We’ve been talking about the five biggest mistakes people make when using LinkedIn.

In Part 1, Wayne told us about:

- Biggest Mistake #1: Failure to dedicate sufficient time to their LinkedIn efforts.

- Biggest Mistake #2: Underestimating the importance of crafting a dynamic, keyword-filled personal profile.

In Part 2 we discussed:

- Biggest Mistake #3: Failure to recognize the importance of having lots of trusted professionals in your LinkedIn network

and not getting recommendations.

- Biggest Mistake #4: Using LinkedIn to advertise your products and services.

In this segment, we learn about the final mistake that businesses/brands are making:

Click a player to hear Wayne talk with George & Mary-Lynn on The BIGG Success Show podcast. (Duration 7:45)

iPhone/iPad/Mobile Podcast Player

• How LinkedIn is powerful for companies and why consistency is key
• Why your employee’s profile is either helping or hurting your brand
• Ideas on how companies can create that consistency about their brand with their employees
• How to create a strategy when using Groups to help promote your company
•  Why it is essential to have a company page on LinkedIn and what it search engine keywords your company profile should contain.
• What you should be doing to maintain your LinkedIn personal page and your company page.
• Should recommendations go on your personal profile or company profile?

Visit Wayne’s website to get free weekly LinkedIn tips  along with a free chapter of his book .

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file | podcast:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/biggsuccess/00805-042812.mp3

We’re discussing the five biggest mistakes people make when using LinkedIn. In Part 1 of our interview we talked about:

- Biggest Mistake #1: Failure to dedicate sufficient time to their LinkedIn efforts.

- Biggest Mistake #2: Underestimating the importance of crafting a dynamic, keyword-filled personal profile.

In this segment, learn about these mistakes:

Click a player to hear Wayne talk with George & Mary-Lynn on The BIGG Success Show podcast. (Duration 9:50)

iPhone/iPad/Mobile Podcast Player

• What Wayne says is the most powerful aspect of LinkedIn

• How LinkedIn is like the “6 degrees to Kevin Bacon”

• Why 35-40 connections is NOT enough to fully use LinkedIn and the number you should shoot for

• Why Groups on LinkedIn are the second most important part of using LinkedIn

• There are over 1.2 million Groups on LinkedIn, learn how to get more connections using them.

• How recommendations  can help you come up more often when people use the keyword search tool to attract more leads.

Biggest Mistake #4: Using LinkedIn to advertise your products and services.

• Why the traditional forms of advertising doesn’t work in social media

• Your Powerful Formula for promoting yourself on LinkedIn is to: Help people, share valuable information, and build relationships.

• How sharing your work in terms of questions and discussions will take away the “in your face” advertising.

• Why you should spend time listening on social media spaces to learn the communication skills.

• How to listen on LinkedIn by simply visiting your home page.

• Why Groups provide a listening tool for you too.

• How to find conversations in your space using keywords and a tool hardly anyone uses: “LinkedIn Signal” or “Search Status Updates.”

• Wayne shares an example of how he was able to connect with a potential client who wasn’t even in his network by using the listening tools in LinkedIn.

Visit Wayne’s website for a free chapter of  his book The Power Formula for LinkedIn Success and to learn more about his LinkedIn training offerings.

Next time, learn about a silly little thing that many companies overlook on LinkedIn and why it hurts your brand.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file | podcast:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/biggsuccess/00804-042612.mp3

Click a player to hear Wayne talk with George & Mary-Lynn on The BIGG Success Show podcast. (Duration 8:55)

iPhone/iPad/Mobile Podcast Player

• Find out why the recession turned Wayne from a skeptic on LinkedIn to a  BIGG fan!
• Why a light bulb went off while he was using the people search feature on LinkedIn
• Why LinkedIn isn’t in the same realm as Facebook and Twitter for personal branding on social media branding.

Biggest Mistake #1: Failure to dedicate sufficient time to their LinkedIn efforts.

• Find out why Wayne says you should spend at least 2 hours a week there and where to find the time).
• The most important actions your should take when spending time on LinkedIn.
• What Wayne says is the “gasoline in the tank” for your LinkedIn use.

Biggest Mistake #2: Underestimating the importance of crafting a dynamic, keyword-filled personal profile.

• Why you shouldn’t treat your LinkedIn profile like a resume (and why it’s boring to keep it that way).
• The 2 things to think about as crafting your profile: keywords and story.
• The trick to determining the keywords you’ll want to use (think the “this” or the “that”).
• Why thinking Yellow Page categories is a helpful way to craft your business keywords.

Learn more about Wayne, his book, his LinkedIn training, and even download a free chapter of The Power Formula for LinkedIn Success on his website.

Next time, Wayne talks about the best way to communicate so you don’t turn people away.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file | podcast:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/biggsuccess/00803-042412.mp3

The news has been full of storm clouds. Among other indicators, unemployment is rising. There is one thing you can do to face challenges like this with confidence – prepare for it in advance by keeping your options open. Here are four ways to do that:

___

___

Visibility

Insure that people see you doing what you do best. Is your job "outbound" so you're clearly visible to customers? If so, capitalize on that relationship. Ask them for a brief note about working with you. It will come in handy at your next evaluation or if you need to look for other work.

If your job doesn't expose you to anyone outside your company, then work on your visibility. Get involved in your industry. Look for conferences you can attend. Participate in forums and comment on blog posts about your industry. You might even consider starting your own blog to show off your expertise. Volunteer to work for your favorite non-profit.

There are many ways to do it. Get started right away if you’re not already doing it. And then do a little maintenance – reach out in some way – every day.

