13 ways to create your own luck in business development on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is an extremely powerful social media tool, with over 100m business professionals using it worldwide and approximately 3.8m senior business professionals in the UK alone.

LinkedIn is less about the fun side of social media and more about the professional business aspects and opportunities that can be explored, therefore it is important to maximise your efforts to build your network, leads and profile.

We would like to share some tips on how to take the luck out of business development and help you take advantage of this resource.

1 – It’s all about the headline

The headline is everything as with other forms of social media. Avoid posting your job position e.g. MD at Montage Communications, because this does not say anything about your service or products. Try to think about what your clients are looking for! E.g. Social Media and Public Relations Consultant at Montage Communications.

2 – Optimise your profile so it can be found

Adding keywords in the title and summary of your profile will mean that people will find you and your services more easily on LinkedIn and Google.

3 – Write your summary like an elevator pitch

Sell your business, who you help and how you can help them. Most people spend 20-30 seconds on a website or profile, so sell yourself and don’t waffle!

4 – Get personal

Although LinkedIn is the “professional” social networking site, you want to reserve the first part of your “Summary” to add a personal insight and interests. Also I am a great believer in “people buy people”, and it helps to build a rapport with potential clients.

5 – Check for spelling mistakes

First impressions count and spelling mistakes will not help…check and check again!

6 -Recommendations are very powerful

People will not necessarily believe how wonderful you think you are, they need to hear social proof. Encourage your contacts and clients to leave detailed recommendations about you, your skills and services.

7 – Stand out from the crowd

Think creatively and don’t waffle – don’t be afraid to be different! Try to add Slideshare presentations as case studies for example.

8- Use LinkedIn to avoid the Gatekeepers!

Use the LinkedIn search facility  to throughly research an organisation and its key decision makers, so you can contact them direct.

9 – Add calls to action

Give people a reason to visit your website (especially if you are selling online), offer LinkedIn discounts for your services.

10 – See who is watching you

Look at the ‘viewed my profile’ link on the right hand side of your personal profile and see who is following your company. These people may be looking for your services or putting a tender list together so get in touch with them!

11 – Constantly build your network

Connect your ‘little black book’ on LinkedIn with clients and suppliers. This expanded network will allow you to view more tier one and two connections for potential clients. Connect with everyone after meeting them at networking events, you never know when they may come in handy!

12 – Network with industry specific groups

I have seen numerous ‘buying signals’ from people who have a need, problem or are simply asking about who is the best agency or product in a market place on LinkedIn Groups, sign up to a few relevant niche groups and contribute useful information. Avoid spamming groups with ‘advertisement’ posts.

13 – Become an expert in your field using LinkedIn Answers

Look for prospective clients on LinkedIn answers by searching for the problems and questions that your clients may have and that your product or service will solve. For example: “How to get more fans on Facebook“, “How can I save money and legal action against my business when using social media?” or “How can I build real relationships with my Twitter followers to get more sales?” If you answer these questions, the chances are that you may get an opportunity to work with a new client!

I hope that you have found these pointers useful and if you have any questions about our LinkedIn marketing or training services, please do get in touch. We would also love to hear about your experiences and successes, so the floor is yours in the comments below!

Hat tip for the photo: nan palmero via Flickr thanks!

How to get 13,000 loyal fans on Facebook

This year Bristol Zoo Gardens celebrated its 175th anniversary and marked it by introducing Wow!Gorillas - a world-class mass public art event to the streets and parks of Bristol – and the Montage team were pleased to be a part of it!  Artists decorated life-size gorillas, sponsored by local businesses which were then placed around the city for 10 weeks between 6 July and 6 September.

Working with the Zoo’s communications team Montage designed a Wow!Gorillas Facebook photo sharing competition and online PR campaign to promote the Wow!Gorillas. The campaign also helped promote a new app developed by Mubaloo – one for Android phones and another for iPhones – to help as many people as possible enjoy the Wow!Gorillas trail and get more involved in the project.

