Let me give a bit of history: In 2011, Linkedin came out with a “Skills” section, where you could list out the things you’re good at or have experience with like tags.

Then last year, Linkedin introduced Endorsements, allowing other people you are connected to to give a vote for your various skills. If you listed, “blogging” as a skill, for example, people who you’ve worked for or with could give that a vote and say yes, you know blogging. Then when people looked at your profile, they’d see that at least 5 people thought you were the bee’s knees in the blogging department.

This is what Endorsements look like on a profile

In theory it’s a neat idea. If someone gets 100 votes for, “blogging,” maybe they know a lot more about it than someone else with with only 5.

The problem is that’s just not true. If someone is good at networking with others, and asking for votes, they can get a pretty high number of votes for anything.

Also, you can give a vote for anyone in your 1st degree of contacts for any skill they have listed – randomly. There’s a voting plug-in that appears on your page after you endorse someone, just in case you want to help out some of your other contacts. You can give votes to everyone you know, for anything, four at a time. Why would you do that? In the hopes that they return the favor.

The result is a lot of people who get votes on their profiles for no other reason than to get them to give back meaning less votes. You can get people you’ve never done any “blogging” with to vote for your blogging skills all the live-long day.

Of course, if you’re cynical like me, you know that means Endorsements really are a great way to make your profile look good to people who haven’t figured this out.

How do you get endorsements? First, connect with as many people as you can – find people you’ve gone to school with, worked with at past jobs, past clients and customers, anyone.

Then go to their profile pages and start giving endorsements to all of them. If you endorse 10 people, and 1 of them endorses you back, that’s one more endorsement than you started with. And it’s all free.

Once you’ve done that, though, start asking your contacts to give you Recommendations. Since they require someone to actually write out why you are so awesome, they’re a little harder to get – and therefore, worth a little more.

Linkedin has long been the Facebook of serious business, where people don’t go to share pictures of funny cats, but to further their goals for success.

Over the last year though, they’ve seriously upped their game. For starters, our Linkedin Business Page helps us share company related news with you, our Independent Isagenix Associates.

Isagenix on Linkedin

So how does that help you? Well for starters, you can share the stories we post there, so they turn up on your profile and in Linkedin today. (I’ll get to what that is in a sec.) When you tell someone about Isagenix, and they research you and the company, one of the first things they’re likely to find is your Linkedin profile. When they get there, they’ll not only see your professional information, but can read all about the company through these stories.

What’s more, you can use the Product & Services section of the page to share specific company information.

Last year Linkedin bought SlideShare, which I’ve always loved. They’re like the YouTube of slide presentations. If you have a slide deck, you can slap it up there, then share it on your Linkedin profile. In fact, if you have a video of you making that presentation, you can add that to the slides as well – so people can see you doing your thing, and then look at the slide information you used.

When you’re trying to show the world the extent to which you know your stuff, SlideShare can make you look really good.

It can also be a fun way to share content. I used Slideshare last year when we launched the alternate version of the IsaGeeks page, all.isageeks.com. All I’d wanted to do was come up with a more entertaining “About Us” page for the site. The presentation wound up getting over 2,000 views in its first month.

Endorsements are another great feature I wrote about in October. They opened the door to a lot more interaction with contacts. (As well as making you look really good when someone looks you up.)

As for Linkedin today [http://www.linkedin.com/today/?trk=today_home_top_today_control] (told you I’d get back to it!) is a great service that gives you posts based on your network. For example, since I’m connected to a lot of Internet marketing professionals, every day I get great information from Linkedin today on SEO, web standards, tips and opinions on social media… it really is like a Wall Street Journal tailored to me.

Yesterday I posted about how Google Plus had changed the layout of their profile pages. Even as I hit the “publish” button on that, I was thinking, “I wonder how long we have until Facebook and Twitter update their layouts?”

And then, as if on cue, Facebook let the world know they’d be announcing their own layout change today. We’ve known for some time they’ve been working on a new look – what some have opined was the biggest change to the page since 2006. The redesign has apparently been running in New Zealand as well for a while now. These are all rumors, but given how Facebook tends to roll, they sound likely.

The announcement will be live in 25 minutes from the time I publish this. It will be viewable below, assuming your browser is up to date.

This week we unveiled a slew of cover photos for associates to use on Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus profiles. I had been hoping everyone would jump on this, and I wasn’t disappointed. The response has been just awesome.

And then, today, Google announces larger cover photos. If you update your profile, the cover area will have a 16×9 format, with a maximum resolution of 2120 x 1192.

The good news is more of your own photos can now be used as cover photos on G+.

