Posts Tagged business
Social Media Interview with Michael Allison
Posted by Paul Holmes in business, internet, social media on August 12, 2009
I had the pleasure of lunch today with my old friend and social media connoisseur, Michael Allison.
Michael had the idea of interviewing me for his blog, and I thought that sounded like a great idea, so I interviewed him as well. Mostly for my own practice, but also because Michael has a wealth of knowledge on the subject.
Smart Business Things To Do On LinkedIn
Posted by Paul Holmes in business, internet, social media on June 12, 2009
Are you serious about business, and not on LinkedIn? I don’t think that’s possible. Get on it!
Once you get on, here’s what you need to do:
- Upload your photo. Nothing better than a face to confirm you are the right “John Smith”.
- Set up a complete profile. When setting up your profile, in the section where you define your websites, always select “Other”, then name your websites with the search keywords. So, instead of “My Blog”, I use the keywords Social Media Blog to define the link. Instead of “My Website”, I use the keywords Canadian Website Design to define the link to our website design company. This adds search engine value, not to mention a more concise description for people.
- Set up a public profile. Click on “Profile” in the menu on the left, then look for “Public Profile” – it is in the second column. Click on “Edit”. Use something memorable, like your name, a common online handle, or your business name (remember, though, it is “permanent”, so if your business name is not “forever”, you should use your name). If you don’t have a personal blog, always use your LinkedIn address when posting comments on blogs and such. This will add search engine value to your LinkedIn page over time, thus raising your profile, and indirectly helping your business.
- Find people in your network, and connect with them. LinkedIn has tools to search your existing e-mails to discover people in your existing “real life” network. If you find serious businesspeople who are not on LinkedIn, invite them to join – it’s not spam, it’s a good business decision you are inviting them to enjoy! (Also, they may already be on LinkedIn under a different e-mail address.)
- Join Groups. Search through the groups and find some appropriate to your business. If you cannot find a quality group in your business area, make one, and invite people to join. People in Victoria, British Columbia should join the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce, Social Media Club – Victoria Chapter, and VIATeC groups.
- After you have connected with people on LinkedIn, look in their networks for their contacts. Chances are you have some mutual contacts you should also connect with.
- Recommend people. At least 3, and try to do at least one a month thereafter. The more people you recommend, the more they will recommend you.
Economic Stimulus and Canada – An Idea
Posted by Paul Holmes in business, internet, politics, social media on June 4, 2009
I have an idea to help solve a bunch of Canada’s problems.
Here are a list of the problems:
- One of the largest media companies in the country, CanWest, is (apparently) hovering on the brink of bankruptcy.
- The Canadian Government and financial analysts are anticipating record federal deficits.
- American visitors must now have a passport to visit Canada.
- The website for the Canadian Government is stupidly branded as www.canada.gc.ca.
Here is my bold (and a wee bit crazy) plan …
The Government of Canada buys Canada.com from CanWest Publishing. The value of this property to CanWest is really the content, which can be moved elsewhere. OK, OK, there is some inherent value in the name, but, honestly, it’s not really ideal for what CanWest is selling.
It is worth a considerable amount of money, which the Government should pay (one time), and this would help bail out CanWest (somewhat), thus solving problem #1.
With this new acquisition, the Government of Canada should put together a tourism website a la Australia.com, and use it to promote Tourism to Canada to the world, thus alleviating problem #3, and growing this sector of the economy (alleviating, somewhat, problem #2).
This website, naturally, would incorporate some fancy social media features, too! Anything is better than the crappy website (Copyright 2007, no less) that Tourism Canada has now.
What about the acquisition cost and development of this tourism portal?
That will certainly hurt the bottom line in the short term, but I think it’s a good long term investment. Besides, the Government is busy spending money to help the economy anyway, so why not on something like this? It beats the hell out of a traditional corporate subsidy or bailout (like the crap going on with the automotive companies).
As for problem #4, the Government of Canada has full rights to using the name Canada.ca, but chooses the brand Canada.GC.ca. Why? I can only assume it is because of the concern that Canada.ca might be misheard, leading hapless Canadians to type in Canada.com instead, and end up, confused, on CanWest’s web portal.
