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Meeting People is Easy – Getting to know them takes work

By Jamie on November 17, 2009 in Best Practices, FaceBook, LinkedIn

As I wind up my second night in a row of getting out to events and engaging with people, I am reminded that meeting people is easy, getting to know them takes work. The reason I am so passionate about networks like LinkedIn, FaceBook and to a lesser extent Twitter is that it makes it so easy to get to know people. All you have to do is put in the work.

In FaceBook, I use Lists to make it easy to keep up with all of my friends and connections. By managing my Lists effectively, I can slowly get to know as much as you share about yourself with me. I still have to check FaceBook regularly to keep up with the flow of information. On LinkedIn, I have to look at profiles and learn what you have done or are doing. I have to read the answers you post to questions and the recommendations you write. This is how I get to know you better. Twitter, I have to look at your links, analyze your content and get you offline and into the real world for coffee or wine…otherwise my memory does not retain enough information to match the face to the person.

Why is this important? Every day there are opportunities to connect people and make introductions. The better you know people the easier it is to see how you can help them. I put the work in to try and get to know you better, because I want to make the world a better place for all of us. This means looking at business cards at 11pm, following up on that email from this morning, commenting onthe micro level news occurring on various networks, as well as sharing the seemingly boring details of our lives. Talk with me about food, wine, sports, politics and life. Share your pictures, passions, successes and failures. This is the only way we will get to know each other better.

Put the Work in. Grow Organically. Develop deep strong roots. Bend – Be Flexible, it is better than simply breaking. Whatever you do, participate. We are waiting for you.

LinkedIn to Twitter – Not Exciting Yet

By Jamie on November 11, 2009 in Best Practices, LinkedIn

Today was a big day for me on LinkedIn. First, I noticed I have 500 connections, some sort of strange marker that I have now reset – next stop 1,000. Second, I noticed under Edit Profile, the first integration of Twitter, widely reported with scant details. Upon adding my Twitter account there was a quick Twitter connect approval and just like my Website, my Twitter account is now a link in my LinkedIn Profile. I had to make a choice, Do all Tweets update my Status on LinkedIn or only Tweets with the Tag #in attached. I choose to use #in because there is no way in the world I want all of my wine related posts and in general griping and promoting to hit LinkedIn every day. Generally, I advise people to be more selective in updating their status on LinkedIn. Every 2-4 weeks unless something special is happening or you are traveling frequently. It will be really exciting to see what this collaboration brings in the future, for now the most exciting feature is a Link in my Profile, whatever.

How Twitter Lists can help you get your first 2,000 followers

By Jamie on November 9, 2009 in Best Practices

Twitter lists are a very very very valuable tool. Click around and check a few out. What you will see is people are organizing and categorizing their Twitter friends. Are you looking for more followers in your local area? Find Twitter lists of people who have broken out your regional Twitter connects. Maybe you want a specific niche like Yoga or Cycling, fahgetaboutit there are tons of lists for that. Find the various Lists on Twitter, look at who the list is following and follow them, all of them. When you get cut off by Twitter take a break for a few days, then delete all the people not following you back using Twitter Karma and start adding followers again, this is the secret of finding your first 2,000 followers on Twitter.

Should you create Lists? Of course, this is how the system works! Create Lists that fit your interests and passions and add your friends to these Lists. What is the advantage to you? How about as I scroll thru your list of 400 people I am seeing your page and logo the entire time. Yes, your list is a great big advertisement for you. Yes, Twitter has Private Lists, but why bother? Twitter as a communication tool has become an opt-in spam machine. Cut thru the noise by building your own Public Lists. Leave Private for the crazies. Twitter is an open relationship, keep it that way. Start building a List today, at the very least do your homework and check out a few Lists.

Pictures, FaceBookand your Fan Page – the Missing Tag

By Jamie on November 9, 2009 in Best Practices, FaceBook

You can’t get enough pictures on FaceBook, especially if you have a Fan Page. With 16 Billion plus photos on FaceBook, this is an area you do not want to miss. It is a great way to promote your business and your Fans! Photos hit your Fans news feed, just like a post does. Add Captions, tag people and find the balance that makes photos interesting and comment worthy. Remember you must enable tagging of photos on your Fan Page, this is not on by default. Scroll down to the bottom right of your Fan Page and you should see a photo box and edit options, click on edit options and enable your Fans to Tag themselves and their friends in Photos. Why? Because when people are tagged in photos their friends see those pictures and as a result they see your Fan Page. This is an easy, cheap, great way to organically grow your fan base.

