Category Archives: LinkedIn

LinkedIn now has the @mention function

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LinkedInDid you know you can tag people or @mention people on LinkedIn now?  At the beginning of April, LinkedIn introduced the @mention function onto LinkedIn.

This function works in the similar way that it does on Facebook and Twitter.  It notifies people that they are being talked about.

How it works

From your home page or when you are commenting on someone one’s update:

Linkedin tagging

  • Add @ and start typing a person’s name.
  • It can be either their first name or surname
  • Choose the person from the drop down menu
  • This creates a hyperlink to their profile
  • You can only tag someone if you are already connected to them or they have commented on the same update.
  • You can mention companies too.

 Pros

  • You let people know when you are talking about them so that they can respond
  • The person mentioned will be get a notification and an email
  • You find out when people are mentioning you and you can respond to their update
  • Companies will know when you mention them
  • Your name, photo and headline might pop up in the drop down menu when someone is mentioning a person with a similar name.  This keeps you top of mind.
  • Companies will be more visible

Cons

  • Potential for people who tend to spam to tag random people to updates.
  • More email notifications from LinkedIn (although you can change the email settings)

How to change your email notifications for mentions

  • Go into Settings
  • Choose the Communication tab and the “set the frequency of emails” option
  • Edit the messages by LinkedIn by clicking on the pencil
  • Change the frequency of mentions

I personally would not recommend you stop email notification unless you get mentioned a lot. It is good to be able to respond quickly when someone talks about you.

I think this is a great feature that LinkedIn has added, what do you think?

Nicky Kriel

Nicky Kriel is a Social Media Coach & Trainer inspiring, educating and empowering Business Owners to use Social Media more strategically. She is also the author of How to Twitter for Business Success. For more information visit http://www.nickykriel.com or to find out about her courses that she runs in Guildford visit http://www.nickykriel.com/courses

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LinkedIn: How to Tag Connections on LinkedIn

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LinkedIn: How to tag Connection on LinkedIn - by Nicky Kriel Did you know you could add tags to your connections on LinkedIn?  They can help you:

  • Filter your connections so you can review only the people with a particular tab
  • Add notes about how you know the person to aid your memory
  • Message targeted groups of people with a certain tags

This post is to help you get tagging on LinkedIn.

Tagging on LinkedIn

LinkedIn automatically tags some people.  When someone invites you to connect and they don’t have your email address, they indicate that you’re a classmate, a colleague, a friend, a fellow group member, or a person they’ve done business with. They’ll be tagged with that label once you accept their invitation.

You can create your own tags which:

  • Allow you to add text to identify the connection.
  • Tags can be up to 100 characters including letters, numbers and spaces
  • You can add several tags to a person
  • Up to 200 tags can be created
  • The only person who can see your tags is YOU.

How to Tag a connection

  1. Go to Contacts in the top bar
  2. Choose Connections
  3. Click on a connectionLinkedin adding tags to connections
  4. Select Edit Tags in the third column.
  5. Create the tag or select the tag that you want from the list.

LinkedIn adding a tag

Tagging multiple connections at once

  1. Go to Contacts
  2. Select Connections
  3. Filter your selection by selecting the relevant connections by ticking the boxes in the second column.
  4. Note if you use Select All, it will only select the 10 connection on display, to select more, scroll down and click on Next and click on Select All and repeat the process.
  5. Once you have selected all the connections that you want to tag, click on Edit tags in the third column.
  6. Create the tag or select the tag that you want from the list.

Suggestions for adding tags

  • Where you met the person – Event, networking group, online
  • What type of relationship – Customer, Prospect, fellow group member, friend, attended a course
  • How well you know the person – acquaintance, good friend, not met yet
  • How you met them – referral, Twitter, inmail

Tagging your connections helps you build relationships. It enables you to focus on a particular group of people that are important to you.  It also helps you to remember details about people.  If you are connecting with a large number of people through networking there is a strong chance that you won’t remember everyone.

