Linkedin for B2B – part 2

by Sarah Santacroce

In part 1 of this post I showed you how to update your profile in order to get the full benefits of Linkedin. As promised, let’s now look at how you can use your fully optimized profile to network, share content and ultimately generate leads for your business.

Increase your reach – add new connections

Doing business on Linkedin is only worth it, if you actually have people in your network. So from now on, make it a habit to always add new people to your network. People you meet at a networking event, new contacts, former coworkers etc etc.

Share content

In order to showcase your expertise in your industry, take advantage of the options Linkedin offers to distribute content. Maybe you have a content aggregation tool (such as Google Reader) set up. Just pick relevant content that you think would interest your network and share it on Linkedin. I recommend 2 – 3 updates per week. The unspoken rule is 20/80. 20% of your content (blog posts, promotions etc) versus 80% of other informative content.

1. Status updates
   
   
   Similar to Facebook updates, you can share your content on Linkedin. You put a personalized message into the “Share an update” box, then click on the “Attach a link” and paste the link of the blog post or other url you want to share. Linkedin automatically pulls in the information and even creates a little thumbnail for you. If you have a Twitter account, you can click on the box next to the Twitter bird and your update will also be shared on Twitter.
   
   
2. Group discussions
   
   
   You can also take part in group discussions by sharing relevant information directly within the groups.
   Each time someone replies or comments on your content, you will get notified by Linkedin.
   
   
3. Bloglink application
   
   If you write a blog, I recommend you use the Bloglink application ! You can enter your RSS feed and it will then automatically display your latest blog post on your profile.
   
   
4. Events application
   This is a must for every company who hosts offline or online events. Whenever you create a new event, it will not only be displayed on your networks’ newsfeed, but also be registered in the event directory where other people can see it.

Get your content shared

LinkedIn Buttons

Just like Facebook’s “Like” button and Twitter’s “Tweet” button, Linkedin has a “Share on Linkedin” button. If you have a professional blog, grab the code and paste it after every post in order to increase the sharing of your content. Click here to get the HTML code.

Network and get new leads with groups

1. Become a Member of an existing group
   Do some research on the available groups and locate the ones that are most aligned with your company's products, services, experience and industry. And join them!
   
   
2. Participate actively in the group
   Share your insight and experience in the ongoing discussions to benefit the community in an unselfish way. Be honest and trustworthy with your advice and conversation. Every now and then share your own content (blog posts, links to your website, white papers etc), always remembering the 20/80 % rule.
   
   
3. Create new relationships and take advantage of inbound marketing
   Becoming an active member within LinkedIn Groups will naturally attract people to your side. By sharing your knowledge and expertise with your group members you will be successful in acquiring recognition for thought-leadership in your field. This will organically lead to increased inbound marketing, meaning more people searching for you, instead of you chasing after them.
   
   
4. Take advantage of InMail option with Groups
   One of the best bonus features of Groups is that you can send InMail to group members without having to upgrade to a premium account. If you share a group with a person, you can send them a personal message (InMail) and ask them to connect or get in touch by phone or whatever else you wish.
   
   I’ll give you an example of how this can be useful (I have actually done this for a client, so I know it works): you are registered at a big convention or some kind of offline event. Rather than just hope for some successful networking, prepare in advance and get access to the attendee list from the organizer. Once you have the names, spend some time on Linkedin and see who you share a group with. Now send them a friendly message, introducing yourself and inviting them to connect for a quick chat at the upcoming event. Social Media networking, followed-up by a real-life meeting :-)
   
   
5. Create your own group
   If you don’t find an existing group that suits your needs you can also create your own group. You can directly communicate with your group members, send them weekly messages, feed in your blog and much more. Read this article on 10 reasons to start a Linkedin group from Lewis Howes.

Answer Questions

Answering industry related questions is yet another option to show your expertise to the Linkedin Community. Each time you answer a question, your entire network will be notified on their newsfeed. Questions are organized into categories and each category has it’s own RSS feed. I recommend you subscribe to the categories which are relevant for your business and receive daily questions directly in your favorite feed reader (Google reader for example).

Referrals

How many new customers do you get by word of mouth referrals ? I bet it’s quite a big number.
Every time you get a new referral it will show up on your whole network’s news feed ! For more information about referrals read this post by Jeanne Hopkins: 3 Strategies to get more sales referrals with Linkedin.

Linkedin DirectAds

Last but not least there are Linkedin’s version of Paid Per Click Ads. Linkedin Direct Ads allow you to target ads by industry, company, geography, job function, seniority, gender and age. Ads can appear as a media box, banner ad or text hyperlink. They are pay-per-click or by impressions and can be stopped at any time.

I like them better than Google Ads because they can be very targeted. You can even target just members of a specific group for example.

