voice an opinion, and to put it in writing. It offers the opportunity to hear how your thinking was helpful to others, or to debate your position and possibly have your mind opened to the way someone else out there thinks.

The most important benefit of writing a blog is that offers a way to be more engaged in the world. A reason to think. A chance to connect. And, as Godin mentions, to express your unique perspective on what you “care about with the world.”

Lauren Luke’s success illustrates five powerful trends in social media

Lauren Luke, an ordinary person who has become a celebrity expert, is an excellent example of some important trends that many marketing people still resist. You may not have heard of her, but she’s been covered by both the BBC  and  The New York Times, and has 253, 941 subscribers to her YouTube channel, at this writing. 

Lauren is a single mom in England who started posting videos demonstrating various makeup products and techniques — that she tries out on herself. On camera. In close-ups. Lauren is charming and attractive, but she’s no supermodel. In addition to a huge following on YouTube, she has recently scored a book deal and her own makeup line at Sephora. 

Here are the important trends that Lauren exemplifies: 

1. On social media, everyone’s an expert. An expert doesn’t mean a PhD, in this case. It means paying attention to a particular topic and learning enough that you can teach others all about it. That topic may be a very narrow niche that most people couldn’t care less about, but the Internet allows the people who are interested to find you.

2. Vlogging is the new blogging. Plenty of people say, who has time to watch videos? Apparently, a lot of people. Lauren’s videos have had something upwards of 50 million views. Business owners and corporate big shots who haven’t yet mastered a blog should just skip right ahead to shooting their own vlog, because that’s what’s happening now. Pew Internet found that 62% of all web users watch videos online, and some experts report video blogs are already being more widely viewed than written blogs.

3. People trust authentic more than flawless. The cosmetics industry  is known for its million-dollar faces and expensive production. (Think high-end directors, film crews, lighting, retouching and everything that comes with a professional shoot). Although there will always be a place for that aspirational branding, consumers place more trust in homemade videos of regular people sharing their opinions. Lauren shoots her videos herself at home, and airs them unedited (she says she doesn’t know how), so viewers see when she messes up or her dog walks through the scene. She’ll do decidedly unpolished things like hold up a product and tell watchers what brand it is, but follow that with “I think that’s how you pronounce it.” To say Lauren comes off as real is an understatement. 

4. People get their information from other consumers. There was a time when consumers learned about brands and products from the brands themselves. Now, thanks to the Internet, people get more information from other consumers than they do the brand. It has created a power shift that many major brands still don’t quite accept. Lauren will review five different mascaras and point out things like “this one is such a weird shape I nearly put my eye out with it.” You would not find that on a Maybeline or Chanel commercial — and women appreciate hearing it.

5. Women use YouTube. The common misconception is that YouTube is all about a bunch of knee-slapping guys laughing at each other’s stupid humor. But women are on YouTube too, especially in the how-to segment. YouTube describes its current users as 48 percent female. 

The other trend that Laura illustrates is not related to social media but to women entrepreneurs. Many women start their own businesses because it allows them to flex their work days around their kids’ schedules. Laura was 16 when she had her son, and as a single mother, I’ll bet she finds her current gig much better for her life than a corporate job might be.

Is Twitter about reaching the most followers? Or the right followers?

My 9-year-old thinks my tweets are boring. At dinner one night, Sam says to me, “Mama, your tweets are boring.”

Oh? (He did set himself up with a Twitter account a few weeks ago, but we have it locked down with so many settings to protect his tweets and vet his followers that he only has about four people total in his Twitter world.) Have you been reading my tweets, Sam?

“Yeah, you need to be funnier.”

Well, Sam, my tweets are mostly about business stuff, or directing people to my blogs or articles.”

“Yeah, I read a couple of your articles. Not good.”

Ouch. But Sam brings up a good point. Are any of the things we’re all so busy tweeting about useful to our followers? Or are most of our followers people who don’t really have any connection to or interest in our areas of expertise? 

The accepted wisdom on Twitter has been to gain as many followers as possible, so you’re connecting with as many people as you can. But does it matter if they’re not the right people? 

I understand the logic of having thousands of followers. Sure, when you’re sending your message out to that many people, the sheer numbers are on your side. But when we go for tonnage, we’re tweeting to a lot of people who aren’t our target. 

I’m beginning to balk at that approach. If the beauty of online connections is that we are able to find the people in our Long Tail, as Chris Anderson would say, then where is the victory in reaching huge numbers of people who couldn’t care less? This whole social media thing is not about reaching the masses, but connecting with the people who share our particular and very narrow niche of interest. Or a common experience that is not common to the general population. Or our quirky sense of humor. 

Sam’s tweets are usually either oddball observations or links to one of his homemade videos, most of which I do think are funny. So maybe I am his target. He’s just not mine.