by Daria Steigman on August 18, 2010
In keeping with the time constraints of busy, always on-the-go workers, MarketingProfs has created a new “Take 10” series: short, 10-minute presentations with actionable takeaways. I was smart enough to take 10 minutes out the other day to get a LinkedIn 101 refresher course from Jason Alba.
Alba offered four “do it once” tips for setting up your profile and six “do regularly” tips for keeping your brand front and center on LinkedIn. The highlights of his “do regularly” advice:
- Pose a Question to your network at least once a month.
- Answer Questions whenever you have a few minutes of downtime.
- Join LinkedIn Groups Discussions, which let you reach an audience beyond your first degree network (or start a Groups discussion of your own).
- Use Advanced Search to find prospects.
- Use Company Search to gain competitive intelligence on your prospects and your competition.
- Update Your Status at least weekly. (I’d actually recommend doing this more often as long you have something relevant to share—be it a useful link, a blog post, information about that killer conference you’re headed to, and so forth.)
I’d add one final “do regularly” tip: Read status updates from your network. You can do that easily by pulling in the RSS feed of all your contacts’ status updates. This is a great tool for keeping up with who has changed jobs, is sharing good news, or otherwise has something worth commenting on. I tend to skim the updates (there will be a lot), looking less at who’s connecting with whom and more at who’s sharing news. See something interesting? Click through, leave a quick comment, and become instantly top of mind.
Photo by Mario Sundar (Flickr).
Tagged as:
Brand,
Jason Alba,
LinkedIn,
MarketingProfs,
Social Media
by Daria Steigman on June 1, 2010
There’s a LinkedIn discussion going on right now in one of my groups about the books that have made you the person you are today. While I knew many people would cite inspiration texts, philosophers, and business gurus, I had to stop and think whether there were any media that resonated that much. I scanned all the books on my shelves. Nothing popped out.
Then I realized there is one documentary and one poem that did make a difference:
- I saw Harvest of Shame when I was 13 (props to an amazing teacher), and it made me want to do something to help migrant workers. Ten years later, when I knew I needed a graduate degree to break out of my dead-end job, I chose labor relations.
- Wordsworth’s The World Is Too Much With Us is 14 lines long, and it turned my 17-year-old self upside down. I came to college planning to study economics and business so that I could live and work overseas. But then I found poetry and my passion. And that took me into that dead-end job, which took me to labor relations–and eventually to that blowtorch that helped shape who I am today.
The rest of my library? Some really great stuff that’s made me an educated woman and/or given me great ideas and insights. But made me who I am? That’s a much smaller list.
What about you? What media have helped forge your path?
Tagged as:
blowtorch,
Cesar Chavez,
Harvest of Shame,
Independent Thinking,
LinkedIn,
Wordsworth
by Daria Steigman on April 20, 2010
Each week I’m highlighting 3 or 4 posts, surveys, and other news that I have read and/or tweeted about that you may not have seen. As the name implies, I think they deserve a second look.
- 6 Reasons to be a Good Company: The always thought-provoking Umair Haque poses the question: Why is doing good in our self interest? The answer involves a laddered approach that starts with information and moves up to rulemaking and self-correction. Good post with examples of companies that are walking the walk.
- 10 Ways to Use LinkedIn: Solid advice for small business owners, including keeping in touch and tracking your competition.
- Everything has its Place: My friend John Taylor has a terrific post about social media channels and what goes where.
Photo by waywuwei (Flickr).
Tagged as:
Business,
LinkedIn,
Social Media