New feature: Leads

Just this week I received an e-mail from Linkedin, inviting me to test a new feature on Linkedin DirectAds.
Here’s how it works:

1. LinkedIn members who click on your campaign will be shown your ad's landing page with a single-click option to be contacted (see picture above).
2. The profiles of members who choose to be contacted will be shown in your account under the Leads tab.
3. You will be able to send a free follow-up message to them on LinkedIn.

I think this is a great new feature and I will definitely give it a try ! Remember: they are beta testing this, so it might not be available on every account just yet.

So, now it’s your turn ! How do you use Linkedin? Do you have any additional tips and tricks? Please share them in the comments below. Oh, and you find me on Linkedin under: http://www.linkedin.com/in/simplicityadmins

P.S. LinkedIn reached a 100 Million users this Tuesday!!

P.P.S. If you would like to receive this 2-post series about Linkedin for B2B in an easy printable format, just click here, enter your name and e-mail and I will send you the pdf file.

Linkedin for B2B – part 1

by Sarah Santacroce

When people talk about Social Media, they usually mention the BIG 3. Linkedin, besides Facebook and Twitter is part of those 3. With it’s over 90 Million registered users I think it deserves it’s ranking.

In this 2 post series about Linkedin for B2B I will show you how you can implement Linkedin in your overall marketing strategy, increasing brand awareness and augment leads in general. The first post will explain how to optimize your profile and promote it effectively, the second post will focus on content distribution and networking options that are possible with Linkedin Groups.

So let’s get started.

Treat your profile like you treat your website
What do you usually do when you inquire about a new business partner, supplier or customer ? You Google their name, correct ? If this person has a Linkedin profile, it will ALWAYS show up on the first page of the Google search results. Your profile will be the first thing people see, so make sure you make a good first impression.

1. Create a relevant and distinctive tagline for your profile
   This is the title that shows on the very top of your profile, next to your picture. It is important because it defines you. Make sure it contains some of your keywords as it is indexed in Linkedin’s search engine. CFO or VP is not distinctive enough.
   
   
2. Upload a professional photo
   LinkedIn, after all, is a social networking channel. So add as many personal touches as possible to maximize engagement and put a face to the brand. Remember, it is not Facebook, so no pictures with funny hats, your pet or your kids in the background.
   
   
3. Create link love to your websites
   In the “websites” section you can include relevant URLs in your profile, and use links with anchor text. For example, instead of “My Website,” use a keyword to describe it such as “Small Business Mktg Solutions.” (see image).
   
   
   
   You can also link to your product or service brochure for example. Just click on “Edit”, then on the dropdown menu choose “Other”. You can then define your own text and simply paste the url to your brochure or any other landing page of your website.
   
   
   
   
4. Develop your 30 second elevator speech in your Profile Summary
   What do you say when someone asks you “So what do you do?” at a networking event. The answer goes in the Profile Summary. Nicely packaged and easily digestible :-) I broke mine into different paragraphs so it’s easier on the eye.
   
   
5. Showcase your best skills and ignite the SEO potency of your Profile using the “specialties” section
   Very important section again, because these skills are indexed in Linkedin’s search engine.
   
   
6. Customize profile url
   
   Make sure you create a vanity url for your public profile by clicking on the “Edit” button and giving it the name you wish. It will be much easier to remember and share than the long string of numbers that Linkedin gives you by default.
   
7. Leverage Third-Party Applications
   Last but not least you can add applications to your profile. My favorite three are the following:

• Bloglink: automatically display your latest blog posts
• Boxnet: Add links to files like resumes and marketing kits
• Slideshare: Share business presentations and demos with your network

I will talk about these apps more in part 2 when I we get into the content distribution.

Promote Your Profile
In order to expand your network, LinkedIn marketing efforts – like anything else – must be promoted in other channels. Include a link to your profile on your website and blog, in individual blog posts, in email signatures, on your brochures and even on business cards.

So now that you have updated your profile, you are ready to add new connections, share content, join groups and take full advantage of all the possibilities that Linkedin has to offer. I will talk about them in my next post, so subscribe to my RSS feed or come back next week :-)

Btw, you can find me on Linkedin under http://www.linkedin.com/in/simplicityadmins

And the winner is ...

First of all thank you to those who participated in the International Women’s Day Activity !
I hope you had a good day yesterday, there was quite some events (online and offline) to honor women (entrepreneurs or not) around the globe.

Now, as promised there is one lucky woman who will get a complete Linkedin Profile Makeover. Drum roll please ! The winner is…

Claudia Amendola from MT Virtual Assistant !

Congratulations, Claudia ! I will contact you to get started…

And for all the other ladies out there, here’s a video for you to keep the party going :-)
(via my good friend Cristina !)

P.S. Next post will be including my male readers again too !!!

