LinkedIn Changes x2

Posted by luke on Dec 11, 2009 in Blog | 0 comments

Change #1

LinkedIn is changing its homepage quite a bit – there’s a good write up on Mashable – it’s not live for all users yet, so if you don’t see it, you will soon.

Really though, this post is more about….

Change #2

Since August, I’ve been delivering most of my training under the joint venture I set up with Web Matters (as Web Matters Training) – it’s worked very well for both of us and I’m proud to say we’ve now partnered up with 2e2 to provide a range of Social Media for Business Courses (launching in Feb ’09) based at their London (Victoria) training facility.

In line with this, I felt I should add “Trainer at Web Matters” to my LinkedIn profile, as the 2e2 venture is a partnership with WMT and it would make it clearer for anyone looking at my details via that site.

I’ll post again once the course details are live. Its a great opportunity and if it goes well, we’ll be looking to expand to their other centres around the UK – exciting times.

LinkedIn for profit

Posted by luke on Dec 3, 2008 in Blog | 0 comments

Its always good to hear of examples of how businesses use LinkedIn for real (and tangible) benefit.

Take this example:

One of the other members asked a question about what people thought was the best product in a certain field. 4 out of the 5 responses recomended my clients product. From a PR point of view that is great, but it also enabled me to identify the person asking the question, the company they work for and their office location.

How valuable can that be?

excerpt from weetpr

Now that’s good to hear. I bang on about using Q+A on LinkedIn to generate interest, promote yourself as a centre of authority and to get leads in my seminars.

…I can’t take direct credit for this particular lead, but the blogger had attended my seminar in November…

Which leads me nicely to mention my next seminar on Social Media Marketing (exploiting social networking to the benefit of your business) as one of three speakers at the Original Business Thinking Event on 29th Jan.

So if you’d like to learn more about how you can use social networking in your business, follow the link above or drop me an email.

the power of the network

Posted by luke on Nov 24, 2008 in Blog | 1 comment

I needed to tap into my network of people across a few social networking sites today, to recruit a part-timer for a project and to see if anyone could help find a home for the Social Tech Solutions empire.

In total my update went out to around 750 people across three platforms (Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter) – through a status message I sent out a simple request for people to get in touch.

I’d hoped for 10 or so, during the day…

…within 30 minutes I had 30 replies.

Wow.

THAT is the power of the network, to be able to broadcast out a simple message – in this case on twitter, which automatically updated my Facebook status (would be nice if LinkedIn status could be done via twitter too – hint hint, any techy friends listening?) and get 30 replies in 30 minutes.

An hour later, I was visiting an office space with a friend/business partner of mine which we’ll likely rent together and I have plenty of likely candidates.

In further evidence of the power of the network: I noticed a business contact had changed their LinkedIn status to mention they were working on a particular project… which I was writing an article about for here (to be published later in the week – when its finished) a quick email exchange later and a meeting is set up so we can collaborate.

Within 2hrs my network has provided:

A good group of potential employees
A business partnership
and Office space

My “Springers final thought for the day” – courtesy of GrindVision:

the most successful people are great networkers and in in this day and age the most successful businesses are great at social media

I couldn’t agree more.

LinkedIn enter the social network application space

Posted by tom on Nov 4, 2008 in Blog | 1 comment

I’ve always been mindful of the fact that though Linkedin has great potential as a professional networking tool, it’s never been quite fully-featured enough to take it from a personal showcase hooked up to a directory of contacts.  It’s never been a destination for me, and while I maintain a profile on there, and have had the odd contact from times past, it’s not a resource I check on a daily basis.  Now I get word that LinkedIn are adding application support to their offering- a no brainer seeing as it’s exactly this move which propelled Facebook into the all powerful network it is today.  As you might imagine, the LinkedIn apps are of rather more of a serious nature, and it appears limited right now to selected partners, so we get online file storage courtesy of Box.net, and an app to allow you to share your current reading material via Amazon.  Before Facebook became a marketplace for various useless viral applications (Zombies, Super pokes etc) I had assumed it would do the same- though thinking back I didn’t consider the demographic and the motivation for these apps (ie CPA/CPC ad impressions).  LinkedIn isn’t free, so there’s not the same considerations, and by controlling the apps, LinkedIn will be getting an revenue stream from the Amazon affiliate system and (one assumes) the paid versions of other apps.

I see this as a smart move by LinkedIn.  By maintaining control of the apps, they make sure they remain of a high quality and relevant to their users.  More interaction with the site equals more page impressions, along with a new revenue stream.  It’s certainly something I’ll be looking into in much more detail; if I can inspire others to look at my profile and create genuine new contacts while enjoying the site more than a simple contact manager then I’ll certainly be spending more time on it.  I’ll post with my findings soon