I could go into a long explanation about legal liability, etc., but Jeremiah Owyang said it perfectly on Twitter today:
Many bloggers I know prefer a blogging policy at work, as it helps to distinguish where the guardrails are.
I gave a presentation for ERE Media Tuesday entitled “Professional Networking - Beyond Sourcing”, which focused on the many ways that recruiters can use professional networking sites to support their business and their own career, not just for sourcing candidates. The way I see it, any hack can figure out how to type a few keywords and do a search — where it gets really interesting is in all the other things you can use the tools for to grow your business, attract more candidates and differentiate yourself from the thousands of other recruiters out there.
You can download the presentation at ERE, but I tend to go for a pretty minimalist presentation style, and there was a lot of information that I covered that’s not in the slides. The topic that seemed to get the most comments and questions, but I feel is kind of short-changed in the slides, was the specific ways recruiters can use networking sites for more than just sourcing. I posted the full list as a guest post at Six Degrees from Dave (Mendoza).
To see what some recruiters have had to say on the topic, or to contribute your own thoughts, check out the question I posted on LinkedIn Answers. For even more ideas, see Smart Ways to Use LinkedIn, a compilation of over 100 ways to use LinkedIn in your business and personal life.
And for ideas on sourcing in professional networking sites, check out David’s and my Fast Company article, Using Online Networks to Find Your Star Employee.
Today I got a nice email from Scott Meyer, President & CEO of About.com. The headline read "Great post on 5 years with About", and was thanking me for the post I wrote earlier this week to commemorate my 5th anniversary as an About.com Guide, 5 Things I’ve Learned in 5 Years at About.com. It was a brief note, but had enough specifics in it to show that he had actually read it. It also had the familiar tell-tale signs that he had probably gotten the notification via Google Alerts. I’m guessing he has an alert set on "About.com" and scans those headlines daily.
This got me thinking about a couple of things.
First of all, just think about the tremendous networking power rolled up in that one simple practice. He stays up-to-date on what people are saying about his company, and prompted by the alert, in a matter of just a couple of minutes, he was able to reach out to me in a meaningful way, show his appreciation, and just make me aware that yes, he really does care and pay attention to what us 700+ Guides are doing.
Think of the power of that in your business. Rather than getting caught up in the incestuous fishbowls that some online discussion groups can turn into, what would happen if you spent some of that time looking for new conversations going on about your business, your industry or perhaps a cause you support?
It also made me wonder… how many other CEOs do the same thing, using these freely available tools to keep up with the buzz about their company? I’m thinking probably not nearly enough.
Seems like a simple enough concept, right? If you want to be thought of as an expert in your field, besides just knowing your stuff, if you could figure out how experts — not wanna-be experts, but true “A-list” experts that people respect, quote and hire — act, then acting like them, rather than acting like a wanna-be, should boost your credibility even more.
Fortunately for you, there actually are a few things that those A-list experts have in common regarding how they behave in online communities, and this has been a key focus of my study over the past five years. I’ve been wanting to write about this for a while and finally have as part of the launch of the new collaborative blog, Tribal Seduction:
5 Ways to Act Like an Expert in Online Communities
Now please understand… this isn’t about gaming the system to pretend to be an expert when you’re really not. This is about making some smart decisions about how you use your time and how you engage people in online communities. You’ll find, as you put these into practice, that not only will they slowly but surely enhance your reputation, but they’ll also give you more time than your typical engagement pattern. You can use that time to go do the same thing in another community, or to go do other things to enhance your expert reputation, like write a blog or better yet, a book.
Shara Karasic is an online community consultant and currently the Community Manager for Work.com (where I’m Community Leader for the Sales & Marketing Channel). Shara is a heavy user of social networking / social media sites (she maintains an extensive, up-to-date list here).
Shara was recently interviewed for Tech PR War Stories about social media strategies and sites PR professionals should be exploring for their clients.
Download and listen to the interview here (16:05 MP3)
Work.com has a ton of how-to guides on social media and social networking you might want to check out:
Do men and women network differently? I think we all intuitively know that there’s some truth to this, but what are the facts? What can men and women learn from each other to improve their networking skills, as well as how to relate to each other better in a business context?
