Tag Archives: LinkedIn

Monday Marketing Mash-up: Social Media Profile Cover Photos

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Managing your brand’s presence on so many different social channels can be a pain, and one of the annoying aspects of it is getting the right cover photos for each one. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ — all have different guidelines for what the cover photo size should be.

Here is a list of official and unofficial references that will give you cover and profile picture specification for all social networks:

1. Facebook

The cover photo of your Facebook page is very important: not only is it featured on your page, it is also prominently displayed in the user’s newsfeed when your page is recommended (paid or otherwise) by Facebook. Facebook’s official guidelines give very little detail but this page covers all you need to know.

Faceboook Cover Photo Guidelines

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Making Cleaning Businesses Successful: Interview with Tom Watson

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Tom Watson of Cleaning 4 ProfitTom Watson helps cleaning businesses become successful. That’s right. His books and services are aimed at helping cleaning businesses become more effective, and of course, marketing is a part of this. Let’s ask him about online marketing for cleaning businesses.

My questions and comments are in bold.

So how is marketing for cleaning businesses different? (Or is it?)

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5 Lessons for Social Media Marketing from Cricket (Yes, the Sport)

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I was really excited to find a blog dedicated to social media and sports analogies. I have always been a cricket fan and even though I don’t watch all the games now, I still follow the updates.

This was originally published on that blog and if you are a sports fan you’ll find a lot of other interesting posts there.

I came across this blog a few weeks back and loved the idea of relating social media with sports. I don’t know how many of you follow or understand cricket but Brian agreed to publish this and I am hoping you will share your feedback in the comments. Even if you don’t like what I have here, do say ‘hi’ if you love Cricket or would like to learn more of it.

Comparing social media to a five-day long game of cricket seems a bit odd but that’s what I am going to do. There are so many similarities between the two that I had to limit myself to writing only from a batsman’s perspective. So here we go.

Social media is like test cricket
Originally uploaded to Flicker by fiverlocker

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Monday Marketing Mash-Up: Social Media News You Should Know

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Social media changes: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter
They’re all beginning to look the same

Looks like all social media sites are making tons of changes. Here are some recent changes that affect small businesses.

Facebook has removed a number of features, including sponsored stories — which is great, because we’re all tired of those sponsored “your friend likes this page” updates. But I’m sad that they’re killing questions (though why not call them polls, Facebook)?

Here’s the announcement by Facebook and a nice explanatory post on HubSpot. What does this mean for businesses? Now you can’t waste money promoting what someone did on/to your page or content.

The other big Facebook change is the introduction of hashtags: this could really change the game for Facebook, by making search and discovery much easier. Marketers, start optimizing your Facebook posts!

Twitter’s adding analytics. This is really cool, but no idea when this will be rolled out to all users. For businesses, this is will help to see what tweets are working and whether you’re just wasting your time (even if you’re not using Markitty).

Twitter has started 2-step log-in verification, and so has LinkedIn.

Speaking of LinkedIn, you can now share media files in your updates, so start sharing those photos and presentations. LinkedIn also previously added the ability to add visual content to your profile (or page). 

With these updates and having added the ability to tag people, LinkedIn’s begun to look eerily like Facebook and Google Plus. And Facebook’s trying to be more like Twitter, earlier with timelines and now hashtags. Which begs the question: if they’re all the same, should we bother trying to be present on all of them or just focus on one? Or maybe automated cross-posting is the answer (please, no).

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Marketing Reading for the Week: New Social Media Features You Should Use

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We’re moving the weekly round-up to Monday, so you can read it as you start your week. This week, here are some social media updates you should know of.

Did you know that you can now tag (mention) people on LinkedIn the way you do on Facebook or Twitter? I’m so glad they finally rolled this out. Even Google Plus had this!

Facebook changed their guidelines to remove restrictions on using calls to action or contact info on cover photos. Now you can say “Buy Now”, “Like”, or “Call us!” in your cover photo if you want to.

Facebook also introduced threading of comments, so that replies are bunched together. In itself, this is a great idea, but people are complaining about the replies being ordered by popularity/relevance instead of in chronological order. If you are a Page owner, this might make your life a little more difficult.

Facebook announced changes to the news feed last month, which are being rolled out to users. This article gives you the five coolest changes: I especially like that mobile usability will improve and we’ll see more content in chronological order.