The bad news is the cover photos we made for you became instantly out of date.

I’ll say it again: Sigh.

Of course, it’s worth noting that not many people were interested in downloading our Google Plus cover photos. As I’ve reported in the past, not many people actively use the site, while roughly everyone uses Facebook. (And we saw a LOT of downloads of that cover art.)

One thing I tried was taking the cover art we created for Facebook, uploading it to Google as my cover, and scaling it to fit. It came out looking like this:

The new Google Plus profile layout, with a Facebook cover scaled to fit.

This works as a hybrid work-around, but to be honest, the image looks a little blurry when blown up to this size. It’s not bad, but not great. If you plan on taking this route yourself, you may need to play with it a bit to get a result you like.

We have every intention of updating these covers over time, so the next installment will include Google covers that fit this new layout. For now, though, if you’re a Google Plus user, you have the choice of either not updating your profile layout, or updating and using some other image that fits as a cover.

We got with our Art Department, and asked them to create cover photos you can use for your social media profiles. What they came up with are nine sets, each one with a photo for Facebook, Twitter and Google, and they look beautiful. They are free to use and available to all associates.

Go here to download these cover photos.

One of nine Facebook cover photos available for you to use.

You see, a lot of people still don’t know they can add cover photos to their social media profiles. (We’ve included the instructions for adding them below.) As a result, they look pretty barren.

With these, you can not only identify yourself as an Independent Isagenix Associate, you can give all of your profiles a unified look. If you ask someone on Twitter to visit your Facebook Fan Page, or from Google Plus to your Twitter page, they know they’ve come to the right place when they are greeted with the same cover image.

So go grab the set you like best and add them to your profiles!

Bit of Trivia: Twitter calls their cover photos “Header photos.” Why? No one knows. Guess they just wanted to be different.

Click on the links below for instructions on adding cover photos:

Twitter Header Photos

Facebook Cover Photos

Google Plus Cover Photos

This isn’t an explanation of how to do better on search engine results pages, mind you – just great insight into how Google does what they do best. If you’re starting down the road of trying to figure out just how to do better in search, though, knowing this is a great place to start off.

coding websites is *fun*!

We get asked a lot about websites – how easy or hard it is to build one, what software you should use to build one, how to sell products on your website, and what you have to worry about with Compliance.  Inevitably, the discussion boils down to “Okay, forget all this mess. Do you know someone who can build me a website?”

Unfortunately, we’re not allowed to build websites for Associates. (boooooo…)  However, there are a ton of great website-building sites out there, as well as terrific and inexpensive software that is either included with your computer system (in the case of a Mac), or that can be downloaded for your PC (WebPlus, for example).  You could even get all crazy and buy software (like Adobe’s Muse); these packages tend to have the most features and functionality.

Unfortunately, you’ll still need to build the site, find a web host, and upload the site. That said, if none of the above appeals to you, there’s still one solution if you want a website: have it built.  The problem is that working with web coders is not usually a pleasant experience. Not to put too fine a point on it, but most people say they would prefer a root canal.

So we’ve found a development group willing to build Isagenix Associates a website with WordPress that won’t break the bank. They can handle everything from registering a domain for you to building your site and hosting it on their web servers. They will also teach you how to update your site on your own (so you’re not paying some web geek to do it for you).  If you’re interested, swing by Green Hat Digital to take a peek at their available web templates and their a la carte menu.

Just as an FYI: Isagenix or the IsaGeeks aren’t associated or affiliated with Green Hat in any way, nor do we get any kickbacks or other under-the-table scammy stuff from them.

The easiest way to explain this app would be to call it the “Instagram For Video”. The layout is quite similar and hashtags work the same. You won’t find any fancy filters but you are given 6 seconds of recording time to play with. Now, six seconds may seem like nothing but you’d be surprised at how much you can cram in. A lot of folks are creating quirky stop motion clips taking advantage of the built in stop-and-start feature.

This feature also gives you the ability to create multiple scenes. Including multiple scenes is highly recommend as no one wants to stare at a 6 second clip of your sandwich. A disappearing banana however is quite cool:

The disappearing flesh of the
#banana!
#food
#magic
#table
#fruit
#gone
#yum
#act
vine.co/v/b5FLiulW2Ja

— Ethan F (@levi989)
January 25, 2013

Vine is an app specifically for Apple mobile devices right now. (iPhone, iPad, iPod.) It has taken off in a big way, though, so you can expect there will be an Android version of this app soon enough.

So, how does this relate to your business? It’s yet another way for people to find you. You can even share your clips via Twitter & Facebook.

When it comes to Vine the same social network rules apply:

- Don’t flood your account with 100% Isagenix related stuff
- Interact with other members: like, comment, etc.
- Be you & have fun!

The app is FREE and is currently only available in Apple’s App Store.

Check it out and let us know what you think. Be sure to check out the “Explore” tab if you’d like to lose an hour or two of your day!

Okay, that’s pretty neat.

But I have to be honest: I’ve always had a problem with “neat.” “Neat” tends to be a reason to want gadgets you don’t necessarily need. Segways are pretty neat – but I don’t know anyone who owns one, do you?

The fact that no one was asking for something like Glass makes me think it won’t be something everyone is using anytime soon.

Take another Google product as an example, Google Plus: This is Google’s social network, which has lots of great features, and in many ways is superior to Facebook. The problem was that no one was asking for something better than Facebook. People are largely okay with just using Facebook. As a result, nobody really goes on Google Plus anymore.

For Google Glass to take off, there will have to be a need it fills, and not just be something cool people use for a day or two, then leave forgotten on their pile of electronic toys.

I also have to wonder, given that it’s a Google product, how much it will play into Google’s advertising business. Every product they make is geared towards increasing their ad revenue. The aforementioned Google Plus doesn’t have any ads on it, but it does collect information on people who use it, analyses what they post, and uses it to deliver targeted ads to these people when they perform searches.

Google Glass may not necessarily show you ads for Zappos anytime you look at shoes. But it will collect your location, what you are doing, who you are doing it with, and analyze the things you are looking at while wearing Google Glass.

I know I’m going to sound like a conspiracy theory nut who needs to be wearing a tin-foil hat when I say this: But it is reasonable to expect – given Google’s history of sifting through user data – that Glass is their way of knowing about EVERYTHING you do in a day, and turning that into information for ad targeting.

I’m already uncomfortable with the amount of data Google has on me or anyone just by viewing what we do online, or on an Android phone – the operating system they created. That Google could continue to do that once I leave my computer or phone makes me shudder a little. So personally, I don’t expect one of these headsets to be in my future.

But that’s just me – is Google Glass something you think you’ll be using someday? Why?

What’s so great about it? For starters, it’s free. It has a lot of useful tools, but the lack of cost will, hopefully, get you to try it out.

So what else does it have?

Link Stats

Hootsuite started out as a basic link shortener. A lot of sites do that now of course, even Twitter itself. Hootsuite goes a step further, though, in giving you reports on how many people clicked on that link. Let’s say you’re going to post a tweet about e+, with a link to a story in your blog, or even your associate website.

This is what the tweet would look like. But after you cut and paste your link into that box that says, “Add a link…”

…you get a shortened link with tracking. You can then post this directly from Hootsuite, and see how many people clicked on your link. After a while, you may even want to run a report on how much traffic you’re getting from Twitter, and which posts are sending them over. You can do that in the Analytics tab.

Remember, that’s just an example using Twitter – you can do the same thing for your Facebook Fan Page posts, Linkedin updates, Google Plus… uh, pluses, whatever you have going on.

Feeds

You can also set up Hootsuite to read RSS feeds, and post for you automatically.

An RSS feed is essentially a quick, undesigned version of a site’s content. If you have a blog, it has an RSS feed, containing everything you’ve posted to it.

So, if you plug your blog’s feed into Hootsuite, and tell it, “every time I publish something to my blog, send out a tweet, a post to my Facebook Fan Page, an update to my Linkedin profile, and a post to my Google Plus page, it will. You can also tell it how often to check for new posts, if you want to include any special text with every post, and of course, which link shortener to use. (You’ll want to stick with ow.ly, which is Hootsuite‘s, so you can check the stats on how all these automated posts do.)

Keep in mind, this isn’t an excuse to just let feeds post for you on social media. Social still works when you are – as the name implies – social. You still need to have conversations with the people connected to you. Hootsuite simply does the job of posting stories for you, the ones you would have done by hand on your own.

Social Monitoring

As long as you’re using Hootsuite to post messages for you to all of your social media profiles, you may as well monitor each of these on Hootsuite as well. Rather than having to log into all of your profiles, Hootsuite lets you see comments, retweets, private messages… whatever you want to look at, for all of your profiles on all of the social networks you use.

Our Twitter mentions, retweets and sent tweets for @IsaGeeks.

Hootsuite does a lot more than just these three things – but that’s already a lot for a grand total cost of nothing. There are paid accounts that come with more management tools, and allow for more user access.

But if you want something that can keep all of your social media profiles, messages, and links in one place, to say nothing of a way to check how your social media posts are doing, you really need to give this program a try.