The Android mobile phone app enabled people to see the locations of the gorilla sculptures on a Google map and click the icons to view information about each of the 60 gorillas on the trail. It also includes an Augmented Reality view of the gorilla’s locations so you could view their direction and distance overlaid on the device camera; take photos of the gorillas and upload them to a free photo sharing server, and tick off each Wow!Gorilla sculpture from a list as the trail is completed.

How we did it:

- Montage designed a photo competition on Facebook, inviting members of the public to upload their best photo of a Wow!Gorilla and be in with a chance of winning a selection of prizes. An extra incentive to take part was a 50% discount on Zoo entry – so everyone was a winner!

- Stencils advertising the Facebook page were produced in-conjunction with the artist Cheeba and placed on the highly trafficked Wow!Gorillas sites to drive people to the Facebook site

- Existing Wow!Gorilla fans were recruited to spread the word prior to the competition launch before mainstream media knew about it, driving word-of-mouth on and off line

- Montage and Mubaloo combined features within an Android application that made finding the Wow!Gorilla sites much easier and pushed notifications to promote the Facebook competition to encourage users to download it

- The team worked with the Bristol Zoo Gardens PR department to target as many online news sources as possible securing content in numerous blogs and forums

- Montage targeted the most influential Twitter users within Bristol to help seed information about the campaign

- Booking and targeting competition sites and bookmarking helped push the message yet further

- Montage also posted on review, geolocation and tourist related sites about the Wow! Gorillas and the competition e.g. Visit Bristol’s Facebook page etc

- Three Twitter competitions were implemented and managed by the Montage team

- And there’s plenty more..but if you want to know more then do get in touch

The results:

- Our competition application drove 1,074,706 views to the Facebook page

- Members of the public picked up 75,000 Wow! Gorillas trail maps

- 35,000 copies of the map were downloaded from the Zoo website

- The Wow! Gorillas Facebook page now has over 13,000 fans

- The mobile phone apps was downloaded 5,000 times

- 1,714 new email sign ups to the email database

- 946 people entered the competition

- 4,200 people watched the auction live online via the Bristol Zoo website and Bristol 24/7

- #WowGorillas became a trending topic on Twitter

- After the campaign Montage assisted with live video streaming and live Tweeting / Twitter management at the Wow!Gorillas auction which £427,300 was raised for gorilla conservation and Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Appeal

The competition has now finished (September 2011) and Montage is advising the Zoo on how to maximise ongoing benefit for future marketing. The campaign has achieved 2,000+ new likes for Bristol Zoo Garden’s main Facebook page.

Creative Commons thanks to DancesWithLight

10 ways to build meaningful relationships with your followers

Following on from our previous post about increasing followers I felt it was vital to stress that relationships are the most important thing in social media. Of course every client wants to talk about numbers in social media, followers, fans and hits, but at Montage we are always quick to point out that engagement and relationships are far more important.

I don’t want to be a number, I am a person and the quicker that corporates realise this the better. Blanket bombing the masses does not work anymore, people simply switch off. Unfortunately, there in lies the issue for corporations as relationships take time and money, but we must invest to get a return on strong relationships with our customers!

Following on from our previous post about growing followers, here are 10 ways to build relationships online as quickly as possible:

1 – Ask your followers what content they would like, this helps buy in and makes sure that you are providing content that is interesting, engaging and keeps them coming back for more

2 – Reward fans and make someone a Fan of the Week for their contributions

3 – Ask people what they did or for their own experiences, it shows as a corporation you care

4 – Don’t post press releases as they are often written in corporate speak/tone

5 – Give people fun reasons to react, crack a joke or post amusing content. This can be a real ice breaker and could be the start of a wonderful relationship

6 – Be interesting, this is a hard one to teach! But if you are struggling look at the content that gets the most reactions and post more of the same

7 – Ask your fans for content or ideas, when people provide ideas and content they are buying into a concept or community. It makes it their own

8 – Look at trending topics and popular posts in your field on bookmarking sites, then produce similar content (not the same)

9 – REMEMBER your followers are humans and not numbers! Arrange offline events so you can meet the people behind the Tweets and take time to build relationships face-to-face

10 – Most importantly ‘Listen and don’t broadcast’. Monitor your topic or industry and evaluate what content is getting the most reactions, share some of the best and most unique content. Also, create your own content to take part in the most popular conversations online

Building relationships with your followers one at a time

We would like to hear about your experiences and any social media difficulties that you may have. Follow us on @montagecomms, subscribe to our blog or drop a quick comment in the box below.

