Get to Know LinkedIn

LinkedIn is another social media platform used to promote yourself or your company. To first understand LinkedIn, you must understand the terminology. A connection is when you know someone on LinkedIn, you then request to “connect” with that person. You can then connect with your friends’ connections as well. LinkedIn will also show you connections you might have in common with someone and suggest connections for you. You may also request a connection to a person you have interest in working with and network yourself. LinkedIn also offers another resource, the recommendation tab. Once a user is registered on LinkedIn, they can send a request for written recommendations to friends, family, or previous employers. Recommendations are displayed on the user’s page, making it easy and accessible for employers to find recommendations. This is a valuable networking tool and a great way to keep in contact with friends, family members, employees, co-workers, and more.

LinkedIn can be used for personal use or professional use and they often overlap in the way they are used. First I will talk about how LinkedIn can play a vital role in your personal life and next I will address the company side to it.

LinkedIn is a social media website primarily used to network you. LinkedIn users are utilizing this resource to sell themselves to companies. LinkedIn offers access to upload resumes onto one’s LinkedIn page. One can also type a summary about themselves; this makes their LinkedIn page personal and allows the person to talk about themselves in their own words. Also, LinkedIn allows one to search, follow, and connect with companies and colleagues. LinkedIn has made the interview process a lot easier for candidates and companies alike.

For companies, LinkedIn is utilized as an information site, making it easier for candidates to learn about the company and research contact information. When a candidate uploads a resume, the company can easily access the information and evaluate the candidate for a either a current position, or connect with the person to work with him/her in the future. The recommendation tab is a key to companies. By using these two resources, employers can go to a candidate’s page and see their previous experience and qualifications. Companies can search for candidates and post job openings and positions available on LinkedIn. This makes the interviewing process easier for the employer since they can determine if the candidate is qualified for the position.

LinkedIn is speeding up the way people and companies handle networking and looking for jobs. In this economy, it is important to sell yourself and make a good first impression. LinkedIn has made it easier for people to connect with colleagues and potential employers. It has helped the way people do business and continues to impact the industry.

Video Marketing as a Valuable Tool

In the following video, Social Media Platform CEO/President Sonja Dyess spoke to a group of real estate investors in Jacksonville, FL about video marketing. She taught them everything they needed to know to help advertise their business using video marketing. Videos that are produced online tend to go viral in 24-48 hours depending on the content, the audience and how it is distributed. If you would like for Social Media Platform to speak at your event or coach your staff about the massive world of social media, visit the Social Media Platform website or send us an email.

The Nuts and Bolts of Social Media & Public Relations

Web presence is more than just a website these days.  Making your content shareable and participating in the conversation through social media is part of the ever-changing face of public relations in 2011.

Managing Social Media Channels. Did you ever wish you could be in more than one place at the same time?  As far as I know science has yet to master that phenomenon; however your “voice” CAN, and should be in more than one place at the same time.  Centralized campaign management systems (i.e., HootSuite and TweetDeck) enable a manager to listen, aggregate, publish, and manage multiple social media distribution channels all from a single portal.

The Consumer. Remember that by making your customers cheerleaders for your brand, you create a win-win situation. Bonus!  Social media extends an indispensable tool for gauging audience opinion by way of a two-way conversation in which both sides (customer and company) can exchange views.   Business Intelligence (BI) refers to the gathering, storing, and analyzing of data to help business users make more informed and therefore more advantageous decisions.  In an article published in 2006 (“Social Network Analysis and Business Intelligence”), Dr. Ramon Barquin, president of a consulting firm since 1994, wrote, “Stay tuned, social network analysis and business intelligence travel in lockstep these days.”  Now five years later we enter 2011, and there is little doubt that his words held up.

Networking With Influencers is 100% simpler today than was before.“Influencers” can be journalists, reporters, bloggers, or anyone of influence who covers topics in your industry.  By establishing relationships with these influential people you may find that you’ve snagged your business a mention and maybe even a feature story.  MuckRack.com is a free website that enables you to search for and locate journalists.

Sharability is a must!  By creating something interesting that grabs your audience’s attention people will naturally want to share it with their friends, and even comment or blog about it (further increasing your exposure).  To help them out, each social media site has its own share buttons (i.e., Facebook’s “Share” and Twitter’s “ReTweet”).

Multimedia, such as mobile marketing, photo, video, and file sharing, can work within the social media arena to spread the word and help build brand awareness. Check out Windows Movie Maker, or iMovie for Mac users, and note that by publishing videos or photos somewhere on your own website and then linking them in your press release, you’ll drive traffic to your website (the centralized hub for your business).

Consumers “Pull” Themselves to Your Media Message. More and more today we see a shift in the way society accepts and digests brand messages.  It’s becoming commonplace for consumers to “pull” media messages in their direction (i.e., RSS Feeds and Google Alerts).  As a voluntary recipient of your brand message, this type of consumer is ultimately more responsive.

 

As you can see there are various ways to increase your public awareness. Public Relations is a vital part of any business, big or small. Your company is only as good as its word of mouth, so share it with the world and get your company social today. If you need help with your online presence contact the staff at Social Media Platform and they’d be more than happy to help. You can contact them at http://smp4you.com, http://facebook.com/smp4you or http://twitter.com/smp4you.

Two Local Companies Come Together To Help the Gulf

The following is an excerpt of a recent press release about our recent cooperative efforts with another business to help benefit a social cause.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla (Aug. 18, 2010) – Pet World and Social Media Platform of Jacksonville, Fla., recently partnered to donate the dog hair from Pet World’s grooming department to help clean up the oil from the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster. Lynn Lamoureux, the owner of Pet World, www.PetWorldPets.com,  began collecting shaved hair from her grooming clients to donate to Matter of Trust soon after the disaster began. Since the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Pet World has been sending boxes of hair to make booms to collect the oil. Matter of Trust has 19 warehouses and all of them are full!

Sonja Dyess, President of Social Media Platform, is a proud native of Pensacola, Fla. She, along with many other local residents, wanted to do her part to help clean up the oil. While picking up her dog from his grooming appointment, Dyess spoke with Lamoureux and mentioned going home to Pensacola to see first-hand what her hometown beaches looked like. During the conversation, Dyess learned Pet World has been sending hair to Pensacola for booms. “We wanted to do what we can to help. We already have the hair, and at $15 a box, that is a small price to pay to help preserve Florida’s beautiful beaches,” said Lamoureux.

Lamoureux’s latest donation was three large lawn bags of hair, ready to ship to Pensacola. Dyess volunteered to take the bags herself to Pensacola as she was already going there for business. When dropping the hair off at one of the donation centers in Pensacola, Dyess was told it was the last donation they could accept for now as the warehouses were full. Dyess and Lamoureux are working together to stay in touch with Matter of Trust to find other ways they can help with the oil spill. Lamoureux said, “I’m ready to donate more hair when they are ready to make more booms.” As owner of a marketing company that specializes in social media marketing, Dyess has been assisting in spreading the word about Matter of Trust online.

“There really isn’t much we can do about what happened, but what we can do is come together to get it cleaned up. It always amazes me that when disaster strikes, people don’t blink an eye, they just get involved and help. My hometown has been through so much, I want to help where I can, when I can,” said Dyess. The oil spill is far from being cleaned up or forgotten about.

For more information about Matter of Trust and how you can help, please visit their website at www.matteroftrust.org.