3 Ways To Get More Clients On LinkedIn (For Less Than 15 Minutes A Day)

There are many ways to use LinkedIn to make valuable connections and attract your ideal clients. These 3 that are pretty easy to implement, and when you get into a groove, will take you less than 15 minutes a day. I use them everyday to grow my list, connect with potential clients and develop relationship with possible JV partners.

1. Jazz Up Your Profile
To edit your profile, roll over "Profile" on the top nav and choose "edit profile".

• A mistake I often see people make is a less-than-interesting title under their names. "Holistic Health Coach" doesn't really tell me much.
• To create a title with a punch, think about the benefits your products and services deliver to your ideal clients, and craft a title reflecting them. This title appears next to your name when you post something in a group where your target market use - your ideal clients will be seeing your post and your title... you want to grab their attention so they will check you out.
• Add a high-quality photo that reflects your brand and how you want to be perceived. A stiff headshot may work well for an accountant, but as a health and wellness coach/practitioner you may want to add a little warmth (smile!) and a personal touch to the photo. People want to know the face of the person they are (or potentially will be) "doing business" with, so you want a professional-looking photo that communicate a message of "you are serious about your business".
• Make sure the file size of the photo is large enough that it doesn't look blurry. You want to crop it in such as way that people can actually see your face - if you show the entire length of your body, nobody can tell what you look like!
• In the summary section, be succinct and tell people what you do - your elevator speech would be a good place to start. Include relevant links back to your website, and you can also mention your list-building free offer.
• If you have a short PDF (e.g. a brochure, your "manifesto") you can upload the link in the field toward the end of this section as well.

2. Share & Participate
You can share updates, ideas, and links back to your website (e.g. your blog posts) on your timeline update and in groups. If you have social share buttons on your website (e.g. Sexy Bookmark for WP), you can use the LinkedIn button and share a link on both your timeline and in your group within a few clicks. (You can even link it with twitter!)

When someone joins a group, she can choose to receive a "digest" on all the posts at a certain interval via email. In some groups these digests can get pretty "crowded". To get more attention and click-throughs, try these:

• Write a benefit-oriented, catchy subject line for your post. "new blog post on weight loss" sounds kinda blah. How about "Get Ready For the Yellow Polka Dot Bikini - How To Lose 10 Pounds in 2 Weeks Without Giving Up Chocolate"?
• Strategically (and sparingly) use all caps and symbols to draw the eye. E.g. {{ FREE Download }} Special Report On How To Lose 10 Pounds in 2 Weeks Without Giving Up Chocolate.
• Spend a few minutes each day looking through your digest emails and see if you want to chime in on a couple of discussions. Participating in groups will make you friends, connections and earn your some clout.
• As a list-building strategy, post your free opt-in - and post it multiple times. Not everyone will see all the posts, so you want to catch them at different times. Don't be shy... on average, people need to be exposed to a "promotional" message 7 times before taking action!
• When you receive the "digests" via email, note the days of the week (e.g. Sunday) that they tend to be less crowded. Time your high-stake juicy posts to appear in the digests on those days to get more attention. (You need to test and look at your analytics to find out what works. The possible downside of appearing in a weekend digest is that people may get the Monday email overwhelm and delete without reading.)
• Bonus point: participate in LinkedIn Q&A to further establish your expert status.

3. Don't Just "Add", Connect!
Get "social" with your social media activities! Don't just add people to your network. When you accept someone's invite, or someone accepts your invitation to connect, check out her profile.

• Could she be a potential client? Send a message with a paragraph or two introducing yourself - e.g. include a variation of your elevator speech, make your message more personal if you can glean any information from her profile, and invite her to check out your resource (e.g. blog posts) or opt-in free gift. You can keep a generic message you can cut-and-paste handy, so all you need to do is to tweak a couple of things, add a name and hit send.
• Could she be a possible JV partner? A good candidate for a JV relationship can be someone who shares your target market but not in your exact area of expertise. Your products and services can complement her offerings, and vice versa. Check out her profile and her updates to see if it's a good fit. You may want to "follow" this person for a while so you have a good understanding of her approach. When you feel you have an idea of how this relationship could look like and how you can support her, send her a message that is a more in-depth than "nice to meet you" to share your thoughts and highlight "what's in it for her".