You can only tag people you are friends with, asking people to tag themselves works or find a contest or prize as an incentive for people to tag themselves. If you have a business with walk in traffic, start taking pictures of people and getting them up on the Fan Page, ask the people in the photos to tag themselves and to share the fan page with their friends. You can also put up a sign with your FaceBook address encouraging people to become a Fan of your page on FaceBook. Whatever you do, get photos on your fan page and start interacting with your people.

Bored with FaceBook?

By Jamie on November 7, 2009 in Best Practices, FaceBook

If you are bored with FaceBook, it is your own fault. The first steps to curing this fault are expanding the number of profiles hitting your News Feed, then creating Lists. Scroll down to the very bottom of your Newsfeed and select Edit Options. Now you can change your default from 250 profiles to a higher number, I made mine 700 giving me some room to grow. I’ve discussed how to create and use Lists to manage your newsfeed previously. Remember these Lists are Private, only you see them, unlike Twitter which can be Public or Profile.

Now you are ready to play. Maybe be a little more generous with your friendship. Add some more people from the past or even people you have just met. Take the time to email people from the past and give a more detailed update to your life. Better yet ask some questions. Make friends with your scanner and add some of those old pictures you have buried in the closet. When you have exhausted your personal resources, start creating. Typing a “Note” on Facebook is just like Blogging. Pick a theme and start writing about it. Tag some of us so we see it. Write about whatever interests you and the odds are very good you will find some people who share that interest. Suddenly, Facebook isn’t that boring anymore…and neither are you.

Twitter lists – rolling out slowly and @delloutlet

By Jamie on October 28, 2009 in Best Practices

The few, the proud, the very lucky have started seeing Twitter Lists appear on http://www.twitter.com. The changes to Twitter’s web site are so rare, it is hard to say who cares? What is really exciting about Twitter Lists is that this is a strange social mash-up. Delicious and Dig meet FaceBook. Now you can organize your people and filter the noise. Keep your “friends” in one list, “family” in another and so on. Categorization of the information available to you on Twitter makes the site so much more useful. You can also make these lists public or private. I haven’t seen these showing up yet, so I think they are rolling this out very very slowly. This is probably a good thing since Twitter crashes all of the time anyway (does anybody else wonder what they are spending millions of dollars on if not infrastructure and engineers?).

Side note, @delloutlet now has over 1,300,000 followers. With 600,000 followers they attributed 3 million in sales to their Twitter account. I’d love to know if they paid to be a recommended follower on Twitter or if that is a present from Twitter to establish the value with a direct dollar equation. I have been saying all year that I think Dell will hit 10 million in sales in 2009 from Twitter, I am starting to think that number may be low, very low.

Why do you need a strong and deep social and professional network?

By Jamie on October 14, 2009 in Best Practices, FaceBook, LinkedIn

Last night I presented and discussed Twitter & LinkedIn with Professor Elad Granot’s marketing class at Cleveland State University. We covered a lot of ground in a short period of time. I realized halfway thru the night, that we rarely discuss why you actually want to build out your connections on these networks. Why do you need a lot of connections? Let’s look at this from a few different angles.

1) Your potential on these networks is limited by your number of connections. There is a fine line between finding the right amount of kinetic vs. potential. Too many connections and you will have a hard time getting to know them and listening to them. Too few connections and you will not have access to the resources you need as situations arise. Generally speaking, more connections is a better problem to have. Why? Because these sites are adapting to these problems and letting you filter your information. On FaceBook you can keep lists of friends in categories, on Twitter using Seesmic or Tweetdeck you can create lists to track people, LinkedIn is rolling out a new paid feature for lists as well.

2) Access to information, knowledge is power. As your network grows you will see more information. On LinkedIn your search results improve as you have more 2nd degree connections, on FaceBook you start to see trends and can participate in conversations, on Twitter you need the excess overload of content to discover what is happening right now. You need to be connected to people to see information.

