Brand. Brand precedes Strategy - it HAS too.

Brace yourselves... Incoming whinge... Well at least to start with... Indulge me.

So, I am seeing more and more messages starting with "We are 1st degree connections....."  or similar, as thats a LinkedIn opener, but I get similar from Facebook and worse still as Twitter Direct Messages's.

Some of you may be ahead of me, but what always follows that opening is a blatant sales pitch, or a veiled sales pitch or a request to help the author with some research often by visiting their new website (which is usually a squeeze page).

Each to their own.  That's me being polite, diplomatic even.  But for me this is wrong in so many ways...

1. Because we are connected, friends, followers whatever - doesn't give you any permission to pitch or sell to me.

2. I know a squeeze page when I see one, and adding a count down clock - is an insult to me.

3. I had a reason to connect with you - abuse that trust and... see 5.

4. We are connected, lets engage, I look forward to your posts, respect this and  keep them on topic or...  see 5.

5. You, me, all of us, can be 'muted' or 'blocked' in one click, just so you know ;)

I have blogged about this before, on a single specific incident, a spectacular example of abusing a new twitter connection with the larger DM's, you can read that blog HERE

Social Media is more than ever about understanding your Brand, which defines your target audience, with which you engage with 1st class and always Relevant Content.  Hence, 2016 is increasingly about 'Relevant Content'.  

What's that !   You don't believe me - well this is what Google, Bing, Facebook, LinkedIn etc are looking out for too - its not just me ;).  They all understand you, they have profiled your online (and offline) world, they know what you like and they are keen to deliver to you the BEST experience from your time on their platform - they want you to stay around (that's where they make their money - in case your thinking 'Awww, shucks, how sweet').  Play the game their way, understand your Brand, Define your Audience Persona, create or curate relevant content - and share it.

This is the philosophy we teach and coach, and our Success Circle shows Brand at the centre of everything, once understood, you can look at Strategy, work out WHAT you want from your Social Media, which makes its easier to determine WHO you need to connect to to make that happen.  Once you know WHO, its easy to work out WHERE they can be reached and WHAT you need to be engaging them with.  At 24-7 we show this with the following diagram - 

24-7's Social Media "Success Circle"

So, stop connecting just to instantly pitch me.  Putting that another way, respect me, respect your audience, more importantly respect your brand.  If this blog leaves you thinking "what the..." Can I suggest you read Simon Sinek's "Start with Why" and Seth Godins Tribes.  Don't be cheap - don't be Sheep.

And remember Brand precedes Strategy.

The Top 8 Mistakes of A LinkedIn Profile Photo

Importance of your LinkedIn Profile Photograph

I LOVE Infographic's.  Good Info graphics, obviously - I just find it easy to grasp the information being shared, particularly data and numbers.  I think that puts me into the psychological learning category - Visual-Lazy... Sounds right ;)

Recently, with our members and students, we've been looking at content, and encouraging our members to keep their various profiles up to date... Which starts with their profile photo.  I posted a blog on the subject Does your Profile Photo Matter?

And, today I came across, this great little Infographic, informative, accurate and humorous... Tick's all Michael's boxes :D

Dear reader, I present to you, by Jamie Shanks, 8 mistakes people make with their LinkedIn profiles. A fairly comprehensive list, although I would add the wide angle holiday shot with our hero a dot on the horizon, skiing down a mountain or waving in front of the Eiffel Tower / Big Ben / White House / Great wall / Taj / Ayres... etc.  

I can confirm I have witnessed all of these...

Here's the link to the original article : http://www.salesforlife.com/linkedin/8-things-to-avoid-in-your-linkedin-profile-photo-infographic/

Mick

Lets connect -

I am on LinkedIn here -  https://uk.linkedin.com/in/mickholloway

I am on Facebook here - https://www.facebook.com/mick.holloway

I am on Twitter here -    @mick_holloway

www.24-7.so

Pitching a new follower on Twitter #EPIC #FAIL ?

Pitching a new follower on Twitter #EPIC #FAIL ?

Once again, I'm pondering, asking myself a question I have asked myself an awful lot, and an awful lot more lately...  Is It Me?

Could it be?  It could be, maybe so!

What now, what just happened Mick?... I hear you ask.  Well thanks for asking, because this would be a short Blog if you didn't.     I'll tell you what just happened...

Twitter relax the rule over the number of characters you can send in a Direct Message (DM).  No longer are you limited to 140 characters.  I get that, its a good strategic move.  Remember you can only DM people you follow and they have followed you back.  People you are engaging with (or should be) so why not relax the message size and accelerate the relationship - allow more, rapport?