Have you added tags to your connections yet?

Nicky Kriel

Nicky Kriel is a Social Media Coach & Trainer inspiring, educating and empowering Business Owners to use Social Media more strategically. She is also the author of How to Twitter for Business Success. For more information visit http://www.nickykriel.com or to find out about her courses that she runs in Guildford visit http://www.nickykriel.com/courses

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LinkedIn Profile: How to improve your Headline

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LinkedIn Profile: How to improve your HeadlineHave you ever had the experience of listening to someone’s one-minute pitch at a networking meeting and when they sit down, you have no idea what they do?  Forget the elevator pitch. Or having a minute to sell your business.  On LinkedIn you have 120 characters to get your message across! 

Your headline on your LinkedIn profile is the most prominent feature of your profile.  So when last did you look at what your headline says about you?  Or is it still set to the default setting and showing your current position and company name?

Why your Headline is important

  • Very prominent on search results when people are searching for your services on LinkedIn LinkedIn Profile Headline in search
  • Keywords in your Headline are picked up in LinkedIn Search
  • Your Headline acts like your sales pitch enticing someone to read more about you
  • Your LinkedIn Headline appears in Google search results if someone searches for your nameLinkedIn Profile Headline on Google
  • Your Headline may be the only thing on your Profile that your potential customer sees about you.

How to change your Headline

Go to “Edit Profile”

How to edit your LinkedIn Headline

Click on the pencil symbol next to your Headline (If you do not see pencils, you are not in the “Edit Profile” mode of your Profile)

How to edit your LinkedIn Profile headline

You have 120 characters for your Headline.  There is no counter, when you can’t type any more characters you have reached the limit.

How to make your 120 characters count

Make sure you tell people, in a clear, succinct way:

  • who you are or what you do,
  • who you help and
  • how you help them

Be specific about the type of business or person you work with.  The person reading your Headline needs to know at a glance that you are the right person for them.

Think of your Keywords:  What would other people be looking for if they were searching for your business?  Do you really think anyone would be looking for hackneyed phrases like “problem solver” or  “blue sky thinker”?

LinkedIn produces a list of the most over used buzzword each year and 2012 words were:

  • Creative
  • Motivated
  • Multinational
  • Responsible
  • Experimental
  • Effective
  • Specialized
  • Analytical

Be memorable with your Headline.  Think of it as your personal brand statement where you can showcase your specialist area, your value propositions and what makes you special.

Note: Don’t waste precious space in your Headline with your business name unless it is exceptionally well known.  If someone is searching for your business name, your name would appear in the search results anyway because it is in your current position.

If you haven’t reviewed your LinkedIn Profile in the last few months, have a look at it now.

Does it show you in the best possible light?

Are you making those 120 characters count?

Nicky Kriel

Nicky Kriel is a Social Media Coach & Trainer inspiring, educating and empowering Business Owners to use Social Media more strategically. She is also the author of How to Twitter for Business Success. For more information visit http://www.nickykriel.com or to find out about her courses that she runs in Guildford visit http://www.nickykriel.com/courses

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Do you back up your Social Media accounts?

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SocialSafeHave you ever thought about what would happen if Facebook shut down to all your photographic memories?  Or what you would do if your LinkedIn account was suspended and you couldn’t access your contacts?  Or imagine if someone hacked into your Twitter account and they changed the password and username overnight?  Could you prove that it was your account?  So, have you ever thought of backing up your Social Media accounts?

If you are using Social Media for marketing your business, you need to consider backing up your Social Media data.  The benefits are:

  • You can keep a record of all your updates and Tweets
  • You have a record of your connections, friends, likes and followers
  • Makes conversations easier to find
  • You can review your past activities
  • Your memories are yours to keep especially your photographs

Now, when I first looked into backing up my Social Media accounts, it sounded incredibly complicated.  You had to do a separate thing for each account and it relied on me remembering to manually back up each account from time to time.  I tend to be a bit useless at manually backing up anything. [Note to self: Must remember to back up my mobile telephone numbers!]  It’s always something that I feel that I should do, but avoid doing because ….

