LinkedIn Tips: Marketing to Promote Yourself and Your Business
Many digital marketing and public relations professionals, especially those in B2B niches, turn to LinkedIn to post content and promote their businesses.
Business professionals on LinkedIn can publish articles on the network and distribute the posts to their connections. If enough people read, share, and like their posts, LinkedIn’s publishing platform, LinkedIn Pulse, will distribute the articles more widely. Human editors also work to select the top posts across a range of categories. If they choose to feature your posts, you could vastly increase your reach and become a leading influencer.
LinkedIn publishes over 50,000 content posts every week, so how do you rise above the blogging masses and gain attention and influence? How do you win more views, likes and shares?
To answer those questions, Glenn Leibowitz, head of communications at McKinsey Greater China, went straight to the source and interviewed LinkedIn Senior Editor Isabelle Roughol for his Write With Impact blog.
Marketing and PR writers may be able apply her advice to blogging for other outlets and writing in general. Here’s summary of some of her main points.
Start with a bang. The headline and first paragraph are crucial. If you don’t interest readers with your introduction, it doesn’t matter what’s in the rest of the post. Roughol advises spending up to half your time on the headline and first paragraph.
Be original. LinkedIn editors like unique perspectives on timely topics. Reading about current events can provide ideas for your own commentary and analysis.
Sound like a human. The best writing does not feel stilted or read like a corporate press release full of jargon.
Don’t go too long. A good length for LinkedIn posts is between 500 and 900 words. Viewers won’t finish reading posts that are too long. Those using mobile devices are especially leery of long articles. Roughol recommends using the list format only occasionally, if ever, as the format is overused. [Editor’s Note: Longer articles in the range of 2,000 words usually rank higher in Google search results.]
Images help. Distinctive images give articles an edge in attracting views. You can use find quality photos from Wikimedia Commons and Flickr as long as you verify they are free to reuse and you include proper attribution. But don’t pick the worn-out stock image of people shaking hands. There’s no reason to add text to images since it won’t be legible when the image is reduced to LinkedIn’s thumbnail size.
Engage readers. Responding to comments engages readers and keeps the post popular for a longer time. Sharing the post on your network, such as your LinkedIn groups and social media networks, helps promote the post.
More LinkedIn Posting Tips
These are some other recommendations for gaining attention on LinkedIn.
Write as if you’re writing for one person. Writing for a large audience will give your post a generic tone, while writing as if you’re talking to a friend tends to produce more engaging content. If a post entertains or educates one person, it can do the same for many others.
Consider people’s interests and views. Post articles people will want to share. People generally share articles that support their viewpoints and articles they believe will help their contacts. If you write about what you feel strongly about, others who agree with you will share the content. Helpful, educational content is also more likely to be shared.
Analyze it. LinkedIn’s new analytics tool provides data and insights into your posts and readers. The tool shows statistics on views, likes, comments and shares, and insights into your audience demographics, such as geographic location and industry sectors. That information can yield ideas for topics to write about, what audiences to target, as well as who to befriend on the network.
Find your niche. LinkedIn matches posts to specific channels. Focused posts are more likely to appear on a relevant channel. Consistently posting quality posts to particular channels is the best route to building a reputation as an expert.
Get help from influencers. Persuading LinkedIn influencers to share your posts can quickly increase the number of your readers. One technique is to ask influencers to contribute a quote to an upcoming post, and then give them credit. After you publish the post, they may share it with their contacts.
Bottom Line: LinkedIn is a worthwhile marketing channel to promote yourself and your business. Since LinkedIn’s publishing platform is now open to all members, theoretically anyone can become a leading influencer. Following these tips from experts will put you on the road to becoming a leading commentator in your niche.
Twitter and Micro Blogging Advice
In today’s modern times, things are becoming more and more interactive especially with the introduction of the internet. There are many online applications that make things much easier for most individuals. Twitter is really becoming extremely popular among young and old people. Millions of people are now addicted to Twitter and they spend a lot of time in twittering. Newbies may not know how to use Twitter effectively but in no time at all, you will learn about tweeting.
Twittering is a mixture of blogging and texting. The tweets are only made up of 140 characters which is too short but it can tell a lot of things. Twitter is a widely known web application which is partly a micro-blogging and social networking service. Twitter users can send and at the same time read updates of other members. The updates can be received through twitter, RSS, SMS, Tweetie, Twitter Mobile, Twitterrific, Twinkle, Facebook, Feedalizr, and Twidget. This year, there are already about six million users of Twitter all over the world.
You can receive the tweets in many ways and not just when you’re online. You must be aware that there are some users who spam; it’s not a good idea so if you’re new in Twitter, don’t spam because you will surely be hated by others. It’s not a good idea to give insults through the tweets and it is unethical. Try to limit your updates to three tweets per hour.
Tweeting is fun and it’s no wonder that millions of people are now using the social site. Did you know that you can also use Twitter through your mobile phone and email? Aside from that, you can do a lot of things with Twitter. You can sell your business online; you can communicate with your friends; court a beautiful girl, networking, and many other things.
Using Twitter is not difficult. New users can easily learn the basics of micro blogging. You’re free to choose a topic for your tweets. You can talk about anything. If you try to search through Twitter, you will notice that many users are talking about various subject matters. If you try to stay online for a couple of hours, you can learn a lot of things by having conversations with other members.