Day one, a new follower on Twitter.  I go check them out, as I do, and I find things of interest, synergy and reasons to follow them back.   Which I do.  Tick, one more worthwhile connection, adopt smug mode and reward myself with a coffee, it's tough work... I've earned it.

On returning to my desk, caffeine levels slightly improved, there's a DM from my new connection. Get in there, see, SEE, knew I chose well, I was right, good call - here we go another Networking connection of value, to learn from, to help as I can, to grow with etc etc .

You can see where this is going, no doubt.  It was such a disappointment.  My first DM greater than 140 characters and it was 1021 characters of crude, direct sales pitch, <sigh>.  Worse, it was selling me 'Done for you' outsourced Social Media services.  A couple of things...

1. Someone hadn't read my profile.
2. Someone was just grabbing followers = I'll pick one from - 'Block', 'Remove', 'Mute', 'Unfollow'    
3. Someone, maybe, doesn't understand Social Media?
4. Nelson will get his eye back before I would let them near my business, let alone my social media.

My work is far from done, we train entrepreneurs and SME's how to use Social Media Effectively and Efficiently.  Connections and relationships then if its right the sales funnel appears all on its own.

Long story short- Pitching on a DM to a new connection is a wrong as it gets, so last century - I wonder if they are on MySpace?


Love this quote "Its called Social For a Reason" (I first heard this from @childsdesign).

A new follower pitches you in their 1st DM Tweet - How NOT to do #Social #Media?  Click to Tweet 

Is It Me?   LOL - Of Course Not ;)

Mick

Lets connect - I am on LinkedIn here -  https://uk.linkedin.com/in/mickholloway
I am on Facebook here - https://www.facebook.com/mick.holloway 
I am on Twitter here -    @mick_hollowaywww.24-7.so

Do you do One to One's?

Well? Do you? Do you have one to one meetings?

Coffee is your friend 

As important as I believe Social Media is, and as important as it is to my customers, it is still one part of your marketing mix...  So, social media is not the panacea, you still have to keep up other marketing activities - put another way, don't expect your LinkedIn connections to tweet you a purchase order.

So, no surprise that I am a HUGE advocate of meeting people one to one.  I can honestly say I have never had a one to one that was a waste of time. I've had not so good ones, where the other person pitched me from 'hello' - I still learn't an awful lot - 1st time it happened I learn't how desperate the pitcher comes across for doing this and made a 'note to self' to never pitch.  Second time, I started honing my skills, leading by example, gently swerving the other party away from pitching me towards a much more rewarding conversation about 'them' and their wants needs and desires.

Strategic Tip - I haven't met anyone that doesn't like talking about themselves or their business.

Practical Tip - If you are being pitched, ask them why they started the business, its on topic and they won't spot the 'swerve', listen to the answer.  Then continue asking what goals they have, listen to the answer.  Then how is it going, what challenges they have and how are they going to achieve these goals... keep listening - because by now that "Carlos FanDango - Time limited, Just For You Mick, Bank Holiday Special Offer --- Not Everyone Is Getting", will have been long forgotten and replaced with a conversation from which you will learn so much more, start a meaningful dialogue / relationship and very likely reveal any opportunities.

The main reason my one to one's are so rewarding is the due diligence both parties can do before committing to meet.  Thanks to marketing and social media, the information is out there, I can learn much about the other person before deciding to invest in a meeting.  Before suggesting a meeting I can be confident they will agree (warm calling) - because I will understand what the benefits will be for both of us.  Often I state openly up front the reasons why I would like to meet - set the agenda, quote the benefits.  In case your wondering .. I do ok, 'most' people are happy to accept the invite and meet.

All that said, meeting new people is rarely a waste of time, taking a chance can be rewarding too - amazing even...  Take yesterday, the inspiration for this blog.  A friend of mine, on vacation in Turkey, had the briefest of conversations with a lady from the Netherlands ... I do mean brief, on a speed boat towing his kids around a bay on a para chute - as you do.  This ladies work with young people and sports psychology really resonated with my friend and loose commitments were made to follow up when they returned from holiday.

They did follow up, the Dutch lady was planning a trip to London with a colleague of hers, and a couple of weeks later I find myself in that there London having a coffee under the Gherkin, people watching waiting for our new Dutch acquaintances to arrive.  Why was I there?  My brief was just to listen, learn, understand and maybe look for opportunities.  What the hey, its just a one to one, he's a good friend well justified to ask for of a few hours of my time, and he asked so nicely :D  He also spent half the journey into London preparing excuses in case it was a waste of my time, bless.  He need not have worried, I had researched this ladies work and I knew it was in the least going to be 'interesting'.