On to Twitter: the new Twitter cards (that allow you to add rich content in a tweet) have interesting features. For developers, the app card looks really cool. The Gallery card lets you include up to four images in the same tweet. Most interestingly for e-commerce businesses, you can embed product details right inside a tweet.

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Using LinkedIn for Business: Interview with Ed Steinberg, LinkedIn’s first Relationship Manager

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Edward_SteinbergWhen I first knew Ed Steinberg, he was the head of human resources at the company I was then working at. Since then, he’s gone on to do interesting things, becoming LinkedIn’s first Relationship Manager and working there for several years before moving on to training other sales people on using LinkedIn effectively.

I asked Ed for tips on using LinkedIn that small businesses can use. Read on! My questions and comments are in bold.

Let’s start by talking about you: tell us about how you landed up in LinkedIn and what your role has been.

I worked in Human Resources for a long time, 15 years or so. My primary responsibility was hiring. I realized that referral hires made the best hires and helped grow a company from 4 employees to over 500 people. I had opened up offices on 3 continents and hired a tremendous group of employees.

While working as Global Head of HR at StarCite, a LinkedIn rep came to my office to sell me Corporate Solutions. When I realized what it was, I saw that this was a large extension around the concept of referral hiring that had worked so well for me. It made perfect sense!

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Weekend Reads for Better Marketing: Sales and SEO

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Little girl with make-up and rollers
This is about how fake I feel if I try to sell

Vijay Anand, the founder of the Startup Center and a well-known name in the Indian startup space, answers the question, “What will it take to build 1.000 Startups in a year?”

Tech columnist Farhad Manjoo writes about Facebook’s Graph Search (which Nilesh wrote about here).

You’ll immediately notice Facebook search’s amazing user interface and flexibility. You’ll also spot one glaring problem: The search results aren’t that good.

…

After just a few queries, I started asking the engine for more and more complicated things, just to see if it could keep up… It didn’t have any trouble.

I can’t wait to try it myself, though apparently Facebook is rolling it out “very slowly.”

Are you making these 9 mistakes on LinkedIn?

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Tech Marketing: Interview with Bhaskar Sarma, B2B Marketing Consultant

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Bhaskar Sarma, B2B CopywriterBhaskar Sarma of Pixels and Clicks is a copywriter specializing in B2B technology businesses. He is also a fantasy fan, judging by his marketing blog posts that reference Tolkien and Dr. Who. He talks to us about copywriting and social media for B2B.

My questions and comments are in bold.

How and why did you become a consultant?

I came into consulting and copywriting through a pretty roundabout fashion. Before my current gig and after getting my BE in computer engineering I was a tech journalist, an infosec consultant and a volunteer with a non-profit running schools in remote mountain villages near Mussorie. I decided not to get back into the corporate rat race and opted to work for myself, travel when I want and choose my own clients and projects.

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5 Risks of Relying on Social Media Marketing

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The recent brouhaha over Instragram’s policy changes brings into sharp relief the fact that marketing on social media entails a lot of dependence on the social media sites. Instagram’s users might not be in trouble right now, but do you remember the last cries of outrage over changes in Facebook’s policies?

Which brings me to the question: is it wise to focus your marketing efforts primarily on social media?

I’m not advocating ignoring social media (of course). But realize this: you don’t control Facebook or Twitter or Google Plus. Your most important content should be on your own site, whether it’s in the form of blog posts, FAQs, a photo gallery, or video tutorials.

Here are five reasons why.

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How to Determine Which Social Media Channels You Should Use

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FruitsAs a business-owner, you have a hundred things clamoring for your attention. But you also need to be on social media, to listen and talk to your customers and to influencers in your industry. Focusing on one or two channels will probably be more useful to you than creating profiles on many that you can’t keep up with.

The biggest factor that determines what social media you should focus on depends, of course, on where your customers are. But here are some other factors that might help you make the decision.

Facebook

If you’re a B2C business, you probably can’t afford to ignore Facebook. Facebook has a huge user base, and it’s where everyone hangs out — teenagers, office workers, stay-at-home parents, freelancers, grandparents. So you should seriously consider having an active Facebook page if:

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Small Business Marketing: Interview with Anita Campbell of Small Business Trends

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Anita Campbell of Small Business TrendsAnita Campbell is the Founder and CEO of Small Business Trends, a popular U.S.-based site for small business advice. Small Business Trends has been mentioned in the Wall Street Journal, MSNBC, and the New York Times, and Anita herself is a popular writer and speaker and is on several advisory boards. She talks to us about content creation, content monetization, and entrepreneurship.

