April 2010 Linkedin Poll: Has the use of Social Media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn increased sales for you?
For April 2010, I chose to create this Linkedin Poll as a way to remind you all that Social Media can be an incredibly powerful tool to all businesses, but at what cost? Many people take Social Media and Social Networking for granted. A huge misconception about Social Media is that it’s only for tweeting what you just ate or posting a cute photo of your kid’s first steps. Can it be used for these purposes? Of course. You can technically do whatever the heck you want…it’s your profile and your space. Here’s the real question, “Is anyone listening to you?”
If your Social Media campaign is not bringing in sales…you are doing something wrong. Keep in mind, this should be seen as a long term project…unless you have a brand name that people already know. It doesn’t matter if you sell high end jewelry, a live chat service, or whatever. If it’s not done properly or orchestrated to a certain degree, then all the time you spent was a complete waste of time. I have personally seen so many of my clients come to me and ask me what they are doing wrong and usually it’s as simple as; content creation, post frequency, and content relevance.
You can’t just post photos all the time. I’m sure they are nice to look at, but Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. just can’t read the context of a photo. They may say a picture is worth 1000 words, but not to search engines. (of course if you tag your photos correctly, then that is a different story…of which is for another article.) You need content and lots of it. Posting only once a year in not the way to gain followers or fans and posting every 5 seconds will most likely mark you as a Spammer. And no one likes a Spammer now do they? Most importantly in my opinion is relevance. Your content should be about your business and should use keywords or phrases that relate to what you do or sell. Using your Facebook business page to chatter about what you did last night is not going to get you more customers…unless that is what is relevant to your business and people follow you for your perspective on night clubs or something.
Basically, think of your profile as a unique website that you have to optimize so that other people who think like you will be able to connect to you. This is why so many companies are not getting the response they are looking for with Social Media. The most important thing to do when starting in Social Media is just listen. Read the tweets. View the profiles. Look for patterns in how people communicate. Your audience is out there and they are looking for you. Are you sending out the right message and is it effective? Is your time being spent wisely. If not, then you need to re-evaluate, revamp, and reconnect.
Take my poll and let me know what you think.
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The New LinkedIn: Better Business or Big Brother?
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock somewhere in the middle of nowhere, you have heard of LinkedIn.
It’s one of the largest and most popular professional social networks on the planet. Recently, LinkedIn relaunched their website with a completely fresh and friendly perspective. It looks and feels so much more organic and “now” or contemporary. Upgrades to searching, commenting, connecting, and much more have solidified it’s place as the “black and white” tuxedo of the Social Media world.
With progress comes unexpected “surprises” that most people are not aware of or even know how to ask to become aware. One of which could be considered disturbing to some who value their personal privacy and to others who could most likely care less. Are you asking yourself, “What is the “surprise” you speak of, Andrew?”
Well, here it is.
I recently noticed that LinkedIn now tracks your every click. We all know that every action of a click means something, to someone, somewhere. Here’s the catch…when you surf their site and you click to read someone’s profile or do anything…the URL will change. So far doesn’t sound too odd or off…right? I mean, technically speaking, every page you visit on any site is a unique URL that is within another URL. Well, watch what happens when you check out another person’s profile just after viewing something on a previous profile page you were on. The URL now includes that action as part of the URL and so on and so forth. So eventually LinkedIn will be able to backtrack everything you do on their site. Concerned yet? Many are.
I completely understand why LinkedIn would want to have it this way. A great reason would be to keep track of Spammers that have recently infiltrated LinkedIn like termites to wood. LinkedIn would be able to see how many profiles someone has looked at and how often they are sending email out to people outside their own network. Spamming is becoming such a problem on LinkedIn because anyone can open an account and claim to be someone from a company that either exists or doesn’t exist. It’s really getting bad and if you are on LinkedIn as often as I am…you’ll know what I am talking about. It’s terrible.
