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The Do's and Don'ts of using Social Media for Business

Every couple of weeks I like to share with you an excellent infographic on the social space. Today I have got a really good one for you called, The Do's and Don'ts of Social Media for Business, and to be honest it needs little dialogue from me, because of it's simplicity.

The do's and don'ts of Social Media for Business

This was originally posted on The Steel Method website. Word of warning if you visit their site - switch the speakers down as they have a an autoplaying sales pitch video!

This is excellent isn't it? What do you think?

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Cut through all the Twitter noise with this great new social recruiting tool


Twitter noise

Twitter is proving to be a very useful tool for the recruitment industry - that is when it sorts its servers out!

The trouble with Twitter is the sheer mass of information and 'noise' it creates. From this 'noise' recruiters need to find detail and clarity in the message they want to deliver, and at the same time the receivers - the job seekers - are able to find exactly what they want.........easily. This 'noise' is probably the reason that puts some people off Twitter - they look at the huge volumes of 'tweets' and it scares the **** out of them!!
If you are one of these people, you need to realise that Twitter is an excellent social recruiting tool for recruiters and one that you should really be looking at using.

There are 100's and 100's of tools out there to help you do this, from Twitter management tools like Tweetdeck through to search tools like Followerwonk. But as a company (agency or corporate) wanting to distribute jobs via Twitter and reach a targeted audience,  what is the best way?

Option 1: Set up your own specific Twitter job channel and send your vacancies to it via the excellent  Twitterfeed. This is very effective IF you are ...

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Three tips before you create your Facebook page

facebook fan page tips, facebook fan page tutorial, facebook fan page how to, create facebook fan page, facebook pages for business, change facebook page nameFacebook pages for business are a useful marketing tool. Their benefits range from increased interaction with fans, a way to offer avid customers unique content and deals and overall branding that can help your product or service spread virally with the help of happy clients. A recent study has gone as far to attach a dollar value to each fan for consumer brands on Facebook – $136.

Unfortunately, many of Facebook’s tools aren’t as well documented as many marketers would like. While there are myriad choices for improving your Facebook page and brand strategy, avoid these three stumbling blocks before you begin.

Choose your name carefully – you can’t change it later

What’s in a name? A lot – especially when it comes to dominating Facebook search for key terms. As Nathalie Klein reminded me after a related Facebook page post, you can’t edit the name of your Facebook page. Once it’s created, your only options are deleting the original page (and losing all of your fans) and creating a new one. Take a minute to choose carefully when registering the new page.

Choose your creator carefully – they can’t be deleted as easily as other admins

Page creators on Facebook ...

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Don’t Write a Narcissistic Company Blog

Joel Spolsky explains why your company blog shouldn’t be all about your company:

These days, it seems like just about every start-up founder has a blog, and 99 percent of these bloggers are doing it wrong. The problem? They make the blog about themselves, filling it with posts announcing new hires, touting new products, and sharing pictures from the company picnic. That’s lovely, darling — I’m sure your mom cares. Too bad nobody else does.

Most company blogs have almost no readers, no traffic, and no impact on sales. Over time, the updates become few and far between (especially if responsibility for the blog is shared among several staff members), and the whole thing ceases to become an important source of leads or traffic.


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Revisiting some of my favorite Google work tools: Custom Search

Sometimes I forget that people don’t know about potential learning/work tools that may have been around for several years. Such is the case with Google Custom Search (which has been around now for more than four years).

Anyway…my catalyst for this post was a wonderful online workshop I did last week for AITD. They’ve got a nice line up of professional development opportunities and I was happy to be asked to present on one of my favorite topics – GOOGLE. (Note: Even if you’re not a member of AITD, I think you can could send an inquiry to see if you can sign up for an online event. What’s nice is I did it at US 8:00 pm ET / 5 pm PT (10 am +1 Sydney) so it’s a nice evening option for those in the US.)

One featured tool I had kind of forgotten about was Custom Search Engine. The name is pretty self-explanatory. You can create your own search engine using one or more websites or specific web pages, host a search box on your own website, and create a custom look and feel. You can add other people’s custom search engine  when shared by the creator.

One nice example I found was in Adobe’s Community site. They use it to selectively index Adobe learning and support content as ...

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A Basic Introduction to Social Networking

As our Work Literacy Ning site (2008) is in danger of getting bumped off the Net due to Ning’s new pricing policy, I will post some of the key articles here so we don’t lose them. Thanks again to Michele Martin for writing a significant portion of this.

Introduction to Social Networking

Online social networks facilitate connections between people based on shared interests, values, membership in particular groups (i.e., friends, professional colleagues), etc. They make it easier for people to find and communicate with individuals who are in their networks using the Web as the interface.

By some definitions, just about all Web 2.0 tools are a form of social networking, but for this module we’re going to focus on “ego-centric” social networks, those that are focused on individuals, as opposed to networks that build up around objects, such as Delicious, Flickr, Slideshare, etc. (Note you can learn more about the concept of ego-centric vs object-centric networks here ).