They arrived on time, we talked.  It was relaxed, casual yet intense, we talked for 3 hours.  The work these people are doing is astounding.  Their training and teaching techniques were fabulous and the results they get equally impressive.  Two and half hours in, I had quietly dropped out of the conversations - not because I was bored, disbelieving, cynical etc, I was away, long gone ... thinking FAST and HARD through what I had seen and heard.

I so wish you all could have been in that cafe witnessing the return on my investment in this one to one, I rapidly went from doing a sanity check on an idea, a 'favour' for an apologetic friend, to diving in head first to a new way to learn, to teach, to train.

My ROI was many fold.

1.  I know 24-7's approach to teaching Social Media works, I have struggled with expressing why it works so very well.  A MAJOR benefit of 24-7 membership and I still struggle to express the 'How'!

Until now I would refer to Herman Ebbinghaus's work, but now!  Now, I have a new model to both express 24-7's philosophy AND encourage our members to achieve, to DO, "one powerpoint slide one sentence" - DONE.  It fits on a business card!  And hopefully, if my new friends are willing, a new model to help develop into new markets.

2.  I learn't, lots, I am going to learn more about their work, and ways we can use it to improve 24-7's training methods.

3.  The meeting went so well, I am convinced there are benefits, and even opportunities, for my friend for his own idea's, and I have told him so.  He is also well placed with helping them with their aspirations....  Maybe 24-7 can help them too.

4.  My one to one model survived another meeting - Opportunities, Shared Knowledge and Benefits everywhere - no one pitched anything, ever.

5.  My connections grew by two.  Highly capable and competent, driven, interesting world class people.


So, do you do one to one's?  If not, tell me in the comments below, why not? Because, lorks-a-lordy are you missing out, on so many levels.  Here's an offer, LOL - its not a pitch!!  Lets have a one to one and we can talk more on why I think this way... If you decide it wasn't an hour well spent - I'll buy the coffees.  If you are not in the UK!  Lets do it online, I am available 24-7 :D

Strategic Tip : JDI.....

Do you have one to one's? Do you have enough one to one's? Can you have enough one to one's?  Click to Tweet 

Mick

Lets connect -
I am on LinkedIn here -  https://uk.linkedin.com/in/mickholloway
I am on Facebook here - https://www.facebook.com/mick.holloway
I am on Twitter here -    @mick_holloway

www.24-7.so

LinkedIn Pulse - Part 2

Part 2 of my look at LinkedIn 'Pulse'.

My last Blog - Should you have your finger on the linkedIn 'Pulse' ?  discussed some of the benefits of using LinkedIn's Pulse.  I ran a little experiment between posts on Blogger and Pulse.  Not massively scientific, more a quick check...

Any way - here's my (modest) results after a couple of weeks :

A couple of observations: 

-  Not a great deal in it with regards to the number of views.  

-  The LinkedIn post did very well on Pulse, understandably.

-  The pulse posts achieved far more engagement, likes and comments.

While there was not a great deal in it with regards to the number of views, I should point out that I re-purposed a few of these blogs, the original blogger post have been around for up to 12 months.  

To re-iterate a couple of the benefits...

1.  I get to see who has liked and commented on my LinkedIn Pulse Posts, so following up is possible.
AND

2.  LinkedIn will have delivered my post to interested people outside of my network. 

All things considered, I think these are encouraging results and given the benefits, I will continue sharing content on LinkedIn's Pulse, especially blogs on  'linkedIn', as ever the key to making this all worthwhile is to follow up.

Mick

@mick_holloway
www.24-7.so

Should you have your finger on the LinkedIn 'Pulse' ?

As you know I publish my blog using blogger - big reveal huh ;)  Recently though I have been increasingly impressed with LinkedIn's ability to deliver appropriate news and blog posts via their 'Pulse' hosting platform.

The more complete your profile and the more active you are on LinkedIn, the more LinkedIn can learn about you, things you do, things you like, groups and people you engage with.  LinkedIn have always been pretty good at analysing profiles (See how I resisted the temptation to say 'profiling profiles' - I have Ninja levels of self control), remember LinkedIn's roots were in recruitment - and they are still very good at matching profiles with vacancies.  Some of that $9Bn IPO seems to have been invested in very smart algorithms for really understanding ... us.

So, at least for me, LinkedIn was delivering good material that I was interested in... Now, that's really attractive for someone like me, into the whole Inbound, Social Media, Organic Content led marketing.  Not being the bluntest tool in the box, I figured I ought to check this out.  If I could bank on LinkedIn delivering my blogs to interested readers, connections outside my network, what's not to like about that?

A quick review of the history and what Pulse is and is not...

LinkedIn presenting 'on topic' articles

Pulse was an iOS news feed app, a business in its own right, in 2013 LinkedIn acquired the business for $90m initially integrating with the LinkedIn platform and allowing an elite few 'influencers' to host blogs on the platform.  In early 2014 access was rolled out to all English speaking users.