3) Touch your network. How often do you call your connections and/or friends? Practically speaking I contact about 20-35 friends a year as a normal activity. Is that how many people I have known and would like to stay in touch with? No, that number is closer to 400. By staying reasonably active within your networks you can keep your network up to date with your social and professional life. This is why we will have strong bonds in the future with people we do not speak with regularly. We will know each other, it is easy to speak candidly with people you know. Make sure your network knows you. Check out some of my earlier posts on how to “touch” your network.

4) Ok, I’m connected to everyone I know, now what? Start talking, start listening. Participate in the conversation. As you find people that are interesting, take the conversation offline – to email, phone calls, and coffee. This is where you will find the most success. Some of my most interesting live meetings this year have come from Twitter conversations. LinkedIn should be the first place you search for information before meeting that person for the first time. Invite a FaceBook friend to coffee, try and figure out how you can help them. Transition interesting people and opportunities to the real world. It is a lot easier to talk with someone in the real world when you know them from one of your networks, you have ‘stuff” to talk about.

There is a random side to Twitter and even LinkedIn. People you connect to that you do not have a history of school, work or friendship with. Why should you connect to new people you don’t really know? Because each connection brings you closer to your potential. Each connection is an opportunity to lend your skills and knowledge to someone else. I encourage you to be a bridge builder, a resource. You have developed fantastic skills over the course of your life, share them with your network. Extend your network and more people will benefit from you as an information resource. Be the valuable resource you are.

Remember, social and professional networks online are just an extension of what we have been doing our entire lives, Networking Effectively. Like the old MaBell commercial said, Reach Out and Touch Somebody.

7 Tips for How to Use LinkedIn Effectively – Reach Out And Touch Someone

By Jamie on September 30, 2009 in Best Practices, LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the most obvious of the social/professional networks for many people to join. Why should you become an active user, rather than simply passively accepting invitations to connect? Because if you are not an active participant you don’t know what your potential is. It is that simple. You have to have a complete profile and a broad network. This is when LinkedIn opens up and search becomes very powerful. The following Tips assume you have filled in the missing details and enabled LinkedIn to parsed thru your emails contacts, generously inviting your people to connect on LinkedIn.

1) If you have email lists you can upload these into LinkedIn and very effectively find more connections. This is a great tool for organizations and teams to work together to expand their connections and strengthen their base.

2) When you participate in a Group related to your business, you will find people you can contact directly. This is particularly useful as you focus in on your niche product or service. Open the conversation and be personal, avoid canned letters – they will get you canned responses.

3) Engage in Groups related to your passion, potential customers in these groups may be more inclined to talk business with you based on your mutual interest.

4) Going to a conference? Research the speakers and published attendees on LinkedIn. This is a great way to find out if you are connected with any of them, find potential avenues to connect with them (if you are 2 away from a speaker can you get an introduction- yes), arrange meetings prior to the conference, and find common ground to connect with attendees. Doing the leg work before the conference makes your attendance that much more effective. Do you still need to follow-up after the conference? Of course, but hopefully you are meeting for coffee or drinks at the conference rather than simply collecting a card.

5) Traveling for business or pleasure? Invite some of your connections to get together for drinks or breakfast. This is a great way to get together in the real world with people you are connected to on LinkedIn. Make introductions to people you are connected with and be the valuable asset you are. When you build bridges for others, the same will happen for you.

6) Search for a business and job title of a potential customer. Look thru the profiles and identify specific potential contacts. Do your research, maybe you are connected to them or share a mutual connection. Pick up the phone and call them, tell them how you found them and why you are calling. This kind of transparency opens the door to further communication and follow-up emails, potentially an invitation to connect on LinkedIn. Never make a cold call again.

7) Write an unsolicited Recommendation regularly. Why? Because you can. If this is your only activity on LinkedIn you are doing Great! See my previous posts on this if you need help.

*Remember, you must have a complete professional profile and a broad expanded network for the above information to be useful. Reach Out and Touch Someone.

Getting FaceBook, Twitter and YouTube to Talk to each other – Automatically

By Jamie on September 24, 2009 in Best Practices, FaceBook

Recently I am seeing a lot of people making progress in using Social Media to communicate more effectively. How do you get your resources to “talk to each other” is a minor nightmare. Below I am going to walk thru integrating a FaceBook Fan Page with Twitter, YouTube with Twitter and Your Blog with a FaceBook Fan Page (or your personal Page). This post assumes you have a Twitter account, FaceBook Account and YouTube account!