….it’s not that exciting and I can think of thousands of things to do instead.

I have since found a far easier solution.  I have been using SocialSafe for a while now and it automatically backs up

  • my Facebook profile,
  • my Social Media for Newbies Facebook Page,
  • my Twitter account,
  • my LinkedIn account and
  • my Google+ account

Each day without me doing anything other than switch the computer on.

I love the ease of use, their help desk is very friendly and it is very affordable.  If you are considering backing up your Social Media accounts, you can do if for free by manually backing up each site or using a series of tools, but I thought it would be silly not to tell you about SocialSafe if you are like me and don’t want to think about it.

I don’t spend much time referring back to my past but I have found it reassuring knowing that it is all there.

Some things that I have use it for

  • Checking DMs, Twitter has an annoying habit of only showing the last 20 DMs and I often receive contact information from clients via DM
  • Checking conversations with a particular person.  It will show all the conversations across different Social Media platforms.
  • Finding testimonials

They have a 60 day free trial so you really have nothing to lose if you want to try it out for yourself.

I would love to hear your thoughts about backing up your Social Media.  Have you thought of doing it?  Or are you already backing up your accounts?

Nicky Kriel

Nicky Kriel is a Social Media Coach & Trainer inspiring, educating and empowering Business Owners to use Social Media more strategically. She is also the author of How to Twitter for Business Success. For more information visit http://www.nickykriel.com or to find out about her courses that she runs in Guildford visit http://www.nickykriel.com/courses

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LinkedIn Skills & Expertise: Sharpen your Skill Sets on LinkedIn

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When was the last time you updated your LinkedIn Profile?  If you haven’t updated your profile recently, I suggest you go look at it today.  In February, LinkedIn introduced a new section to your profile called Skills & Expertise.  In the last couple of weeks LinkedIn has added the ability to endorse skills which changes things dramatically.  It is really important that you make sure you add the right skills to your profile for the following reasons:

  1. It allows people to see your skills very quickly
  2. LinkedIn ranks people they consider influential for a particular skill.
  3. People can endorse your skills.  If you don’t have have the right skills listed, you may be missing out.
  4. The endorsement of skills will add to your Klout score and social influence.
  5. It is easier to add an endorsement than to give a written testimonial, so your customers and colleagues are more likely to do it.

What you can do to make sure you get endorsements.

  1. Make sure you list all your skills that your customers would use.  You can have up to 50 and I would recommend you add all the ones that are relevant.
  2. Use the Skills and Expertise in the “More” section to ensure that you are using terminology that your industry uses (I will explain why in a bit more detail later in this blog post)
  3. Move your Skills Section higher up in your profile (all you need to do is to click on the panel bar and drag it higher.)  This makes your skills more visible and easier to endorse.
  4. Endorse other people FIRST.  When you visit their profile you can either endorse the skills shown at the top of their profile or scroll down to their Skills section.I’m sure you have plenty of people that you would recommend for skills.  It alerts them that you can endorse skills.  They will feel positive towards you because you have done something nice without being asked.  Most people will endorse you back for your skills.
  5. Tell your customers that LinkedIn has this new feature and that it would be nice if they could add an endorsement for you

How to add Skills

There are two ways to add Skills

  1. Scroll down to your Skills & Expertise section, click on “Add a skill” and type the skill you want to add.
  2. Go to the “More” Tab at the top and select Skills & Expertise from the drop down menu.  Add one of your skills into the search box section.  This will open up the following Page:

The first option allows you to add skills not listed by other LinkedIn users.

  • Different countries use different terms, so you need to use the right term for your country.
  • You might have a specialist skill that nobody has added yet
  • You may be in a niche area and the skill will be recognised by your potential customers.