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/8002963

Social Media Is Changing How We Do Business... Are You Ready?

It’s not unheard of for an SME business owner when asked who manages their social media to reply, “One of the team”. Often, that management of social sites is secondary to the role the team member was hired for e.g. sales or customer service.

When the company is larger with a bigger customer base the thinking is generally different. The company may have an IT department, Marketing department and someone tasked specifically to manage social sites. While the larger company appears to take social media more seriously by dedicating resources to it, it may not be enough.

Lack of Cohesion

This was the case with a company I worked with recently. Having done my research before meeting them, I could see they had a huge campaign going on with daily winners winning substantial prizes. Each day the names of winners were uploaded onto the company website but nothing was mentioned on their social sites, and given they had over 40,000 Fans on their Facebook page, who could have been doing a lot of talking and sharing about those winners, it seemed like a missed opportunity. When I asked about it I was told “I’m not given that information”. Sitting in a room with key members from management, IT, Marketing and their social site manager it was clear a lack of cohesiveness existed between departments.

Fluffy Stuff

Now that’s not unheard of. We know about love/hate relationships in many organisations between technology and marketing departments but one without the other and a company is unlikely to survive. With the recent arrival of social media into the business mix it’s rocked the boat a bit. You’ll find marketing people who think social media sits under IT while IT folks view it as the fluffy stuff with nothing whatsoever to do with them. It’s this lack of cohesiveness that can have a Social Media Manager going it alone as was the case with the company I was doing the consulting with.

Integrate to Success

In the case of the company I recently worked with, the Social Media manager was never invited to marketing meetings, so there was little collaboration on how to promote campaigns using traditional methods as well as Social Media. It meant the marketing department didn’t view their online community of over 40,000+ people as their primary target audience. Make sense? No, it doesn’t and it took sitting in a room with all the relevant people there for this otherwise very forward thinking company to see that. Like many other companies they hadn’t fully grasped the power of integrating social media into their overall marketing goals. By the end of our session together there was a complete turnaround in their thinking.

The Age of the Customer

If the goal is to be successful in what is now becoming known as ‘The Age of the Customer’, businesses need to adapt and the starting point is seeing technology, marketing and social media as deeply entwined.

How To Optimise The Images On Your Business’ Social Media Pages

Images are incredibly important on any social media profile, whether they are the ones you use for profile and cover images, or the ones you share. Last year, more than one third of links shared on Twitter and over half of the posts on the Facebook news feed were images.

 Images are popular because they are eye-catching and instantly gratifying. However, when uploading images, the content is not the only thing that must be considered – you must also think about the file size of the image and its shape.

Here are some ways to optimise the images you display on the five major social media sites: Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest.

 General

 Whatever site you are uploading an image to, make sure that the file name is relevant to the image. So, if the image shows a red dress from your summer collection, call the image summer-dress-red.jpg. Naming your images appropriately will increase the chance of them showing up in the correct image searches.

You’ll notice that I named the image file as a JPEG. There are a number of image files you could use – JPEG, GIF or PNG – but using a JPEG is the best option. JPEG files can be compressed considerably, but still be of decent quality. Use GIF files for thumbnails and never large images. Use PNG files as an alternative to either of the other two.

Most importantly, make sure that all your images are eye-catching and relevant. Post regularly and respond to comments that your images get. Work out what images get the most likes, +1s and shares and when, then figure out the best strategy to take advantage of popular images.

Content that you post on any social media site will appear in the feeds of your friends, followers and connections with a miniature version of your profile picture alongside. Make sure that, even as a thumbnail, your profile picture is easy to make out.

Bear in mind that social media sites are constantly changing, so although the image sizes in this post are accurate (as of 29/05/2013), be sure to double check online.