A blog hosting platform, a social platform and a news feed in one, should be epic, shouldn't it? Simply and easily you can publish your blog and LinkedIn will notify your network THEN LinkedIn distributes you work wider afield to appropriately interested parties outside your network, simply extending your reach for you.  If Carlesburg hosted blogs... !!


Layout and formatting is limited, but intuitive, its like one big text box.  And your blog can include pictures, video and hyper links back too... wherever you wish.  And here we come across the first downside of Pulse as a blogging solution - these hyperlinks back to your web site don't bring any 'Google Link Juice', or Page Rank benefits.  LinkedIn label these so the search engine bots ignore them (if you want to get techy - read up on 'no follow links').


Moreover, there's no scope for peripheral messages, up sells, links, calls to action, branding etc etc that you can have on your own blog page.  LinkedIn own that real estate, and like Youtube, your post will be followed immediately by someone elses, and you have no control over that either.

So why host on LinkedIn Pulse, there's limited branding and marketing, up sell or cross selling opportunities, no link juice benefits?  Is it enough to drive traffic where you wish to send it, and the extended reach LinkedIn offers by delivering your post to interested recipients?  It all depends on what you are looking to achieve, peripheral marketing and link juice may not matter to you - if you are looking to raise your profile with an extended network for instance.

This extended reach really resonated with me - I sensed LinkedIn would be good and able to 'aim' well on my behalf, after all I liked the material Pulse delivered to me, and I wasn't following those authors!  Question was then - would my posting on Pulse result in more engagement?

I had to know, so I started using Pulse... I'll let you know how it went in part two of this blog... I have always wanted to end on this line ...

To be Continued...

(Bucket list -=1)

Mick

@mick_holloway
www.24-7.so

Don't think your profile photo matters ?

Don't think your LinkedIn profile photo matters ?

  
At our 24-7 Social Media Training and Networking events, we always review someone's LinkedIn profile. Its not a dire experience... honest, everyone starts all anxious, then really love the feedback, which  
incidentally is always constructive) its great to hear what our experts think, but better to hear what your colleagues and peers think.  
Today at our 24-7 Newport Pagnell UK group we spent 10 minutes 'just' discussing someone's profile photo. Here's the thing, firstly no one made the group focus on the photo, it just happened that way, all of a sudden we realised we had been discussing this photo for 10 minutes. Secondly, it was actually quite a good picture, the observations, comments and discussions were fabulous.

So if you think no one bothers that much about your profile photo, think again.   The way I see it you have a few choices here -  

The Professional Head and Shoulders shot, a good investment.  Photographers know how the laws of physics apply to light, and the engineering limitations of a camera, they understand composition and they have an eye for detail.  You will be well lit, composed, your eye's will be open, the background will not distract, there will be no light reflecting in your glasses, no photobombing - you'll look GOOOOD.

Your LinkedIn Profile is no place for a Selfie

DIY with a smart Phone.  The quality of the smart phone camera's is just fine, so this is an OK solution, just think a while about the composition, look for well lit places, simple background - the background will likely be in focus, 10p bet you won't be considering focus, white balance and depth of field.  And get someone else to hold the camera - please, I'm not up for debating this one, ok?  This isn't the time for a selfie!! 


Use a Holiday Pic. OK - where to start... Actually I am writing this at 16:00 on a Friday afternoon and we are too close to the weekend to phaffff about.  Could you use a Holiday Pic - No.  Move along now, there's no more to see here ;)

No Photo - LinkedIn claim search results with photo's are 7 times more likely to be clicked on than those with no photo.  Not sure I need say more do I?  I do !!  OK, well how about this, if you don't provide a photo, linkedIn will use a silhouette, a bland grey (and I have read its a male) silhouette, not at all subtle ... think sore thumbs and standing out like.  Don't shout at LinkedIn - its your profile - get a picture ... and anyway - if you don't post a photo on your Twitter profile they use an EGG !  Think on how that works as a first Impression!

  Need I say more?  I DO!!  OK... Whats the message you are giving out if you cannot even bother to post a photo?  Most mobile phones have HD camera's, if yours doesn't or you don't have a mobile or tablet, at your next networking event (we all network don't we? ... NO! - Well go see www.24-7.so) just ask the person next to you, stand in front of a plain wall, smile and think of that breakfast, it will soon be over and you won't feel a thing.  
So, if you haven't already, go get yourself a photo for your profiles - just gimme 10 minutes to post my old Panasonic DMZ DZ-10 camera on Ebay, great for LinkedIn Profiles, I'll send y'all the link...