5 reasons to start your Social Media campaign in November

You’ve probably been thinking, I must get the business in good shape on Social Media. My competitors seem to be using it, maybe they’re winning business that I’m not even seeing? But I just don’t have the time (or resources, or knowledge etc etc). You’ll find below 5 reasons why now is a great time to commission a Social Media campaign. Plus several indications of why you can no longer afford to let your competitors have free rein in this increasingly important business development channel.And finally, an opportunity that will save you money and allow you to relax on your holidays, knowing that your business is continuing to market itself. 1) Events, Events,Events Coming up to Christmas there are an increasing number of events you’re likely to be attending. The Christmas and end-of-year party invitations will be coming through thick and fast. Although, I’m finding nowadays they are being held earlier and earlier, often in November! And business networking events are still in full flow. Check out this innovative Pintertest display (http://pinterest.com/richardc02/sydney-biz-events-november-2012/) showing over 50 business networking events being held in Sydney during November alone! But what about all those new contacts you make at these events. Social Media is absolutely the best way to keep in contact with them. And you want to be certain both your personal profiles and business pages are looking their best when these new contacts check you out. 2) Get Off To A Flying Start in 2013 Developing business opportunities through social media is becoming an ever increasing part of the marketing campaigns for nearly all businesses. There is even a name for this process - Social Business Development. Is your business geared up to take advantage of this new channel for sales growth? You need an established Social Media presence to exploit this new channel. So make sure you have one as business starts to take off again in the new year. Don’t let your competitors leave you behind. 3) Google Doesn’t Take Holidays (nor do Yahoo & Bing) The Internet has enabled business to continue everywhere, every day, 24 hours a day. The search engines will continue to monitor your business activity, even on Christmas Day. Social Media is the most efficient way to let search engines know you’re still around and to maintain your search rankings (or even increase them, if your competitors are out of the loop for two weeks or more). Even the Australian economy isn’t as vibrant as many of us would like. So it’s a sure bet that, at least, a proportion of your clients will be cutting back on holidays this year. Make sure you’re keeping in contact with them through an established Social Media campaign (even when you’re having a well deserved break yourself). 4) Make The Quieter Times Work For You Does your business just tread water over the Christmas and New Year period? Don’t let that happen any more. A Social Media campaign will continue developing business opportunities, even when you’re not working. Online connections will continue to be developed. Content will be published. Your other business marketing activities will continue to be supported. Many businesses find that their clients and prospects actually spend more time on Social Media services during the Christmas and New Year period. Being active yourself is a great way to keep your business visible, without interrupting anybody. 5) Four Months For The Price Of Three Here's a great opportunity. Move ahead with our Social Media campaign package in November and we’ll run the campaign for 4 months (a savings of $490). This package will equip your business with the following Social Media resources : LinkedIn Company Page; Facebook Company Page; Google+ Company Page; Twitter Account. Regular content will be generated on all these channels over a four month period. We’ll work closely with you to build a relevant online community for your business. As well as helping you to supercharge your business networking with Social Media. And we’ll ensure the campaign is fully integrated with your other marketing activities. By the new year your business will have a new very well established and very effective business development channel. Ready to start growing your business through Social Media? Contact Richard Carter of Business Connection Resources: Phone: (02) 9956 2999, Email: richardc@business-connections.com.au LinkedIn http://au.linkedin.com/in/businessconnections

Picture Acknowledgement: Search Engine Marketing  by Danard Vincente

Key Habits of Super Networkers by Lewis Howes

The seven key habits highlighted by Lewis are:

1. Ask insightful questions.
2. Add value.
3. Learn their 'story.'
4. Share a memorable fact.
5. Keep a list.
6. Make small promises and keep them.
7. Reward your 'power' contacts.

These are some really valuable pointers on networking. You can read the Full Article at: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/224819

We no longer want to rely on having people in the room with us – social media has shown us how to find similar people in any location - Forbes article.