Facebook


Facebook cover photos are the first thing visitors to your page will see, so make sure that it grabs their attention. The frame for the Facebook cover photo is 815 pixels wide by 315 pixels high. Your profile’s cover image has to be clearly related to your company, and it cannot mislead or infringe on anyone else’s copyright. Covers cannot display more than 20% text and they cannot contain display text asking users to share the image.

The Facebook profile picture overlaps the cover photo close to its bottom, right-hand corner. It is 160 x 160 px, but the image you upload to fill the space must be over 180 x 180 px. I would advise using your company logo as your profile picture, but try to be creative with your cover photo. If you have the time, change it every month or so, or use it to advertise new offers or products you have. Make sure, however, that you follow Facebook’s rules.

Timeline images are displayed at up to 403 x 403 px in the preview, and 960 x 720 px in the lightbox. Images up to 2048 x 2048 px can be uploaded. If an image is 403 pixels wide and 603 pixels wide 200 pixels will be cut from the preview, which would look awful if those 200 pixels are of vital importance. Don’t expect visitors to your page to click on previews if they can’t see the entire image, they are only going to enlarge images that intrigue them.

Google+


Google+ cover photos are significantly larger than their Facebook counterparts, measuring 2120 x 1192 px. When a user visits your page however, they only see the bottom third of the image, having to scroll up to see the rest. You need to make sure that the bottom third of your cover image contains all the necessary details to catch the visitor’s eye.


Current Google+ photos are circular, rather than square, which is great for companies with circular logos as it cuts down on negative space, but not so great for those with square logos. If your company has a square logo, work out how best to fit it into the circular frame.

It is especially important that you optimise the SEO of all the images on your Google+ page, as well as the ones you share, because Google indexes everything on its social media site, making it more likely to appear in Google Search. If a search of your company can take someone to your Google+ page, it gives them the opportunity to engage and interact with you and the images you post.

 Twitter

 Unlike Facebook and Google+, Twitter allows you to create and upload a background onto your profile page. When you create and upload your background page, ensure that all the important content is visible by placing it on the right and left-hand edges, so that it doesn’t get hidden by your stream, navigation bar, uploaded images or header image.

The header image is 520 x 260 px, but be aware that your 81 x 81 px profile image sits pretty much right in the middle – you don’t want your profile image blocking part of your header image, especially if you have put your contact details on there.

 
When you are posting an image on Twitter, there are three different Twitter cards you can use: the Large Image Summary Card features an image prominently, with the corresponding article summary beneath; the Photo Card is ideal if you just want to post a photo; use a Gallery Card for collections of images.

In stream, a tweet with an image will have a tiny photo icon at the bottom, with “View photo” alongside. An image within an expanded tweet is 375 x 375 px, whereas an article preview image is 120 x 120 px. All the images you tweet can be viewed in a picture gallery on your profile.

LinkedIn

Your company’s LinkedIn profile page has a number of tabs with customisable banners across the top. The Home page banner and the Products & Services banner are both 646 x 220 px. Treat your Home page banner like your Facebook or Google+ cover images: use an eye-catching image that is relevant to your company. Be creative with your Products & Services banner. Why not update it regularly with new products or special offers?

The Careers cover photo is slightly larger, 974 x 238 px, giving you even more space to play with. Change the Careers photo every so often to keep your page fresh. All the banners are limited to a 2 MB maximum size.

Pinterest

Of all the social media sites in this list, Pinterest is the most image focused. Pinterest is all about discovering cool and interesting images and pinning them onto your own boards. The better the images you pin to your own boards, the more likely people are to follow you.

 
If you are a company with tangible products, find interesting ways to post them on your boards. You can even add pricing and availability information to products you pin on Pinterest using rich pins.

Images you post on Pinterest can be of any length, but in the preview they have to be 192 px wide. When enlarged, a pin can still be of infinite length, but is limited to 600 px in width. The profile picture frame on Pinterest is 160 x 165 px. Choosing the correct 222 x 150 px cover image for each of your boards is also important – it should either be the most eye-catching on the board, or the one you want more people to pin.