International Women's Day activity

by Sarah Santacroce

Update: I changed the activity because of Facebook's promotion rules. Please no longer post your links on my wall, but directly here in the comments of this post. The winner will be announced here too (previous participants will obviously still take part in the drawing). Thank you for your understanding - Sarah

In order to celebrate the international women’s day on March 8th and mark the economic, political and social achievements of women, I encourage you to participate in the following activity:

• starting today (Feb 21st) and until March 8th 2011, if you are a women entrepreneur, a mompreneur or run a mainly women owned business, feature your business in the comments below . You can include a short description and a link to your Facebook page or website
  
• on March 9th, I will draw one lucky winner (with random.org) who will receive a Linkedin Profile Makeover which will help you drive more traffic to your website and increase your future sales.

So, don’t be shy ! Come on over to my wall and promote your business ! Women power !

Check out the IWD 2011 website for events in your region. P.S. Did you know that in China, Russia, Vietnam and Bulgaria International women’s day is a national holiday ?

P.S. To my male readers: I hope you won’t be mad that you are not included in the game this round. I’ll make sure to think of something else where boys get to play too :-)

Call to action

by Sarah Santacroce

Every website should have a call to action, a response you want users to complete. What do you want the visitors on your website to do ? Should they

• download your free e-book and get added to your e-mail list?
• download your brochure?
• subscribe to your newsletter?
• register for a webinar?
• buy your product?
• donate money for a good cause?
• book a free call with you or one of your representatives?
• what else?

Once you have defined the action that you want your visitor to take, you will have to think about how to encourage the users to act. Here are a few ideas:

1. Action words
   
   A call to action should clearly tell users what you want them to do. They should include active words such as:
   
   
   • Download
   • Subscribe
   • Register
   • Buy
   • Donate
   • Call

   All of those get the users attention and encourage them to take an action.

2. Sense of urgency
   
   To create a sense of urgency and a need to act now, words like these can be used:
   
   
   • Now
   • Order now and receive a free gift
   • For a short time only
   • Immediately
     
     
3. Location
   
   Location is important for the call-to-action. The right side of your website’s header is a good place, or anywhere else above the fold, so visitors see it without having to scroll down.
   
   
4. Presentation
   
   Use images – Images or buttons get people’s attention because our eyes are naturally drawn to images rather than text first.
   
   Choose contrasting colors – Use a color that contrasts with your main colors for maximum effect.
   
   Use white space – The more space around a call-to-action, the more attention is drawn to it. If you surround it by too much content, it gets lost in the jungle.

Track your success

Last but not least you will want to track your results. You want to be able to measure how successful your new call-to-action is. If your call is related to an e-mail registration, a product sale or a registration for a webinar, this is pretty simple. You can just look at those statistics. But if you just want your customer to download your brochure or watch your video for example, I suggest you use the Goal Settings of Google Analytics. You can define your goal (for example the “download complete” page) and Google analytics will then measure how many users get to that specific page.

Some good examples

Firefox

Firefox has a nicely designed button, in a contrasting color. It is clear that they want you to download their browser.

Dropbox

It couldn’t be more simple. An empty page with just two things: a video and a download button. Any questions ?

Mailchimp

Mailchimp is also a great example. It is pretty obvious that they want you to sign up to their free e-mail marketing plan.

Do you have an example of a creative call-to-action ? Or do you have a question ? Share it in the comments below.

Facebook pages for small businesses

by Sarah Santacroce

If you haven’t been living under a rock, you have probably heard that everybody is talking about Social Media. Especially Facebook. So what is all the buzz about ? And how is it relevant to you, small business owner ?

Being myself the owner of a small business, let me give some insight about these famous Facebook pages and how I think they can benefit your business.

Why a Facebook Business Page ?

A ) It’s free
And not many things are, so why not take advantage of it ?

B) Huge audience
Facebook is expanding day by day. Here are some statistics from their website:

*Due to hit 600 million subscribers end of 2010

*More than 250 million active users, half of them log on at least once each day

*More than two-thirds of Facebook users are outside of university

*The fastest growing demographic are individuals 35 years old and older

*More than 8 million users become fans of pages daily

*70 percent of Facebook users are outside the United States

C) Optimized Search Results
Google and other search engines find and list your page. Even better is when you have more than 25 fans, you are allowed to customize the web address of your page. Instead of Facebook.com/and a long string of numbers and letters you can have www.facebook.com/yourcompanyname

D) Increased traffic to your website
On your Facebook page you will promote your website, post your blog posts and showcase your testimonials. This will automatically increase the traffic to your website and…

E) increase your sales
If you utilize your page the right way, you will increase your sales. This will not happen over night, since you will first have to establish a partnership and gain the trust of your fans. But in the long run, if they happen to need the services/products you offer, they will know you as the expert and come to you in the first place.

How can I measure my return on investment ?