The second option allows you to find other words and phrases to describe what you do which you may not have thought of before.

  • You are allowed up to fifty skills, it is worth finding synonyms.
  • It will also give you suggestions of Skills based on your Profile. (Obvious, you need to make sure your Profile is completed thoroughly.)

Have you endorsed people on LinkedIn yet?  Help other LinkedIn users to find out about Skills by sharing this post with your friends, thank you.

Nicky Kriel

Nicky Kriel is a Social Media Coach & Trainer inspiring, educating and empowering Business Owners to use Social Media more strategically. She is also the author of How to Twitter for Business Success. For more information visit http://www.nickykriel.com or to find out about her courses that she runs in Guildford visit http://www.nickykriel.com/courses

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Twitter no longer feeds automatically into LinkedIn: Yay!

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LinkedIn announced last week that Tweets will no longer be displayed on LinkedIn.

  • No more automatic feeding of your Twitter activity into LinkedIn
  • No more broadcasting of Tweets with #in or #li on LinkedIn

Some people seem to think this is awful, but I think it is a good thing and here’s why:

  1. The LinkedIn News feed was getting very noisy with Tweets from people who never visited LinkedIn – People tended to set their Twitter to feed automatically into LinkedIn and then forgot about the platform.
  2. Not all the things you say on Twitter are appropriate for LinkedIn – Each Social Media platform has its own personality – On LinkedIn you are always a business person whereas on Twitter you are a business person but also show your human side.  Conversations about walking your dog or chatting to other people on Twitter were not suitable for LinkedIn.
  3. Frequency of Updates – Most tweets only have a short life span and so it is okay to tweet frequently.  Updates on LinkedIn last longer.  Many LinkedIn users were annoyed by the number of automated tweets drowning the updates by genuine LinkedIn users.
  4. Twitter has its own language and jargon – Not everyone understands hashtags or what RT and DM mean.
  5. Many updates were duplicated. People often set up Twitter to feed automatically into LinkedIn and then used a tool like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck to publish the same content into LinkedIn again.

If you want to broadcast the same content to both LinkedIn and Twitter, you still can by:

  • Posting on LinkedIn and make you sure you tick the Twitter box
  • Use a third party dashboard like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite to publish content

What do you think about LinkedIn’s announcement?  Did you use to have your Twitter feeding automatically into LinkedIn?  Love to hear your viewpoint in the comments below.

Nicky Kriel

Nicky Kriel is a Social Media Coach & Trainer inspiring, educating and empowering Business Owners to use Social Media more strategically. She is also the author of How to Twitter for Business Success. For more information visit http://www.nickykriel.com or to find out about her courses that she runs in Guildford visit http://www.nickykriel.com/courses

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LinkedIn: How to add Slideshare to your LinkedIn Profile

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Did you know that you can showcase your business within your Profile in LinkedIn?  You have the opportunity to add a presentation to create visual impact to your LinkedIn Profile and it is incredible simple to do it.  Here’s how in three Easy Steps.

Step 1 – Create a presentation

Create a presentation using Powerpoint (or a similar presentation tool) for your business.  It doesn’t have to be long and you may have one that you can use already.  Here are some things to consider.

  • You don’t have to say everything in one presentation.  You can always create more presentations.
  • Tell a story with an introduction, middle and a call to action at the end
  • Make sure it has visual impact.  What images can you include?
  • Use a font size that can be read easily. People are going to watch this in a smaller format than when it is projected onto a screen.
  • If you use an existing presentation, does it stand on it’s own feet without you speaking about it?  You might want to make a few changes to it.

Step 2 – Add it to Slideshare

If you haven’t set up a Slideshare account, set one up now.  Go to http://www.slideshare.net, it will only take a few minutes to set up a free account.