Saying Canada.GC.ca makes people stop and think “hmmmm”, so they tend not to mistype it as a result. Theoretically.
If my grand scheme went forward, problem #4 could be solved, the Government of Canada’s web portal could be re-branded (not just re-directed) to Canada.ca. If people mistype it as Canada.com, well, they get the Tourism Canada site, and can click on a link that connects them to the right place. Done.
And the world’s problems are solved.
Social Networking Primer – LinkedIn
Posted by Paul Holmes in business, internet, social media on February 5, 2009
I actually joined LinkedIn before FaceBook, in early 2007. I figured as a “professional”, I needed to join the “professional” social network, and leave FaceBook to the teenagers. I am now of the opinion that BOTH can be useful, personally and professionally.
My focus this week, however, is LinkedIn. As a long-time lingerer on LinkedIn, I was intrigued by some of the features that are now available, and started toying with them a little bit.
My Profile
First thing I did was update my LinkedIn profile. Some of the information was dated, some was poorly written, and some was just wrong.
- Tip #1: When selecting your website(s), use the “Other” option. I noticed that the websites under any other categories didn’t show up on your public profile (a LinkedIn bug, perhaps). Furthermore, for search engine optimization, it’s probably better to have a real name as anchor text, versus “My Website” or “My Blog”.
LinkedIn also really pushes this “Profile Completeness” business, which they define as follows:
- Your current position (easy)
- Two past positions (this makes sense for people who remember you from…)
- Your education (this is embarassing)
- Your profile summary (write one, and write it well, think about keywords)
- A profile photo (I now use the same one on FaceBook, LinkedIn and Twitter)
- Your specialties (write it well, think about keywords)
- At least three recommendations
Recommendations
I wrote a recommendation for one of my connections; it’s pretty easy. With 41 other connections, I shouldn’t have a problem writing a dozen more. Don’t have 41 contacts? Find them by searching (LinkedIn will mine your email account for you). Once you have a connection, check their connections. Never add people you don’t know, but I’m always surprised at how many I do know!
I also requested recommendations from others. I considered the following when requesting:
- Is my contact a well-known, trusted contact?
- Are they skilled at writing?
- Will they do it out of the goodness of their heart?
Consider also that writing good recommendations not only gives a boost to your client or colleague, but also draws attention on their profile to your profile. Furthermore, if you write a nice recommendation, they may just be inspired enough to write one about you!
Applications and Geeky Stuff
As a computer geek, I wanted to know what sort of RSS stuff I could do. Not much, apparently. Forget about Twitter and FaceBook tie-ins (the competition, I suppose).
What I did manage to do is create a fancy link on my contact page.
Also, I managed to pull my WordPress blog (this one) into my LinkedIn profile page (the “Full Profile” only). This was one of 10 applications they list on their site. I suspect there are more cool features like this to come.
Groups
Next, it was on to “Groups”.
Every time I added a contact, I’d end up defaulting to some “easy” connection option (like “Friend”), when in fact it didn’t define them particularly well. I realized that most of my connections come from some existing group or another. But LinkedIn doesn’t let you just type the name of your group in your invitation, you actually have to select an “existing”, registered LinkedIn group.
That got me thinking. At least a dozen of my connections are contacts through the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce. But they had no group. So, I e-mailed the Chamber and asked if I could set up a group for them, and they didn’t have an issue. That was the hard part.
- Tip #2: You must have image files for your group. They don’t explain what they are for, so I will. When setting up a group, make the 100×50 logo a small but complete “official” logo with name, and the 60×30 logo the image only (the name always appears next to the image file on LinkedIn, and 60×30 is way too small to read anything from). Another issue with the group logos is that LinkedIn sometimes has a blue blackground and sometimes white. We went with a white background (which means it looks bad when the blue one comes up).
Premium Membership
I had a look at the “Premium” membership options with a serious consideration of paying for extras. I discovered that they start at US$24.95 per month. I think this might be a good idea for “hard-core networkers”, but I’ll give it a pass for now.
That’s all I have on LinkedIn for now. Stay tuned for more Social Networking Primers to come.
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