There are several different online social networks, but for our purposes, we’ll focus on the three that tend to be used the most by learning professionals–Facebook, LinkedIn and Ning. Each of these ...

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Entertainment, celebrity Facebook pages the most liked - Govt and local business the least

Hubspot has a useful graphic that makes sense when you think about it, but is still useful when someone comes to you asking for a Facebook page with 10,000 fans by next month.   The most popular Facebook pages according to Hubspot, involve movies, TV shows, popular books, bands and so on.

And at the bottom of the scale we have Govt pages, musicians (I guess unknown ones?), local businesses and Govt public services.

In fact, Inside Facebook says that entertainment sites are now driving a larger proportion of traffic to the social network, helped along by Facebook’s ‘like’ button that it unveiled the other month (and that I’ve finally got around to installing myself).

Inside Facebook quotes Compete stats that show that the whole boycott Facebook campaign over privacy issues was something of a non-starter, and probably a discussion point only among the minority of us that read the social media and tech press - in the US at least, Facebook gained 2.1 million new visitors in May.

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What is the Annual Value of a Facebook Fan for a Consumer Brand? $136!

A study by social media agency Syncapse (PDF) puts the value of a Facebook fan for a consumer brand at a really high $136! The study calculates the additional dollars that can be expected to be attributed to a Facebook fan in comparison to a Facebook user who is not a fan.

Syncapse arrived at this number by putting a dollar value to five aspects of fan behavior using data from 4000 panelists in North America who were fans of the top 20 consumer brands on Facebook –

1) Product Spending: Fans spend an additional $72 than non-fans ($157 versus $85).
2) Brand Loyalty: Fans are 28% more likely to continue using the brand than non-fans (75% versus 47%).
3) Propensity to Recommend: Fans are 40% more likely to recommend a product to their friends than non-fans (68% versus 28%).
4) Brand Affinity: Fans are 42% more likely to feel a connection with the brand than non-fans (81% versus 39%).
5) Earned Media Value: Fan interactions on the Facebook page resulted in free or earned brand impressions to their friends.

Syncapse attributed a value of $72 for product spending, $44 for brand loyalty, $13 for propensity to recommendations, and $7 to earned media value, totaling to ...

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11 Simple Ways to Get More Visitors to Your Blog or Website

Website Traffic Simple Ways to Get More Visitors to Your Blog or  Website
You’ve picked the domain, decided on the design and started posting great content that showcases your expertise. 

The hard work is over, right?

Not exactly—after all, you need people to actually read that useful content that you’re diligently cranking out. So how do you get those eyeballs to your site? There are literally hundreds of ways to drive traffic to your blog or website, but here I will highlight just a few of the ways to drive traffic and generate interest in what it is you have to offer.

Write articles: Most of the article directories online are free to submit your articles to. They usually allow you to add a resource box at the end, which can include a blurb about you and your business and a link back to your site.  Some of the directories I like to use include Ezine Articles, Go Articles, Idea Marketers and Articles Base.

Comment on other blogs: When you comment on other high-traffic blogs in your niche you not only get a link back to your own site, you’re also boosting your site’s visibility in front of the blog owner and the others leaving comments.

Social media: Provide links to your latest posts on sites like Facebook, ...

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5 Great Ways to Prospect for New Business on LinkedIn

Spare a dime?

While many social media marketers concentrate on Twitter and Facebook, a lot of Business-to-Business (B2B) Business Development professionals already know that LinkedIn is the preferred place to prospect for new business in social media.  With an executive from every Fortune 500 company represented and an average household income of over $100,000, LinkedIn is a perfect place to prospect for decision makers in the industries you want to sell into as well as a prime destination to make alliances with other businesses and professionals that can help grow your business.

I recently had a conversation with a good friend who was having some challenges prospecting in social media, and this is the advice I gave him in using LinkedIn to prospect for new business.  Note: LinkedIn is a social networking platform of trusted relationships that can work against you if you just use it to look up people and simply cold-call them.  Engaging with the community as I suggest below will give you better mileage and start the cycle of inbound marketing bringing leads to you.1) Grow Your LinkedIn Connections

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Top 60 LinkedIn Groups for Job Seekers and Recruiters

Where the most job seekers and recruiters are meeting up on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn

Not sure how or why to use LinkedIn Groups on your job search?

Then read this first (it will open in a new window): Everything You Need to Know About Finding Jobs with LinkedIn Groups

60 LinkedIn Groups for Your Job Search

Currently, LinkedIn only lets you join a maximum of 50 groups. Here I’ve listed 60 so that you can pick and choose which groups are most useful for you.

This list is ordered according to member counts, and each group is described with its official text as it appears on LinkedIn.

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Independent Recruiters linkedin group Independent Recruiters – 10,367 members – This is open forum group for all Job Seekers, Recruiters and Sales and those want to explore new opportunities and are determined to grow in leaps and bounds.

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CFA Careers linkedin group CFA Careers – 10,505 members – Group to discuss careers opportunities for CFA charterholders.

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Online Media Jobs linkedin group Online Media Jobs - 10,657 members – This group ...