You can say everything you want to say with only 140 characters. Well, that’s the beauty of Twitter. You just can’t say enough and so you keep on twittering. You can also maintain a close group so that you can easily communicate with each other. A good thing about Twitter is that you can choose the ones who will receive your tweets. You can also keep some of your items on Twitter private while some other items can be made public which means that other people who know your ID can view them.
When signing up, it would be best to use your real name. Depending on your settings, you can protect all your updates from unauthorized people. Although there are users who don’t protect their updates; still, it is up to you to adjust the settings.
You can also stop Twitter for some time especially if you’re receiving lots of tweets. After some time, you can turn it on again. Go to your settings page and set a time for receiving tweets on your IM or mobile device. Happy tweeting to all.
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Twitter Tools and Tips
People have different reasons for joining Twitter. Whether you want to generate more traffic to your site or you want to increase your social relationships, Twitting is a fun and exciting activity that you can use to achieve your goals.
In this article, you can find helpful tools and tips that you can use when tweeting. You can use these things especially if you’re a beginner or an experienced tweeter.When creating an account in Twitter, you should consider your reason for using the network. For example, if you want to increase the traffic to your site and at the same time make new friends, you need to create two accounts. You will be asked to create your own ID. When creating the ID, you should use the appropriate ID that is related to the tweets that you’re going to send out. By doing so, other people can associate your ID with the tweets.
Twitter keeps people connected at all times. Some individuals send tweets regularly each day. If you can’t send the tweets on the exact time because you have other commitments, you can use the Tweet Later. It is a tool that advises other users that you can’t post at the moment or you can use to automatically post your pre-scheduled tweets. You should also ensure that you don’t auto spam others.
Since the tweets are only 140 characters, you should be extra patient in answering the ones addressed to you. This is one way to develop good conversations. You may get confused at first but as you use the Twitter often, you can go with the flow.
Sharing pictures is also possible with Twitter. When you make new friends, share some of your interesting pictures so that others can get to know you better. You can use the tool Twitpic. You can upload your pictures once you’ve created your account. The tool is also compatible with mobile devices which make it easier to share pictures from your mobile device.
Create blogs and share them with others. Choose informative topics and create awareness through microblogging. Besides, that’s what Twitter is all about – microblogging. Use AddTweets and other widgets.
Don’t depend on Twitter to act as your personal vault. Sometimes, Twitter encounters certain technical problems which can lead to possible data loss. Like other social network websites, Twitter can’t give 100% guarantee that all your pictures, business lists, and videos are safe. Make sure that you have your own storage backup.
When having personal conversations, it would be best to do it someplace else. The tweets are sent to all your friends so if you’re having personal conversation, others may choose not to follow you. When others ‘un-follow’ you, it can diminish your presence in Twitter.
Use Twittervision and see what the whole world is doing. This is an excellent tool to stay well-informed at all times. Twhirl is one of the desktop clients that you can use to efficiently use Twitter. It is suitable to Mac OSX and Windows (XP/ Vista). It is also available in different languages such as German, Italian, English, and Spanish. Whenever you receive new tweets, you will be notified immediately and offers timeline features.
So, have you tried using these tools and tips? Start using them now so that you can use Twitter with ease. Make new friends or promote your site through Twitter and have fun.
Common Mistakes on Twitter
Twitter is an exciting, cool, and extremely profitable social network site. Millions of people are now using the site to talk about various subjects. Indeed, it is a micro-blogging site for those who can’t stop talking. There are also common mistakes that most new users commit on Twitter. Before you start sending tweets, you must be aware of these common mistakes.
Mistake number 1 – the picture on your avatar is not yours. Most new users don’t post their real picture. They often use cartoon pictures, company logos, or their pet’s pictures. Although the pictures are quite cute, most Twitter users will appreciate a real picture of you. When you post your true picture on Avatar, others will think that you’re real and that you’re confident enough to let others see you. If you’re going to upload a photo, choose the ones where you give a beautiful smile. A smile can easily brighten the day of others.
Sending direct messages automatically through the AutoDM; direct messages are often impersonal and pushy. If you send this type of messages, you can lose your followers. TweetLater is another tool that sends automatic messages. When you use these tools, messages are automatically sent to those who follow you. A message saying ‘thanks for following me’ is fine but sending automated messages promoting your business or product is not a good idea and most people will just frown at them.
Do you have any followers? If you want to have followers, you need to follow people or you can at least create an interesting profile page. You can get followers by regularly posting updates. If you keep on following people and yet you don’t make updates on your page, you can’t get enough followers.
The 140-character tweets should be used to answer the Twitter question. Answering that question once a day may be enough to let others know that you’re interested in the community. You can post what you’re doing for the day or where you plan to go for the night. Tweets are great for starting conversations. You can also re-tweet other users or send them comments.
Check your numbers regularly. It’s not good to follow many people when you have very few individuals following you. Try to achieve balance. Make sure that the one you follow will also follow you back and you should also appreciate the ones who follow you. This is the easiest way to make friends on Twitter.
Use tools like Tweetdeck so that you don’t need to stay online all the time. Through this application, you can divide your followers into groups. Now, you can easily track them especially when they send direct messages and replies.
If you keep on promoting your business all the time, everyone will ‘unfollow’ you. No one likes a person who talks about his business or product most of the time. You must learn to respect others. As you may have forgotten, Twitter is a social network.
You must learn how to communicate and build good relationships before you start bombarding them with promotions. Even if you already have a god list of leads, it is still not a good idea to barrage them with promotions. Promotional tweets should be sent in limited numbers only.
These are the common mistakes committed by new and old tweeters. Take note of them and don’t commit the same mistakes.