Connecting your FaceBook Fan Page to Twitter

Why do you want to do this? Because every time you Post to your FaceBook Fan Page Wall as an Administrator, a Tweet will be sent out automatically with a shortened version of the Post and a Link to your Fan Page. This helps grow your Fan base and reduces the need to Tweet the same update, creating efficiency in your process.

The process is very easy, navigate to http://www.facebook.com/twitter and you will be given the option to link your Fan Page to your Twitter Account.

You must allow access on Twitter as part of the process. I find it easiest to be logged into Twitter when I do this process on FaceBook. Easy right? Are you wondering why you did not do this before? This Blog Post was automatically Tweeted because I use Twitter Tools as a Plugin on WordPress, same idea. Let’s try YouTube, almost as easy with one painful step.

Connecting your YouTube Account to Twitter

Before you start this process, you MUST have a Gmail account attached to your YouTube account. If you signed up for YouTube with a different email address, take the time to get a Gmail address and attach it to your YouTube Account. This is annoying but you can not attach your Twitter account unless you have a Gmail account.

Log into YouTube and navigate to your account settings. Select SHARING and take a look at your AutoShare options. I could not handle all of my YouTube activity being posted to FaceBook, so after attaching this I promptly unattached it. Selecting Twitter, confirming your Gmail address, allow access on Twitter and you are done. Quick and easy, your YouTube Videos will now automatically send a Tweet with a Link when you upload them. Holy Powerful Batman!

FaceBook Notes Syncing with your Blog

This is a little confusing to set-up, but a great way to keep your FaceBook friends in the loop with what you post on your Blog. The process is basically the same for Fan Pages as well as your personal FaceBook account. Navigate to your Fan Page on FaceBook, you must be an Administrator. Select Notes on the Tab, you may have to click on the + sign and select Notes (you can also move these tabs around, I like to put the Photos, Videos, Notes after Info). This is where things get confusing. I select write a new note in the top right corner, then in the top right corner I select the little Note icon, that takes me out of Write a Note and let’s me Import an RSS Feed.

The Feed for your Blog will depend on what service you use and how your blog is configured. This is a little confusing and I am not much help here. You can figure out what your Feed is by subscribing to your Blog, then pasting that address in to your Settings here. Now, a few minutes after you post to your Blog that post will filter in to your fan page as a Note. This may reduce traffic to your Blog, but that should only bruise your ego slightly. The real goal is to keep your Fans and audience engaged with your material. Now you can post your Blog on FaceBook occasionally to remind people you have a Blog, but you do not have to do that for every post, your Fans will stay in the loop because your Blog and Fan Page are part of your circle of communication.

The above techniques are easy ways to get your social media working together. This will evolve with time but the general idea will remain the same. Enable your social networks to talk with each other and truly harness the power of social media. Feel free to post any hints or improvements to the process in the comments section.

FaceBook Tagging – Should you adjust your notifications

By Jamie on September 15, 2009 in Best Practices, FaceBook

As I tested the new “tagging” feature in FaceBook I realized I had to adjust my FaceBook Notifications. Why? Because I detest getting emails about activity on FaceBook. If you have read my Blog, you know I love FaceBook and believe every business should have a Fan Page. As a result I check FaceBook multiple times a day and use Lists to manage my groups of friends so I can have a reasonable chance of following all of the activity that occurs on any given day. Which brings me back to this great new feature, tagging people.

The feature is easy to implement, simply use the @ symbol and as you type FaceBook pulls up your friends names and lets you select the name. As of today this only works for Status updates, but note the notifications will trigger with any comments on that post as well. If you use Twitter you may be surprised. Rather than leaving my name as @jamieginsberg FaceBook simply makes the name a blue link and leaves it as Jamie Ginsberg. I have hated the Twitter naming convention for a while and really appreciate the way FaceBook has implemented this feature. Keep in mind that people you tag in your status updates will have a notification appear on their FaceBook page and get an email, until they do what I did, shut off their notifications. Simply go to Settings in the top right and select Account then Notifications. You will see several new Notifications (maybe the relative ones also if you missed that update). I shut all of these off. Do what works best for you, but play with this new feature…it is awesome!