Upload your presentation, by clicking the upload from the Home Page

Choose your presentation from your folder and make sure you add

  • a suitable heading
  • and description
  • and tags.

Millions of people are searching on Slideshare and your presentation could be found by a potential customer.

Step 3 – Add Slideshare to LinkedIn

Go the More section

Choose Add More Applications from the drop down menu.

Choose Slideshare Presentations and follow the instructions.

Every time you add a new presentation to Slideshare, it automatically updates your LinkedIn profile.

That wasn’t too hard, was it?

If you found this tip useful share it with your friends and let me know by leaving a comment.

Nicky Kriel

Nicky Kriel is a Social Media Coach & Trainer inspiring, educating and empowering Business Owners to use Social Media more strategically. She is also the author of How to Twitter for Business Success. For more information visit http://www.nickykriel.com or to find out about her courses that she runs in Guildford visit http://www.nickykriel.com/courses

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Top Tips for what to say in About Me videos for your website

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Are you uncomfortable about being filmed?  Maybe you have decided to film an “About me” video for your website, but you’ve got stuck.  You don’t know what to say.  I asked my friend, Alan Donegan, who is a presentation expert if he could give us a few tips.

This video goes more into the thought behind the series of tips.

So Here’s -
Top Tips for what to say in an About Me video: #1 When to say your name

Top Tips for what to say in an About Me video: #2 Getting Engagement

Me

Top Tips for what to say in an About Me video: #3 Getting Attention

Top Tips for what to say in an About Me video: #4 Telling Stories

Top Tips for what to say in an About Me video: #5 Think of your audience

And finally, my About Me video.

If you want to contact me http://www.nickykriel.com/contact-me.

To find out more about Alan Donegan, his website is www.enjoypresenting.co.uk and you can find him on Twitter @AlanDonegan.
I would love feedback about my video, thank you.  Do you think I listened to Alan’s tips?

Nicky Kriel

Nicky Kriel is a Social Media Coach & Trainer inspiring, educating and empowering Business Owners to use Social Media more strategically. She is also the author of How to Twitter for Business Success. For more information visit http://www.nickykriel.com or to find out about her courses that she runs in Guildford visit http://www.nickykriel.com/courses

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LinkedIn Answers: A quick guide to using Answers on LinkedIn

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Do you use “Answers” when you use LinkedIn?  If you are wondering what I mean; then this blog post is for you.

LinkedIn has a very useful Questions and Answers (Q & A) feature called “Answers” which can be very helpful for your business.

What is Answers?

LinkedIn Answers is the place on LinkedIn to:

  • Ask questions to get fast, accurate answers from your network and other experts.  The questions can be answered by any of the 130 million plus LinkedIn users so it provides a very valuable resource.
  • Showcase your knowledge, expertise, and interests by answering questions in your industry
  • Research your Industry and find experts.

Where can you find Answers?

This video is a quick walk through of the LinkedIn Answers which you can find under the “More” tab.

 

15 Ways to use Answers

  1. Research – to find out more about a subject
  2. Generate ideas
  3. Check keywords and the terminology that people use in your business
  4. Get answers from experts
  5. Show your expertise by giving helpful answers
  6. Get feedback and opinions on a topic
  7. Raise your profile
  8. Find experts by investigating the people answering questions
  9. Test the market
  10. Stay current within your industry
  11. Find potential guest bloggers/writers
  12. Find industry influencers
  13. See the questions people ask and answer them on your website or blog
  14. Make connections with people
  15. Be seen as the expert in your area by regularly answering questions

There are many ways you can use LinkedIn Answers.  Has this post been useful to you?  Leave a comment and let me know.

Nicky Kriel

Nicky Kriel is a Social Media Coach & Trainer inspiring, educating and empowering Business Owners to use Social Media more strategically. She is also the author of How to Twitter for Business Success. For more information visit http://www.nickykriel.com or to find out about her courses that she runs in Guildford visit http://www.nickykriel.com/courses

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