Linking all your social networking profiles is just bad practice. Please don’t do this. I enjoy checking into Foursquare, but I realize that my Twitter followers don’t necessarily care that I’m still the mayor at Bruegger’s Bagels. Don’t link every check-in to Twitter, much less LinkedIn. In the same sense, every tweet shouldn’t automatically be sent to LinkedIn.

And now, LinkedIn has apparently heard the many complaints and has made an adjustment. I was glad to receive this notification from them today…

“Dear Scott,

At LinkedIn, we want to provide a simple and efficient experience for members like you. So from time to time, we take a look at our set of features to evaluate how they’re being used by our members. Part of this process sometimes means we decide to eliminate a feature, so we can better invest those resources in building more great LinkedIn products.

Recently, it was decided that the Tweets application, a LinkedIn feature that you’ve used at some point, will no longer be supported as of January 31, 2012. Starting on that date, you will no longer be able to post recent tweets in a module on your profile or view recent tweets in a separate module on the home page. However, you can still display tweets on your profile by binding your Twitter and LinkedIn accounts and then tweeting with an #in hashtag.

Thank you for your continued support of LinkedIn. If you have additional questions please visit our Help Center.”

This is great because it eliminates useless tweets from LinkedIn feeds. If your tweet merits exposure on LinkedIn, simply include the hashtag, #in. Please, please, please….only include the hashtag if you feel like the tweet will be interesting to LinkedIn users. Think business, professional, informative, helpful…not playful, whimsical or silly.

And by the way, I do think it’s OK to link your Facebook page posts to Twitter, as long as you check Twitter often for replies and RT’s.

Is your head spinning from all this social media linking info? Give me a call with your question at 336-331-2185.

Contact me to learn more.

You can’t read a book and think you have what it takes to become a consultant. Opinion and theory are great, but no match for years of experience and a proven track record of execution and success.

Having said all that…here are a few tips on how to tell if the person calling on you truly knows their stuff.

A snake oil salesperson…

1 - Tweets about themselves and what THEY are doing…constantly.
2 – Uses automated programs like “Top Followed” to grow their list of followers.
3 – Does not re-tweet others and isn’t involved in conversations on Twitter.
3 - Has a Facebook page containing posts with no links, has only been live for a month and only has 20 fans.
4 – Doesn’t have many followers on Twitter. Probably less than 500, or so and doesn’t have a robust FB page.
5 – Doesn’t have a blog on their website, or they haven’t posted on their blog in 2 months.
6 - Can’t provide success stories, testimonials or share any case studies of their work.

The snake oil salesperson is out there and on the prowl. Don’t get led down the primrose path. Do a little homework and make a good call. Work with a consultant who has a proven track record of success and can back it up.

For more information, or to get help with your social media strategy, CONTACT US!

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Here are five key ingredients your site must have in order to be successful:

1 – Page Titles: The blue bar at the top of every page of your site should contain the name of your site and the title of the corresponding page. This will aid in SEO.

2 – Clear, Concise Navigation: Your nav should be simple and short, but specific. It needs to be laid out in a logical manner with layers kept to a minimum.

3 – Quality Links: Your site should link out to specific websites and pages/articles of interest to your readers and users. Additionally, your site should have as many inbound links as possible for better SEO. These are links coming to your site from other quality websites.

4 – Contact Info: Are you making it easy for your users to contact you from anywhere on your website? Google may find a particular page of your site to distribute to a user. Will that user be able to locate your phone number, email address and simple contact form easily from that page? Put this info on every page, if possible.

5 – Content: Keep it to 250 words per page. Make it simple, specific and easy to read. Remember, your users are looking for pertinent information, not a novel. One of the secrets to SEO has always been GOOD CONTENT. Make sure you use a keyword research tool and incorporate those keywords into your content.

This is a short list, but if you implement these five key parameters your website will be more successful. There are certainly more things you need to include for optimal performance. We’ll touch on these soon.

To learn how we can help, CONTACT US!

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For instance, on Twitter I see many well-known businesses and organizations who have apparently just given up completely. Typically, they haven’t posted a tweet in 2 months or longer and they don’t follow back. It’s like they tried it, didn’t work…moving on. Giving up is the easy thing to do.

A popular song by Journey suddenly pops into my head…”Don’t Stop Believin’”

Here’s the chorus:
Strangers waiting, Up and down the boulevard
Their shadows searching in the night
Streetlights, people, Livin’ just to find emotion
Hidin’, somewhere in the night

Yep, that sounds about right. They’re hiding somewhere in the night…waiting on “the boulevard.”

With so much hype surrounding social media, it’s easy to understand how a business can set up a Twitter account, post a few tweets and then wait patiently for the social media tooth fairy to arrive with thousands of new potential customers…only to be disillusioned when nothing happens. 

Sorry, but it doesn’t work that way. Social media is just like anything else. You get out of it what you put into it. Take some time every day and do a Twitter search to find interesting people to follow and by all means, follow people back. You don’t have to follow everybody back, but you should check them out and follow those that make sense to you.

Most importantly…engage. One of the best ways to grow your audience is to participate in pertinent conversations and provide interesting information to your followers.

Don’t expect a glorious appearing of new business in the first month. But, do monitor your analytics closely to see what’s working and what isn’t…keep managing & tweaking the process and you will see results. Above all, “Don’t Stop Believin’”!

For more information, or to get help with your social media strategy, CONTACT US!

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