by Daria Steigman on March 4, 2010
Should you be on LinkedIn? Plaxo? BizSugar or Open Forum? While it’s easy to be online, the vast array of options can leave even the social-media-savviest business person overwhelmed. At last check, my AddThis button linked to over 230 separate platforms/sites.
Because time is a finite resource and we can’t be everywhere, I recommend applying a simple three-pronged business test for social presence:
- Will it help me be found?
- Will it help me connect with my audience?
- Will it help me identify new business?
I explore these questions in some detail in a new IABC CW Bulletin article, Bringing Social Media to Your Business. Check it out and let me know what you think.
Photo by jenny downing (Flickr).
Tagged as:
AddThis,
BizSugar,
Business,
IABC,
Independent Thinking,
LinkedIn,
Social Media
by Daria Steigman on February 16, 2010
What should we do with all the data? It’s a question I have been asking a lot; good solutions—not so many. So imagine my excitement when someone finally answered the question of how we can use the huge (and growing) volume of competitive business intelligence.
In a recent Marketing Profs webinar, Sean Campbell of Cascade Insights offered some terrific tools and great advice for putting the data to work for you in the business-to-business world. Here are six places to get started:
- LinkedIn isn’t just about people profiles, it’s also about company data. Campbell noted that company profiles are a great way to glean insights on the movement of people in and out of companies, including job openings, new hires, and recent promotions.
- Read job listings to see what qualifications a company’s seeking and/or hints into new initiatives. Online CVs also provide a glimpse into what people’s job responsibilities entail—and what their company is focused on.
- Silobreaker is a search engine that includes a clickable map of a company’s network–a great tool for visual searchers. It also pulls up added value data. (Search for Pepsi for example, and you’ll also get links to CEO Indra Nooyi and a quote from her.)
- People post all kinds of data on SlideShare, including presentations from invitation-only meetings that often contain corporate roadmaps. Campbell noted that SlideShare is also a good place to identify subject matter experts.
- Use Worldle for reverse mining. Plug in an RSS feed or a Web site and the word cloud will give you a quick look at what a company or a community is talking about.
- Seeking Alpha posts transcripts from earnings calls, including the Q&A with analysts and reporters that follows the on-message presentation.
Clearly, no one source will be your holy grail. But hopefully a strategy that merges data from multiple sources will help you to connect the pieces.
What are your favorite tools and sites for data collection?
Photo by Richard Summers (Flickr).
Tagged as:
Cascade Insights,
data mining,
LinkedIn,
Sean Campbell,
Seeking Alpha,
Silobreaker,
SlideShare,
Wordle
by Daria Steigman on December 9, 2009
I’ve been on a rulemaking binge lately, and I’m loving it. And you just might be surprised how a few little rules can simplify your business life.
I’m talking about Outlook Rules. While lots of people have Inbox Zero goals, that doesn’t work for me. But having 150 random items piling up isn’t helpful either. So recently I got serious and created a Subscriptions sub-folder in my inbox. I then built rules to move every SmartBrief, Financial Times, MarketingProfs, LinkedIn, Groupon, Sporting News, and other subscription automatically out of my inbox and into that new folder. Now the mail I need stays at the top, and the rest is there to dig in or delete when I’m ready.
Sometimes you just have to have a few rules. What rules have you create to improve your productivity?
Photo by Entressen kirjasto (Flickr).
Tagged as:
Business,
Groupon,
LinkedIn,
Marketing Profs,
Outlook Rules,
SmartBrief,
Sporting News
Should you be on LinkedIn? Plaxo? BizSugar or Open Forum? While it’s easy to be online, the vast array of options can leave even the social-media-savviest business person overwhelmed. At last check, my AddThis button linked to over 230 separate platforms/sites.
In this age of instant everything, planning seems to be getting a bad rap. But make no mistake: planning matters. Here are my five tips for jumpstarting your business in 2010:
