I won’t really be spending any time over here on this blog as my LinkedIn Influencer posts are where my action seems to be. I’d love it if you followed me over there and left your great comments.  http://www.linkedin.com/influencer/bluebanana20. 

See you there

Communicating with a computer via email, newsletter, or any of the social sites, we still need to convey our personality, our humility and our authenticity just as we do in a face-to-face conversation.  Without facial expression, eyes to read and tone of voice to listen to, we could be in danger that the receiver of our message reads something quite different to what we actually want them to read.

There is also the time delay to consider, particularly when posting in forums and discussion boards and so a conversation may take place over several hours or even days.

So how can we put some real etiquette in place so that we don’t mess it up and give the wrong impression about ourselves when we network and connect with others online?

• Do use a greeting and sign off with your name included.
• Follow Dale Carnegie’s advice and always use the other persons’ name when addressing them.
• Don’t use all capital letters; it’s the digital equivalent of shouting at someone.
• Respond to connection requests with a brief “nice to meet you” message just as you would if meeting someone offline.
• Do get back to those that have made the effort to reach out to you digitally. You wouldn’t ignore them in person.
• Watch your spelling and grammar. It really is your digital body language so make it top notch.
• Avoid lots of exclamation marks, they can make you look angry !!!!!
• Use the smiley face icons to help the reader understand your tone if appropriate.

Your body language can say so many things that words simply can’t, and in the online world with the absence of visibility, others will form impressions of you that may not be true of whom you really are.

Have I missed any? Feel free to add them in the comments below.

I know heaps about Facebook, after all, it’s my job to, so if I go to a workshop and come away with some great action points, it’s definitely been worth my time and investment.

So I want to share with you just a few of the snippets I picked up, some of which you may already know, and some of which will be news to you too. They are in no particular order so here goes:

1. 3.5 billion posts and likes daily from 1 billion users
2. Edge-rank does not exist – that’s a biggy and may shock you. Yes there is an algorithm, but no edge-rank.
3. You are allowed to use product placement on your cover photo so think about your book, your widget etc. but definitely no call to action or contact details.
4. The eyes love white space and primary colours so keep this in mind when you create ads and images.
5. Facebook offers are a great way to be seen by a wider audience cheaply. You only pay for those clicks that “claim” your offer, not for their friends that see they have claimed it. Very cool.
6. Custom audiences are available now.
7. 77% of those answering your questions on your page are not your fans, but friends of fans. Ask more questions!
8. Work for 25% PTAT engagement or higher (people that are talking about this)
9. You need 5000 likes to get post targeting.
10. You can change your page name if you have fewer than 100 fans.
11. You need 400 fans to use promoted posts.
12. The average ad click through rate (CTR) on ads is only 0.14.

Nick talked a lot about the importance of sharing, and working on getting your own content shared, which is something we will see a lot more of in the near future. Something big is definitely coming; I just don’t know what it is and Nick wouldn’t spill the beans as he has been sworn to secrecy. If anyone has any ideas what is could be, let’s hear your thoughts below.

Linda Coles is the author of “Learn marketing with social media in 7 days” (Wiley) and is a speaker and trainer on building relationships. She lives in New Zealand on a fig orchard. You can get a free sample of a chapter of her book by registering for her newsletter.

Being in search of serendipity is definitely a contradiction in terms, but you can give the serendipity gods a bit of a shove in the right direction.

There is an accountancy firm in town that has a rule about where their employees can and can’t eat their lunch. No one is allowed to eat at their own desk, they must make the effort to either sit in the lunchroom, or go out, and this is for a very simple reason. You won’t meet anyone new sat at your desk eating!

Everyone wants new clients right? So this firm has simply made it policy that everyone knows someone who uses an accountant, so why not make use of each and every team member to get their brand name out there and be talked about when possible?  That doesn’t mean you can go into sales mode at every opportunity, that’s just not cool, but engaging in a conversation with a stranger will very often lead round to “what do you do?”

Some simple areas to create difference:

• Go to a different coffee shop each day and take note of the people in there, you may recognize    someone you once knew or would like to know.
• Park on a different street occasionally
• Get your gas from a different filling station
• Stand at a different place on the sideline this weekend
• Try a different take-away restaurant this Friday night

All of these are very simple things to put into place to heighten your chances of seeing something or someone new. Putting yourself in different situations and dropping seemingly irrelevant things into the conversation can have a profound effect on the outcome if the serendipity gods are all lined up and ready to make things work out. If you don’t first give them the ammunition to work with, it’s never going to happen.

What can you change in your routine to stumble onto conversations with new people?

Linda Coles is the author of “Learn marketing with social media in 7 days” (Wiley) and is a speaker and trainer on building relationships. She lives in New Zealand on a fig orchard.

LinkedIn Endorsements are now live across the United States, India, Australia and New Zealand, and rolling out to everyone else over the coming weeks.