Another good reason they are doing this, in my opinion, is to help out with relevance and ratios. Just because a profile has the right keywords now, doesn’t mean it’ll be relevant and you will show up on the first page of LinkedIn anymore. (again this is only my theory.) It does make sense if you think about it. An algorithm based on keyword search, click through ratios, and possibly even amount of time spent on that page. Many new aspects of ephemeral data are becoming more and more relevant to LinkedIn.
So it’s up to you the viewer to decide whether this new LinkedIn layout and functionality makes for better business or for a Big Brother complex. I suppose it all depends on what side of the aisle you are on: are you on LinkedIn to indeed link in with other professionals or are you a Spammer on the verge of getting caught? heh.
One thing is for sure, LinkedIn is an amazing Social Media tool, that when used properly can be incredibly profitable.
[Side note:] I have suggestions for LinkedIn and how they can make their site even more incredible.
1. Live Chat software in realtime to connect with that person whose profile you are viewing.
2. Private Conference chat rooms where people need a code to get in.
3. ClickToTalk technology, where someone can click a connect button and that person would be called on their cell phone or work phone.
The benefits to these ideas include: Instantly discuss ideas, presentations, make deals, ask questions, customer service, etc.
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Site Update: Issue has been resolved. You may proceed to ClickToTalk to me.
Whew! After many hours of testing and retesting our system. The issue has been resolved. This is the first and only time that this has happened. What was the issue? Well…if you just need to know:
It turns out there was a glitch in my VOIP phone from a power surge from a storm the night before.
I had to do some fancy foot work, but we’re up and running.
So feel free to connect with me now. No, I mean it, right now. Call me with the Click To Talk button. If you have any questions about: LiveChatAgent, ClickToTalk, Social Media, Social Netowrking, SEO, SEM, Google Analytics, Dashboards, Site Abandonment Rates, CRM systems, Online Marketing, Internet Search, Keywords, etc., feel free to contact me. I’ll be more than happy to answer your questions and/or lead you to the right direction for your business.
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Part I: Thoughts on the Web 2.0 Convention at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City.
The Web 2.0 Conference at the Jacob Javits Center in NYC is a fairly large tech conferences and convention that usually runs for 4 days. If it has to do with new emerging tech concepts or products…most likely it’s here. The first 2 days of this convention are for workshops, conferences and seminars. The main Expo Hall is closed to the general public until the last 2 days.
Part I: My personal experience attending the show today.
There were many facets of IT (Internet Technology) at the show. Much of the show was dedicated to the tangible aspects of the Internet: hardware for servers, data encryption security, self contained climate control server housing, social media analytics, phone and data infrastructure. So many companies from various sectors had booths with information, mini-presentations, etc. I did notice one important sector that was non-existent at the show; live chat companies. Live chat is rapidly becoming the true essential tool for websites as their competitive arsenal centerpiece. You would think that at an important Web 2.0 Convention in NYC, a livechat company would have a booth, but apparently not.
I must have spoken to 200-250 people today easily. Some conversations were surface, typical and frankly…fleeting. But others transcended the show itself and moved towards forging actual friendships. My perception of humanity always exceeds my amazement by the caliber of human beings that coagulate here.
People are either incredibly compassionate or ridiculously rude. I understand that people’s time is important to them, but almost knocking me over as I am talking to someone and NOT saying you’re sorry? Wow. I have a reactionary type of personality…if you treat me right, I treat you right. If the opposite happens…Vice versa.
But I digress…
I didn’t go to the show to meet people as if this was a Facebook reunion. I was there to see new technology and its perceived effects on the internet. I wanted to look into a crystal ball and see an overall view of what’s happening right now in the tech industry…and I did. I saw many, many pairs of thick eye-glasses and plenty propeller-heads spinning like one gigantic geek vortex. heh.
The 3 biggest concepts I took away from the show was:
1. Cloud Technology 2. Virtualization 3. Security
To be continued on Part II…
(Sidenote: I personally was not happy with the 200:1 Male-to-Female ratio, but hey I was there to network, not get some trim. heh.)
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