Claims Twitter Usage have flattened are Wrong!

By Jamie on September 10, 2009 in Best Practices

Looking thru a social media presentation today, there was a claim that Twitter usage has leveled off, citing the web statistics from July of 2009 as evidence. This is a common misunderstanding of how people are using Twitter. You do not need to use the Twitter website! There are over 5,000 programs used to communicate via Twitter, most of them are superior to the website. I use seesmic and tweetdeck a lot. These programs are faster than the website and do not crash and freeze up as often as Twitter’s website does. I have been using Twitterfon on my iPhone. There are so many different programs for Twitter on the iPhone I settled for a free one that does not crash.Twitter gives you a small sampling of the applications available to access their website here http://twitter.com/downloads.

Twitter usage is continuing to explode. Why? Because real time access to information is the future. If you want to know what is happening right now, the answer is on Twitter. Our hunger for more information is satiated on Twitter. Traditional media sources such as TV are feeding the frenzy by including Tweets live on air during news shows and even regular tv shows now. The rest of the world is jumping on Twitter and finding easy light weight access to communication. In a society plagued by excessive information, Twitter is the outlet and integrating it everywhere is too easy. I expect Twitter growth to flatten in 2011. Until then you can catch me at http://www.twitter.com/sonicallstar.

On Twitter and Followers – Where is Yoda?

By Jamie on August 28, 2009 in Best Practices

I am not sure if I should call this Twitter Philosophy 101, or simple basic rules. If you Follow Me, I Follow You. If you mention me, I put you on my “friends” list in Seesmic and look for opportunities to ReTweet you or mention you. If you are a porno spammer, I block you. If you are not active on Twitter, I’d like to know why your website does not need 10% more traffic.

This is the Yoda Fountain of Knowledge in the Presidio in San Francisco. If I was at Lucas, I’d have Yoda tweeting. Where is Yoda?

The Importance of Travel

By Jamie on August 26, 2009 in Best Practices, FaceBook, LinkedIn

Travel, whether it is for business or pleasure is an incredible opportunity to meet up with people. I was reminded of this as we took our annual vacation to San Francisco. Between colliding schedules and activities it was impossible to see everyone on our “field trip,” as my 6 year old Alex referred to our vacation. The highlights we breakfast, lunch or simply drinks with people all over town. People I keep in touch with mostly via FaceBook or LinkedIn. I did a good job of reaching out to about half of my people. Where did I fall short?

I should have made a bigger effort to organize a happy hour with people I know only thru LinkedIn or Twitter. My good friend Mike Davis does this when he travels and he has forged new and improved relationships as a result. What if you don’t travel, or you do not want to “work” while on vacation? Do you travel locally? Do you head to the West side for breakfast or any of the local special interest group meetings within a reasonable proximity of your home or workplace? It takes effort, but it is worth it. Look thru your list of contacts on LinkedIn or even Outlook and contact 3 people for meet-ups next week. Whether it is coffee or lunch or good old fashioned alcohol, we all have to reach out into our networks and see each other face to face.

I truly appreciate the effort people made to see me out West. For some it was easy, others made time and got to odd locations at odd times. I have regrets for all of the people I missed and will put them at the top of the list next year. Are you making the effort to share your life? Do the hard work building up your presence and connections on your various social networks. Do the even harder work of getting together in real life. Find someone interesting on Twitter and meet up. If you want to dig out of this recession, you must practice and experiment more. Believe.

Linking your FaceBook Fan Page to Twitter

By Jamie on August 20, 2009 in Best Practices, FaceBook

Following a link from @susiesharp to http://mashable.com/2009/08/20/facebook-twitter-app/ I decided to link up a few FaceBook Fan Pages I am the admin for to their respective Twitter accounts. I logged into Twitter, opened up a new browser tab and navigated to http://www.facebook.com/twitter. It was quick and easy to Link the Twitter account to the Fan Page. There are controls so you can select options like only status updates or events get posted to Twitter, I left all pre-selected. Now anything an admin posts on the Fan Page will automatically be Tweeted. Very Cool.