True thing, Facebook does take quite some time to maintain. If you want your fans to interact and socialize on your page, you need to deliver daily updates, quotes, videos, articles, interesting facts etc. But will this time you invest be worth it in the end ? Below are two tools which help you to find answers to that question.

1. Facebook stats

Facebook will send you a weekly update with your Facebook statistics. In it you can see how many active users you have, how many weekly visits and how many additional “likes” you got that week. This basically shows you how popular your page is and let’s you adapt the style of your updates.

2. Google analytics

In your Google Analytics account you will find valid information on how many people come from Facebook to visit your website. In order to measure if they actually buy your product, you will have to set up a goal with your analytics account.

When preparing for this post, I asked the people in my network what they would like to know with regards to this subject. Here are a couple of questions I got:

Questions:

1. If I have a Facebook page, do I still need a website ?
2. I already have a Facebook personal profile, can I use that for my business ?
3. Is there a way that my clients can order directly through the Facebook page ?
4. I don’t know what to post on my page, can you give me some ideas ?
   

Answers:

1. In my opinion it’s still better to have a website. The site is where your clients find all the information about your business, your services and products. Facebook is just a door opener for your page, a way to bring clients to your website. However, if you feel confident that your main target public hangs out only on Facebook, you could probably get away with just the Facebook page. See also my response to Question 3 concerning a store front directly on your FB page.
   
   
2. I advise against using your personal profile for business purposes. The personal profile is to connect with your friends, share photos and experiences. But I would keep that separate from your business page. That doesn’t mean that you cannot share some personal info on the business page, but you will be more selective on what you share.
   
   
3. Someone asked me if there is a way to have a “store front” directly on your page, where clients can order and pay for your products and services, without ever leaving Facebook. Yes, there is. I have never actually used it myself, but I recommend you check out the Payvment application. Read this review for more information.
   
   
4. There are many things you can post on your wall. Here are some examples:
   
   - pictures of your products
   - pictures of your store front
   - quotes
   - interesting facts
   - links to your blog posts
   - polls
   - videos that you find interesting and relevant
   - questions and answers
   - discounts
   - etc. etc.
   
   Don’t forget that there are also many applications you can use to enhance the engagement on your page. Read this post on Social @ Blogging Tracker on how to increase engagement through applications.

If you have other questions, please leave me a comment below and I’ll be happy to answer. You can also e-mail me at sarah@simplicityadmins.com

I hope I supplied some valuable info on the benefits of a Facebook page.
I am not saying that every small business has to have a Facebook page. It does help in terms of the Search Engine Optimization, but it all depends on your target clientele. If your target public are other businesses, you might want to invest more time on Linkedin.

I’d be honored if you joined the discussion on my own page at http://www.facebook.com/Simplicityadmins. I’m looking forward to connecting with you !

Content Repurposing

by Sarah Santacroce

Content is king! That’s nothing new. In order to gain online visibility you have to create content. Every Online Marketer will recommend you create a blog and submit regular blog posts.

But that’s just the start. Since you have already invested the time in writing these blog posts, why not use that content and distribute it on other online channels ? This tactic has numerous benefits, here are just a few:

• brings traffic to your website
• creates back links (SEO)
• shows your expertise
• increases your audience outreach

To give you an example, let me tell you what I do after I have submitted a new blog post which I think is worth distributing on other channels

1. Submit it on Ezinearticles
   Ezinearticles is by far the best article bank out there. It is a great option to increase your SEO, since it let’s you create an author “resource box”, basically a short bio, with clickable links to your website. You will have to tweak your post a bit, since Ezinearticles does only allow a certain number of the same keywords and no links above the fold.
   
   
2. Submit it to Scribd and Slideshare
   After you have created a nice, clean pdf document (don’t forget to add your company details in the footer) you can upload it to different content sharing sites such as Scribd and Slideshare. I like those two because they are easy to use, and Slideshare can be linked to Linkedin so you can display your documents on your profile.

   If you create a series of articles, you can even create a small e-book and offer it for free on your website in order to build your list. Zinepal is one of the tools that simplifies that process for you.

3. Create a Autoresponder for your e-mail marketing list
   Sometimes, but not for each and every blog post, I let my subscribers know that I’ve just posted a new article or even send it to them in a pdf document.
   
   And here is what I don’t do, but know I should be doing :-)
   
   
4. Translate your content into another language
   If you work in a multilingual country like me, it also makes sense to translate your content into the other national language. Of course this costs either time or money, depending on whether you do it yourself or outsource it. That’s the reason why I usually just leave my content in English. But if you have the budget, a translation definitely makes sense since you increase your audience tremendously.
   
   
5. Create videos and submit them to Youtube or Tubemogul.
   If you are not camera shy, videos are definitely the way to go. Youtube is highly ranked in Google and video content really increases your chances of showing up on the first two pages.
   

Now it’s your turn. What other channels do you use to submit your content ? Please share your ideas in the comments below.