Networking

It's amazing how many people land a new job through a referral. It's also amazing how much business results from our networks.

So why do so many of us pay so little attention to our network until we really need it?

Do you participate in local opportunities? Is your company a member of the Chamber of Commerce? If so, do you attend Chamber functions? Are you a member of any local service clubs? These are great real world opportunities to build your network.

Are you on LinkedIn? What about Facebook and Twitter? Have you joined any industry-specific social networking sites? The contacts you make through these sites will be valuable now. They may prove invaluable should you be forced to make a change.

How about combining the virtual with the real? Have you registered on Meetup to find out about local events of interest to you? You’ll meet some fantastic people while growing your network at the same time.

Marketing

It begins by positioning yourself. What makes you unique? How can you communicate that? What opportunities play to your core strengths?

Is your resume up-to-date? If not, there's no time like the present! For sample cover letters, resumes, job search and interviewing tips, check out Resume Help.

Building a Bridge Plan

What would you do if you were forced to change jobs? How would you pay your bills? Where would you look for a new job? Who would you contact for referrals? For what services would you pay? For example, would you hire a career coach?

As you prepare this plan, keep a couple of things in mind.

• You may spot some problems.
  That's why you're doing this now. For instance, at what point might you need to find some part-time work or freelance work to pay the bills?

• Allow for some recovery time.
  You're human. It will be emotional. But you'll feel much more confident having thought it through in advance. And you'll be able to keep your options open to find the right opportunity for you! That’s bigg success!

___

___

Thanks for the gift of your time today.

Bigg success is life on your own terms. You are the entrepreneur of your own life. You can be taught some things about entrepreneuring; others you have to learn on your own. Please join us next time when we talk about which is which.

Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00514-110309.mp3

Related posts

Steer Your Way to Bigg Success

Becoming An Entrepreneurial Employee

___

___

___

John, let’s say you have a brand and it’s not working. You need a brand-over. How would you do that if you’re an existing business?

___

___

The first thing you have to do is reach out to your customers. This rebranding, or brand-over notion, comes from the marketing concept. It is not “build it and they will come” ala health care that’s being promoted. It’s find out what people want and give them what they want. For example, let’s say you have a car wash and you think hot wax is what everyone wants. But you’re not getting the number of people you want through your car wash. So you ask your customers, “Why aren’t you coming to my car wash?” They say, “It’s the hot wax. It interferes with my paint job.” Ah! What does that tell you? You shouldn’t be using hot wax, even though people in the business have told you that hot wax is great. Ask your customers. Stay in touch with them so you can give them what they want. How do you get somebody to like you? You tell them what they want to hear or give them what they want. That’s the secret.

___

___

That’s how I got Mary-Lynn! Companies have kind of gotten this, John, although they don’t always deliver upon it. As individuals, isn’t it important to understand that a brand is a promise? We have to be careful about what we promise to be absolutely certain we can deliver it.

___

___

Absolutely. There’s nothing worse than promising a consumer something you don’t deliver. I’ll give you an example of this. Many years ago, in the New York area, there was a beer called Peel’s Beer. Their advertising was so clever that it generated a lot of initial sales. The problem was nobody liked the beer. They promised a great beer but they didn’t deliver a great beer. Not a good thing.

___

___

Maybe they should have positioned it as the beer you drink after you’ve had a few?

___

___

There you go! Are you sure not in marketing?

___

___

___

___

John, you always offer a “Tantillo Takeaway” on your blog. I’d say our takeaway with you today is “know your target market.”

___

___

That’s always the secret. Who is your target market?

___

___

You recently had a great post about institutional communication versus individual. The example you gave is that John McCain now has more followers on Twitter than the White House. So the individual has power with new media that institutions don’t have.

___

___

That is correct. It’s driving the heck out of these Washington media types that the blogger, or the candidates themselves, can go directly to the voter. If we’ve learned anything today, it’s that the game has changed. You have to be on top of all the new social media. I’m 58 years old and I’m on Facebook with over 3,400 friends. I’m on Twitter and LinkedIn. I even went to my old high school web site and now I have a page there. The point is that you have to use every marketing tactic you can possibly use in today’s world. It’s funny. It’s the very reason President Obama became President Obama. He was sophisticated. Now, in the institution of the White House, maybe he feels that he has to move on or do things more traditionally.

___

___

He’s also more edited now than he was before.

___

___

No question about it.

___

___

Let’s talk about small business owners. We hear all the time that they don’t have the time to get out there and utilize these new media tools. They don’t even know how to get started. What would your suggestion be to them?

___

___

You have to do it. Enlist young people – high school students, college students home for break or friends of your own children. It doesn’t have to take a lot of time. To give you an example, I started Facebook about a year or two ago. I didn’t really do anything. Then I went down to my favorite place in the world – God’s waiting room – Miami Beach, Florida – at Christmas time. I’d picked up a book in the library, about how to market yourself on Facebook. It’s been an increasing positive function – how do you like that, George – in terms of Facebook friends ever since. I love it. And hey, if I can do it, anybody can do it. You have to make a little bit of time. It’s a good reason to go on a vacation where you don’t think about your business, but about yourself in terms of the business. It’s a little different. I’ve found it fun and exciting. You have to make it part of your day. It’s like doing cold call sales. Nobody likes to do it. But, at one point, when things aren’t moving, you just have to go and do it. You have to make time.

___

Thanks so much for joining us today. Next time, we’ll wrap up our conversation about John. We’ll discuss social media marketing tips. Please join us! Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00474-090309.mp3

Related posts

What's Hot in 2009: Questions