Read the rest of this article on Social Media Examiner

(Sorry to do that, but it’s part of my agreement not to post)

Your business has it’s own window display, whether it’s a physical window, an online window, or simply the areas on display when someone visits the premises and so particular care needs to be taken about what first impressions you are offering.

We continually “eat with our eyes”, buy from those we like given the chance, and value a recommendation to use a particular service or product that meets our needs so we don’t get it wrong. So why then, do some businesses carry on as though no one will notice if things on display perhaps shouldn’t be on display?

I have been going to a new coffee shop over the last few weekends because I like a particular product they sell and until my latest visit, was quite happy. So what changed?

Their dirty “clean” laundry was on display for all to see hanging from the ceiling on a rack, which is certainly not conducive with eating nice food in a pleasant café.

It’s not about using a better washing detergent, it’s about managing my impression of the premises, and keeping the “dirty” laundry away from customers that will pay with their feet and worse, maybe tell their friends too.

Take a good look around your business premises with fresh eyes. Have you got any” dirty laundry” on display that you’d rather wasn’t?

We are all pretty much up with the play with our Facebook privacy settings, but have you thought about what privacy settings you should be using on your LinkedIn profile if any?

Consider looking at making some privacy changes if you are:

• A job seeker who is still employed
• Recruiting “under the radar”
• Someone who wants to keep their connections private
• Unsure what options are available to you
• Simply a very private person

What can you do?

By clicking the SETTINGS link, which is at the top right of your LinkedIn page under your name, you will find the options open to you.

These are the choices of privacy settings that are open to you. Let’s look at what they mean and how to control them:

• Turn on / off your activity broadcasts. Each time you make a change to your profile such as edit your current position, if this option is turned on, everyone you are directly connected to i.e. your 1^st degree connections, will all be notified via an alert sent to their home page. This alert is also triggered when you make a recommendation, or follow a company, and will also be shared in your own activity feed.

If you are a job seeker, then you may want to turn this off, you don’t want your boss to see you perfecting your LinkedIn profile in interview preparation and following your business’ competition.

• Select who can see your activity feed. This can be customized so that anything that appears in your activity feed is only seen by just yourself, your 1^st degree connections, your greater network or absolutely everyone. Again, if you are a job seeker, then select just yourself.

• Select what others see when you’ve viewed their profile. If you are looking at others’ profiles for maybe pre interview intelligence, or if you are actively recruiting a position, you may feel comfortable letting that person who’s profile you have viewed know that you have been by. If you wish to remain incognito, then you can choose to simply be known as “someone in your industry and title”, or completely anonymous with “anonymous user”.

Even if you have the premium account, you won’t be able to see any more information about someone if they have chosen to limit their privacy settings.

• Select who can see your connections. Only people in your 1^st degree will be able to see your connections, no one else, and some industries, particularly recruitment, seem to keep them locked down, out of the prying eyes of the competition with the thought that others will see their client base.  I wish all of my connections were clients if that is the case!

Again, the choice is yours whether you keep them on display for your connections to see. If you do choose to hide them, any shared connections you have with this person, will still be on view as LinkedIn figures you both know that person, so it doesn’t matter.

• Change your profile photo and visibility. You can set this so that your photo is visible to your 1^st degree connections, your greater network or open to everyone.

If you don’t want others to see your picture, then set it to connections only. It is important to have an up to date photo on your LinkedIn profile as you are several times more likely to show up in search results with a complete profile, so if you are looking to expand your business or be recruited, this is a must.

• Viewers of this profile also viewed. If you don’t want people to go snooping around looking at your competition, or recruiters looking at the rest of your team, then this is something you may want to turn off. As a professional speaker, I don’t want to advertise on my page who others have looked at and give them any ideas.

Once this is turned off, you can’t see who you are being compared to either, so decide on what is important to you.

No matter what your reason is for making an adjustment to your privacy settings, it’s better to have the knowledge to make the right decision than find out the hard way if you show something you wish you hadn’t.

Have you considered your LinkedIn privacy settings? Will you make any changes after reading this article?

Join us for lunch at Euro bar and restaurant in the private dining room on Friday September 28th on Auckland’s viaduct and hear the warts and all story of how Annah Stretton started in business and got to where she is today.

Tickets are limited to only 16 so grab one while they are still available here http://howigrewitsept.eventbrite.co.nz/

The feedback from the last event was very good, great speaker, great food and great company!

Come and enjoy, and be inspired at the same time.

Photo from Annah’s website

The new LinkedIn profile look hit me today so I thought I would quickly point out the changes and how they make an impact on you. The main things to note are:

• Your contact details are hidden away making the whole area much smaller.
• Your employment history is condensed
• Your image is bigger so make sure it’s a good one.

Your contact details might be hidden away, but with the new layout, it pulls up the extra information such as your address and anything else you have in this area, making it more visible. This previously sat at the bottom of most peoples page.

This means that everything has moved up quite a bit making your summary even more important as it’s so much closer to the top of the page now or “above the fold”, so spend some time and focus on getting your summary reading well.

I like the new look, what do you think?