On Tuesday, July 24, 1pm PST/4pm EST, I’ll be a guest on FCGM Small Business Radio, along with Lynn Terry of the Self-Starters Weekly Tips Forum and host Scharlene Redway of Full Circle Global Mentoring, discussing this issue.
You can listen as well as call in with live questions at (718) 664-9874 or www.BlogTalkRadio.com/Biz_Connector.
We’ll talk about some interesting survey results from ExecuNet that indicate there are some substantial differences, as well as the phenomenon that of top 50 connectors on LinkedIn, only two are women.
Hope to see you there!
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could quite literally “monetize your network”? To actually scrape just a little bit of money from all the transactions generated between people you know?
OK, well this doesn’t quite do that, but it’s a first step. And best of all,
One of my readers sent this to me this morning, and I’ve spent a good chunk of the day doing my due diligence — I’m like that, especially if I’m going to put my reputation on the line when I tell about something like this. I know that at first glance this is going to look like some kind of MLM recruiting (not that there’s anything wrong with that…), but it’s not, and I will explain — bear with me. Also, I think this is by far THE coolest thing I’ve seen regarding making money online – absolutely brilliant, ingenious business model – one of those that makes you go, “Why didn’t I think of that?”
And please… critiques and questions welcome. I think this thing is the greatest thing since sliced bread. If you don’t think so, tell us all why.
Do you shop online? At major sites like Buy.com, Circuit City, CompUSA, SkyMall, Entrepreneur.com, Forbes.com, Dell, HP, T-Mobile, Stamps.com, Toshiba Direct, VistaPrint, ABC TV, NBC Universal, NASCAR.com, OfficeMax, Sears, etc.? You get the idea…
Now, all of these sites have affiliate programs, paying affiliates anywhere from like 2% to as much as 50% of the sale in some cases. Simply put, how would you like to see some of that money yourself? Better yet, how would you like to get a little piece of that money when all your friends, and their friends, and their friends, and so on, and so on, shop at those stores?
That’s what MyPowerMall (MPM) does. And yes, it’s completely free to participate.
Think about it… it would be completely infeasible for you to go set yourself up as an affiliate in all those sites you wanted to shop at. Furthermore, even if you could, most of the sites have tiered commission structures based on volume. MPM is a single affiliate, so with all the people in it, they end up with the volume to put the commission payouts at higher rates than you could ever get yourself with a single sale. So that means that the money can be shared with your upline, make their company a little bit of money, and you still have a nice little rebate on your own purchases.
MPM has two types of membership. If you’re a heavy consumer, you can join as a personal member and get deeper discounts on your own purchases, but nothing from your downline. Or choose the business membership and get a smaller discount on your own purchases and earn commissions from the shopping by your downline – down 9 tiers. And intriguingly (I don’t quite understand the rationale behind this, but OK…), the highest portion of the payout is actually at your 3rd and 4th tiers, not your own purchases and tier 2.
Interestingly, this is actually not MLM from a legal standpoint. See, nobody actually buys anything from MPM – they buy from these major retailers, and at a cost guaranteed to be lower than they would get if they visited the site directly. And the pyramid doesn’t collapse, because even people at the very bottom of the pyramid still benefit. It never costs anybody a dime that they weren’t already going to spend anyway.
How cool is that?
So here’s my affiliate link if you want to learn more or sign up: http://www.mypowermall.com/Biz/Home/18478.
Share the wealth!
And oh yeah… one very important thing… please remember to actually use MPM when you shop!
This week, Jason Alba is doing a series of posts about his blogging secrets. This is a great guide for how to effectively build relationships and your personal brand with your blog.
One of the tips that came up in the comments on his Day 1 post was the matter of using a signature in your post when you leave comments on other people’s blogs. Typically, if you leave your name and URL in the comment posting form, it ends up linking your name to your site, e.g., Scott Allen points to TheVirtualHandshake.com (or LinkedIntelligence.com or Entrepreneurs.About.com, depending on the context). However, that’s a) usually at the top of your comment - people don’t scroll back up once they’ve read your comment, and b) it’s non-obvious that it actually links to your blog.