Using lists on Facebook

By Jamie on August 1, 2009 in Best Practices, FaceBook

When the lists feature first appeared on FaceBook, I encouraged you to start grouping your friends. Why? If you have more than a handful of friends you miss a lot of information. The only way to process all of the information flowing thru FaceBook is to develop effective habits of organization.

How should you organize your lists? I set up my lists as follows: Family, Cleveland, Bay Area, Ny, Go Blue, Sigs, Science, Yoga, work. It is hard for me to find someone who does not fit into one of these categories in my life. They cover school, places i’ve lived and life. Each person gets put on one list, even if they could be on 3. Why? Because as I click on my lists my newsfeed gets filtered and I quickly see most of the info I want to see. Is this perfect? No. Effective? Yes!

Information management is getting more complex, good habits make it possible to stay active within your network with less time. Back 2 Basics, make a list.

FaceBook Fan Box – Get Some

By Jamie on July 28, 2009 in Best Practices, FaceBook

If you are an admin on a FaceBook Fan Page, you can create a Fan Box (top left on the page, just under the logo). This is a little bit of code that lets you embed a “Fan Box” on any website, bringing FaceBook interaction directly to your web page. You can see an example of this in the left column of my page where I am running an example for some organizations I feel passionate about.

How did I do this? Too simple, I added a Text Box Widget in the left column of my Word Press theme. Then, I pasted the code FaceBook generated for me into the text box and clicked Save.

Why do this? Ideally we want a circle of communication in our networks…see the Back2Basics image a few posts down. Encourage participation on your FaceBook Fan Page.

Why are Fan Pages better than Group Pages? 2 very simple reasons. First, when you post to your fan page it hits the newsfeed of all of your fans (not true on groups). This is a power that you can abuse. Don’t worry, if you abuse your posting ability your fans will show you by un-faning you (sorry – new word). Second, FaceBook Insights. You have to be an administrator of the page to see these, but they are awesome. You can see how many times photos or videos have been viewed, how many new fans, postings by fans, etc. This is not as powerful as Google Analytics, but it is a feature you do not have if you are the admin of a FaceBook Group.

Need help? Shoot me an email, let’s talk.

Updating Your FaceBook Profile- Relatives?

By Jamie on July 28, 2009 in Best Practices, FaceBook, LinkedIn

Not sure when this feature rolled out, but I just added my parents and sister under my FaceBook profile. Why is this important? FaceBook is starting to do more mapping. I am a little surprised they did not add cousins. I like my cousins a lot and want to add them to my profile.

Why is this important? I would not have noticed this feature if I did not decide to update my Profile on FaceBook. How often is appropriate? Whenever you want to. New favorite book or movie, or maybe you just got a new Google phone number like I did. Whatever the reason, keeping your profiles updated is important. Like Nike, Just Do It!

Social and professional networking and the Generation Gap

By Jamie on July 23, 2009 in Best Practices, FaceBook, LinkedIn

Recently, I was told by a an older gentleman that social and professional networking sites are not for finding jobs and that a generational gap exists between us and them. I was somewhat disappointed that this comment came from a man who has the power to hire people into a great local organization. I was also a little shocked at his resistance to social and professional networking online using technology like FaceBook and LinkedIn.

Why? Because we were at a networking meeting for starters. Also, because I see all of our online networking activity as a great extension of that rotary phone we grew up. Only now, that phone travels with me everywhere and is used to update my Twitter account, FaceBook status, track my calendar, email, play games and of course capture media to distribute on my social networks.

Maybe if I was a little more present, or less interested in being diplomatic, I would have responded with my usual response. “You’re right, LinkedIn and FaceBook are not for finding a job, they are for growing revenue and increasing profits.” I say it because I believe it.

If you learn how to use the social and professional networking tools available, you will accomplish increased sales. You will never need to make a call again. You will also become a valuable commodity as an educated, technically savy employee who is ahead of the curve. This might not help you find a job, but in a traditional company this may wind up saving your job.

I do not believe there is a generation gap in the world of FaceBook, LinkedIn and Twitter. I believe we have an obligation for “each one to teach one.” Find someone you know and share what you know. Invite an old or young person to FaceBook or LinkedIn and invite them to get together and show them how to use the software. Every time you do this you will grow the strength of your own network, accumulate social capital and share an experience with someone who has something equally valuable to share with you. Be a Guru, a Teacher, a Student. Be Yourself.

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