Why You Should Use Twitter As A Customer Service Tool

Twitter, as everyone knows, is a fantastic B2C communication tool, helping companies to connect, engage and interact with their followers and customers. One of the advantages of Twitter’s readily available communications network, is that customers can directly contact companies by including their Twitter handle in tweets.

Companies should always pay attention to the questions and queries mentioning them on Twitter. By monitoring and responding to these questions, a company will improve its reputation on the social media site. The companies that respond to their customers tweets are often well regarded, by customers and the general public alike. Analytics site socialbakers recently released figures showing the top 10 fastest responders to Twitter queries. Halo BCA, the fastest company, has an amazing response time of 3 minutes.

Of course, response speed isn’t everything but, as communication becomes more and more instantaneous, it becomes increasingly important for companies to respond to queries, questions and comments on social media sites as quickly as they can. Here’s how you can use Twitter as a customer service tool.

Respond To Mentions

Try to respond as quickly as you can to comments, questions and queries to do with your company. Monitor and search through the tweets which mention your company on Twitter. Try to respond to all of the questions, even though this may take time. Search Twitter for comments about your company that don’t include your Twitter handle, not everyone will mention you directly if they have a complaint to make, but they will probably appreciate you taking the time to respond.

Of course, you don’t have to respond to all the comments – the ones that are downright offensive, for example – but it’s best to monitor and analyse the sentiments expressed online about your company. Use a tool like Ezeesocial to manage, monitor and respond to all the questions and queries you get on Twitter.

If you run a larger company, it might be worth creating a dedicated customer service Twitter handle – 30% of Fortune 100 companies have a specific customer service Twitter site. A dedicated customer service account can draw attention away from negative comments about your company, as well as helping you manage complaints and queries.

Be Polite

Be personal and polite. Always answer customer queries and complaints with an apology and an offer to help. To make it even more personal, you could use the ^ symbol and include your initials. By doing this, customers will know they are talking to an actual person and not a faceless company. You could also address your customers by their names: check their bio or Twitter handle, their name will often be there.

There are examples on Twitter of employees judging the tone of tweeted queries and changing their response accordingly. For example, telecommunication agency O2 made headlines last year by responding to a customer complaint in London slang. O2 were not only able to help the customer with his problem, they also got a lot of publicity for their brand. Of course, I would generally advise against this approach as it is more likely that you will offend the customer than anything else, but it’s always worth assessing the tone of customer queries and complaints anyway, in order to judge how best to respond.

For that extra personal touch to customer service, you could even follow up the more difficult customer problems a few days or a week later. Just tweet the customer after a week to make sure they aren’t still having problems. Try not to be too invasive, however, and don’t be offended if they don’t respond. Most customers who you help will be happy to compliment you on Twitter, which can really help your reputation.

Always Respond

You should always try to respond to questions, even if you can’t answer them. By acknowledging someone’s query, you ensure that they know that you are listening. If you don’t know the answer, direct

them somewhere they might find it. Of course, it’s always better to try to give them the answer yourself.

If someone has a complaint that can’t really be expressed fully in tweet form, then ask them to direct message you their personal details, privately, so that you can continue the conversation on the phone or via email. A phone conversation is probably the best option: talking to a customer directly is often the fastest way to get a problem sorted. Of course, Twitter is great as the first line of communication, as it takes less time and effort to answer problems on the service.

Be Proactive

You don’t only have to respond to direct customer queries about your company, you can also look for tweeted questions to do with your industry that you can answer. You could even find funny or interesting questions to respond to, if you feel that you could shed some light on the subject.

Make sure your Twitter handle is in an obvious place on your website so that customers know how to get in contact with you. Put recently asked questions and answers in the FAQ section on your website: most people will look through this before turning to Twitter to help. It’s sometimes worth posting these FAQs on Twitter: useful information that might help your followers and customers.

Hopefully, your customers won’t have too many queries or complaints, but in the business world, they are inevitable. Thanks to Twitter, companies now have a platform on which they can communicate quickly and easily with their customers and vice versa. Twitter really is the first line of b2c communication in the modern world of social media.

How do you use Twitter as a customer service tool?