Hat tip for the images: ‘Free Hugs’ Jessie Coulzon CC Flickr and @Johnhaydon Creative Commons

Secret to making social media work for your business

Over the past few weeks Montage Communications has been working with Business Link South West to present a series of “A marketing seminar of two halves” talks in Bristol and Cheltenham.

The presentations deal with common questions that the team here at Montage often get asked by potential clients about how social media can work for their business, resourcing, costs and how to measure success.

It addresses:

- Common problems organisations and businesses have with social media after trialing it in-house
- What resource and time you should spend
- How to increase customer engagement
- How to increase sales and bookings
- How to improve customer service and experience
- Ways to effectively evaluate performance using analytics

Steve Virgin of Wikimedia UK and Media Focus also addressed the delegates about using Wikimedia in a businesses’ marketing strategy.

How to build your Twitter Followers Fast!

Many clients ask us about ways of building a Twitter following quickly. The simplest way to build your following is to follow others! But on a more strategic level you will need to be methodical and very targeted to ensure you follow the right people, and the right people are following you.

So how do we find other followers or get followed ourselves?

Here are some of the best resources and tactics that we use and recommend:

1 – Who to follow

Twitter has a “Who to follow” function that suggests similar Twitter followers. This can be useful as a start but can be a little random too! Try the ‘Similar to you’ function on the top right of your Twitter profile too.

2 – LinkedIn

A sure fire way is to follow people who know you well, so where better to start than on your LinkedIn account. Each profile will have a Twitter link (if they have an account). You can automate this process by installing the Twitter application in LinkedIn and clicking on the ‘Connections’ tab that will show your LinkedIn connections and an option to follow them.

3 – Listorious

Listorious is a useful site that allows the user to log in using Twitter and search for like minded Twitterers. There are also suggestions for lists for your field of expertise.

4 – Twellow

Similar to the ‘Yellow pages’ – it’s a great site and we would recommend adding your Twitter account to this, but also search for propective clients and peers here too.

5 – WeFollow

Similar to Twellow you can add your Twitter account to this directory to raise its profile or find similar Twitterers, clients or friends here too.

6 – Track trending topics and join in with the conversation

You can attract new followers whenever you post an interesting tweet on a topic that many people are buzzing about on Twitter. Include the hashtag (#) in front of the topic name, such as #SocialMediaAdvice, to help Twitter users easily find your tweet.

7 – Leave space for retweets

Retweets helps you build a following. With only 140 characters per tweet it’s often best to use  fewer characters, in order to leave space for your Twitter name plus the “RT” (retweet) symbol to be included in a retweet.

8 – Optimize your Twitter bio

Make sure your Twitter profile is optimized with your business’s most important keywords. If your bio is not complete or descriptive, you are missing out on potential followers.

9 – Twitter Chats

Taking part in Twitter Chats is a great way to network with peers and people in specific sectors i.e. #brandchat. This will raise your Twitter profile and useful way to find new and interesting people to follow.

Obviously, there is a lot more to Twitter than just following others, you must focus on consistent and quality content that will help you attract followers and raise your profile online. But as a first step, give these tools a go and if you have any questions regarding Twitter then do Tweet us on @montagecomms. Look forward to hearing from you!

Creative Commons thanks to Marc_Smith for the graphic.

How to suggest your Facebook page to your friends and network

Now watch your fans increase!

This is step one complete and if you need help building your fan base ask in the comment box below or Tweet us @montagecomms.

Infographic: What exactly does an online community manager do?