"The idea of quality in relationships is not new. But what is truly exciting is to hear folks now talking about utilizing social in their ability to influence and interact with a smaller, but more rewarding group of people"

Full Article: Why Social Media Has Peaked and Needs a 'Sonny Corleone'-Style Demise

Networking - one of 10 mental traits of truly innovative leaders

"Whether they are naturally outgoing or not, innovative thinkers tend to be really good about meeting people, especially those they have little in common with. They see the value in knowing lots of people with different backgrounds and experiences"

Full Article:  10 mental traits of truly innovative leaders

New LinkedIn Endorsement Feature

LinkedIn have just added a new Endorsement feature for profiles. This feature allows you to endorse the specific skills (or expertise) of your connections with a single click of the mouse.

How can you utilise this new feature?

There are three options:

A) When you go to a connection's LinkedIn profile, you may be prompted to make an endorsement through a new section which is displayed at the top of that profile. It will be similar to this one:

You can delete any skills you're not in a position to endorse. Or even type in a skill you would like to add to the selection shown. (My experience so far is that this section does not always display the most appropriate skills for the person concerned.)

Just click the “Endorse” button to confirm your endorsement.

B) Once you have made an endorsement as described in A) above, you are often also offered the chance to make additional endorsements, to other LinkedIn connections, through a panel like this:

Just click the appropriate “Endorse” button to confirm endorsements. (Once again, the most appropriate skills do not always appear to be displayed in this section and you can only endorse the single skill displayed.)

C) In my opinion, the most effective way to make endorsements is to scroll down a profile to the actual “Skills & Expertise” section. Then select the specific skills you would like to endorse. This section now looks like this (with or without the prompt from LinkedIn):

Simply click on the cross adjacent to the skills you wish to endorse.

Once you have endorsed a skill, your picture is shown on that person's profile, alongside the endorsed skill.

What do you need to do to take advantage of this new feature?

Make sure you have added the “Skills & Expertise” section to your LinkedIn profile. If not, you can add this section via the “Add sections” tab available when you select the “Edit Profile” option.

Also, ensure that your most pertinent skills are listed first in the “Skills & Expertise” section. So that they are easy for people to select. Although from what I have seen so far, it appears that LinkedIn is automatically re-ordering the “Skills & Expertise” section to reflect the number of endorsements received.

How significant will this new feature become?

It's hard to tell how widely accepted the LinkedIn Endorsements feature will become at this stage. But it is certainly a nice way to acknowledge the business capabilities of those with whom you work most closely.

Using Social Media To Build B2B Relationships

In a recent interview, Tom Skotidas was spot on with his assessment of an important difference between the Business-To-Consumer (B2C) and Business-To-Business (B2B) markets.

Do you want to use LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook to help develop B2B opportunities? Then, as Tom says, you must aim towards eventually creating real world business relationships.

You can do this by first establishing visibility through a regular stream of activity associated with your on-line presence. And then by looking for opportunities to engineer face-to-face meetings.

Once you have the required visibility, you'll be in a position to suggest the following to your on-line contacts:

• Attending a meeting of your favourite business group
• Joining a get-together you're organising at an industry conference
• Coming along to a business social event
• Or, maybe even having a one-on-one meeting

But these tactics will only be effective AFTER you have established a reasonable degree of visibility on-line.

You can see the full Sky Business News interview with Tom Skotidas right here:

The Ultimate Networking Accessory

Coming soon to an optician near you!

Imagine walking into a business event and being able to see each person's written profile projected alongside them. This is NOT science fiction. Right now "smart" contact lenses are in the process of being developed.

The scenario painted above will use facial recognition technology to identify other people in the room. Pull down their profile information from the Internet. Then project it into your eyes. All done via your contact lens. (I always knew I'd find a benefit of being short sighted sooner or later!)

This type of capability may take 20 years to come about, or it may be a lot nearer than you think. Either way you had better get your on-line profiles looking good. You never know who or how somebody might be looking at them.

See the Economist's video about smart contact lenses directly above or for the full article click here.