Jason explains, as well as sharing his hesitation about using comment signatures:
ALso along these lines, I have since started to leave a new signature:
Jason Alba
CEO - JibberJobber.com
.. self-serve job security ..I’ve been trying it out, and with different tag lines. Putting a URL in the comments makes it really easy for readers to just click over to my website, and the tagline makes people curious.
Sometimes I’ve hesitated before putting the signature on the comment, especially when no one else is, but I figure it’s better to risk than pass up the chance, and if someone says they don’t like that then I’ll make note of it and leave the signature off for later comments.
But Pete Johnson reassured him, sharing the success he had after learning the tip from The Virtual Handshake:
As I learned from Scott Allen (and am writing about later in the week), the post signature is huge. On one techie site in particular, I got 10x more traffic when I went from this:
—Pete
http://nerdguru.netto this:
Pete Johnson
HP.com Chief Architect
Personal Blog: http://nerdguru.netThe second one even got me an unsolicited email from the editor wanting to know if I wanted to write a case study based on HP’s web architecture, an opportunity I wouldn’t have dreamed of otherwise.
This is a great example of co-opting a brand. “Nerdguru” isn’t a household name, but HP.com sure is. Pete is able to leverage his position to build his personal brand.
But what if you don’t have a big-name brand to co-opt? Even a simple signature can serve you well. Which is more likely to get your attention and make you click?
Scott Allen
LinkedIntelligence.comor
Scott Allen
Linked Intelligence - Home of 80+ Smart Ways to Use LinkedIn
Or how about:
Scott Allen
TheVirtualHandshake.comor
Scott Allen
Coauthor, The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online
*Sigh*
I need to remember to follow my own advice! :-)
I received a message today from a reader of The Virtual Handshake who had a success with one of the techniques presented in the book:
One thing that caught my attention in The Virtual Handshake is when you told the story about the gentleman who didn’t know the person’s email address who he wanted to email. It turned out that the person had all those email addresses, and they were all directed to one email. The executive saw the person’s commitment, and long story short the emailed got what he was looking for.
This recently happened to me. ( inspired by the book) I was trying to get a message to a non-profit org that I thought I could help. I sent an email to the founder of the organization, HR@theorg, and info@theorg. It turned out he got all three emails. He appreciated my enthusiasm. Now I am in!!! I appreciate the great idea.
Benjamin B. Rosenzweig
Detroit Financial Group
O- 248-324-9333
BRosenzweig@finsvcs.com
You know, I always love hearing stories like this. Actually, Benjamin was kind of surprised when I wrote back right away and asked him if I could post it on the blog. I told him, though, that while I hear stories like this all the time, few people take the time to spell it out in enough detail to be usable. So there’s a little PR lesson for you - everyone loves being appreciated. Take the time to write to someone and tell your story of how their product or service made a difference in your life or business and you may earn yourself a little free publicity as well.
Since its inception, LinkedIn has always positioned itself as being a tool for leveraging your connections with people you know - yes, in order to meet new people, but incrementally, not en masse. However, with now ten million professionals who you can invite to connect if you know their e-mail address, it has also become popular among so-called “open networkers” - people willing to link with people they don’t know.
The challenge LinkedIn faces is that it wants to allow people to connect with as many people as they want to connect with, but at the same time protecting people from receiving unwanted invitations from people they don’t know. A significant number of people have left LinkedIn because of “invitation spam”.
Well, LinkedIn may have finally come upon a solution. On the one hand, they no longer require an e-mail address in order to invite someone who’s already a LinkedIn member to connect. On the other hand, they’ve also made it so that recipients can indicate that they don’t know the person sending the invitation. Five such “strikes” and the person’s account gets automatically suspended.
Does this mean the end of open networking on LinkedIn? No - it just means open networkers will have to make sure the recipient is agreeable to receiving the invitation before they send it. A little more work, but it puts the burden where it belongs.
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