My questions and comments are in bold.

Tell us a bit about Small Business Trends – I read you started it as a version of an email newsletter? Who was your first audience? Continue reading →

Weekend Reads for Better Marketing: Website and Social Media

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Do people really think content marketers don’t care about sales? This and other myths here.

Outspoken Media has an easy, excellent guide to link-building in 15 minutes a day.

And here are a few quick ways to improve your website’s usability.

If you aren’t using photos on Facebook yet, here’s more evidence to convince you: photos get 53% more likes.

Here’s another blog post laying out why LinkedIn’s Endorsement feature is awful.

Have a great weekend, and make your marketing better next week!

Weekend Reads for Better Marketing: A Wide Assortment

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Cheesecake with assorted fruits

With the five links below, you can learn about blogging, websites, advertising on social media, motivation, and sales. Let’s start!

Hubspot tells you how you (yes, you) can be a business blogger.

Copyblogger tells you how to set up a WordPress website in fifteen minutes. (Though really, if you’re new to this, I think it will take you at least half an hour. Or a couple of hours — speaking as someone who’s technically-challenged but got this website up and running, with a little help from the other guy.)

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Weekend Reads for Better Marketing: LinkedIn Endorsements and Twitter Follower Count

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This seems to be Tools Week! Neil Patel shares ten mission-critical tools for every modern marketer. How many of these do you use? I use only two — IFTTT and Hello Bar. But I plan to start using Hootsuite and KISSmetrics soon — these are both very popular and recommended tools, and I’m hoping they’ll help us!

Rand Fishkin, Founder and CEO of SEOMoz, shares 24 things that he wished he had known “then” (at the beginning of his entrepreneurial journey. My favorite is, obviously, #10:

“Better marketing often trumps a better product. Invest in both.”

Lisa Barone shares seven rules for writing awesome content. The first, of course, is telling stories.

I hate LinkedIn’s new Endorsement feature — I think it makes it far too easy for people to endorse others and makes it somewhat of a popularity contest. But since it’s there, you might as well use it, and Social Media Examiner has tips.

This study of 36 million Twitter users finds that the number of followers you have directly correlates to how often you tweet. So, how many tweets have you sent out this week?

Where and How Should You Publish Your Content?

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So you’ve got your objectives pinned down, you know who your audience is, and you have a list of topics in mind. But what form of content are you going to create and where are you going to publish it?

Bird's nest with egg next to a wall
Create original content and decide how and where you want it delivered: like the pair of pigeons who chose my balcony to nest in

Settle down and grab a pen: I’ve got a lot of questions you need to answer.

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Weekend Reads for Better Marketing: SMBs and Social Media

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A new study of SMBs’ use of social media turns up some interesting results, among which are:

  • 36% of respondents spend $845 a month on social media management tools
  • 76% measure referral traffic from social platforms to websites
  • Facebook is the most popular social media site (73%), followed by LinkedIn and Twitter
  • The most common use of social media is to share information (91%); only 46% see social media as a place to handle customer service issues

Copyblogger has a comprehensive guide to formatting WordPress posts and pages — which also works if you’re using a different content management or blogging platform.

Lisa Barone tells you how to create an editorial calendar for your blog.

Lisa also explains how to use stock photographs better by telling you what not to do.

The Wall Street Journal takes on one of my favorite topics — procrastination — and offers four great tips on managing it.

So next week, stop procrastinating and work on improving your marketing! And if you see any good tips on the subject, don’t forget to let us know.

Weekend Reads for Better Marketing: First Edition

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Starting today, we’ll post a round-up of useful marketing news and tips every Friday, just in time for the weekend. So you can read on a lazy weekend afternoon and get to work on Monday improving your marketing!

Seven steps to a high-converting email marketing campaign: excellent advice. If you plan to start an email marketing program or have one already and want to improve it, go read.

My favorite marketing writer, Lisa Barone, offers four ways to fairly use content created by other people (and I’m using one of those here).

Lisa Barone also explains how you can use social media to build trust. Continue reading →