When explaining to clients and friends exactly what we  provide as online community managers, we like to show them this info graphic to show how demanding, complex and interesting the role is!

What must remain private and what should be brought into the public domain?

For years Twitter has remained a haven for free-speech, giving literally everyone a chance to voice and share their news. In terms of content and censorship,  Twitter often removes offensive and spammy material, but never got involved in personal disputes, but it looks like this might change.

Last week an anonymous Twitter user was posting details of legal injunctions, taken out by celebrities to keep their alleged misdeeds out of the public eye, sparking a global debate in traditional press and online: does Twitter render “super injunctions” redundant?

Super injunctions are a form of gagging order in which the press is prohibited from reporting even the existence of the injunction, let alone any details of it.  Gagging orders are symptomatic of a wider issue: freedom of speech versus individual privacy. Everyone has the right to a private life, it’s a fundamental part of the European Convention on Human Rights (part of UK law since 2000). But to many people, if something is true and poses no threat to national security or someone’s safety newspapers should be allowed to print it.

The TV presenter Gabby Logan was forced to deny gossip that she had been having an affair with her BBC co-presenter Alan Shearer and Jemima Khan denied she had taken out a super injunction to prevent the publication of pictures of her with the journalist Jeremy Clarkson.

Here on ITN news, lawyer Mark Stephens says that super injunctions favour rich men and discriminate against women.

Currently the PCC (Press Complaints Commission) is assessing whether the Twitter accounts of newspapers and journalists too should be monitored and reviewed, and also if a journalist’s tweets are an extension of their employer’s editorial content. The impact of this assessment could play a major role in the way social media is used to report future stories/news, and could potentially lead to journalists facing legal action, even if they’re tweeting from their own personal account.

Let’s hope this does not lead to censorship throughout Twitter – I doubt this will be a viable route anyway.  Just what organisation could undertake such a large task, couldn’t users set up anonymous accounts and as both Twitter and Facebook are US companies one would imagine they could probably evade UK law entirely or argue that their users are exercising their right to free speech guaranteed under the US constitution?

Why we must treat our customers like children

Being a seasoned parent of two very (now what’s the best way to put this) ‘enthusiastic’, ‘inquisitive’ and ‘bright as a button’ children, I’ve now perfected the art of clear, firm and direct communication to get an immediate response.  It’s taken me five years… but now I know the formula!

Online customers, who are time poor, overloaded with information and visuals need to be communicated to in the same way that we converse with our children. Bizarre as it may sound, everyone’s busy schedules and work commitments mean we need to communicate quickly and clearly in order to get our messages understood.

Kids want to know the facts, outcomes and are highly motivated by calls to action  – they, like our customers, want to know “What’s in it for me? How will I benefit from what you are offering me?”

According to studies by Jakob Nielsen only 16% of visitors will read all of the words in a blog or web page.  So, in a nutshell:

- Avoid long rambling sentences

- Ensure messaging isn’t too subtle

- Include strong calls to action at the start of a sentence

- Write in bulleted lists that can be scanned quickly

- Avoid PR press releases and long feature length articles (they will not be read in full)

- Put words in bold that you want readers to be drawn towards

So, if you would like to know more about how to get the most important bits of a website read and acted upon, please get in touch or Tweet us to find out more.

NYT to start charging for (some) content

The New York Times has started charging its readers for access to its website. As one of the most influential papers in the US, it plans to limit readers to 20 articles per month, after which they would have to pay a subscription fee of around $15 (£9).  There’s no doubt that other newspaper publishers will be monitoring the Times’ effort as they try to decide whether to charge online readers too. The Times becomes the second major U.S. daily this month to introduce online fees, joining The Dallas Morning News.

It’s estimated that around 85 per cent of visitors to The New York Times will not be asked to pay. “The change will primarily affect those who are heavy consumers of the content on our website and on mobile applications,” publisher Mr Sulzberger said. “It’s an important step that we hope you will see as an investment in the Times, one that will strengthen our ability to provide high-quality journalism to readers around the world, on any platform.”