Getting More From Your LinkedIn Account

If you want to participate in social platforms, you're most likely to go to Facebook and Twitter. Their interfaces make it very easy for you to interact with other people. The same can be said with YouTube if you're into watching videos. In the case of updating your professional resume, there's LinkedIn.

Many would admit that they only use this platform when they're in need of it. You can chalk these instances to those when they're approaching the end of one career or perhaps when in search for another one.

For those of you who are not aware, LinkedIn is also a place where you can channel your marketing efforts. Here are a few tips for you to consider:

Let Your Profile Speak For You. When you create your personal profile, be sure to convey from the start what you're trying to achieve. Give your contact information and don't make up names. Also, make use of the three URLs you are allowed to use and optimize them for keywords you’re targeting for.

Extend your network. If you think someone can help you achieve your goals, extend an invitation to them. You can even import your contacts from other accounts but be sure to personalize each invitation. People tend to respond more positively if the messages accompanying the invitations are personalized.

Participate. Like all social networks, participate. Ask questions and answer them. Get in touch with other people and introduce them to other people who you think would be able to help out. Build connections that are helpful. Build a relationship, not just a connection with your colleagues.

Manage it properly. It only takes a few moments to manage your account. In that time, you'll be able to join groups and be active. Be conscious of what you say since this is not Facebook. This is a professional network.

Post relevant news. Unlike Facebook where people don't mind you sharing that you're eating cheerios for breakfast, update your status with relevant news pertaining to your industry.

Follow others. Keep up to date with the news of your industry by following the relevant people. You'll be able to receive updates on their status.

How To Build An Audience With Social Media

For those of you who are into social media for business, one of your priorities is by getting a lot of audience. Let's face it. Your audience is readers and some of those readers or guests will be converted into buyers. So it's only logical for you to want to acquire larger audiences.

Below are tips that you can use to help you gain more readers, followers and hopefully clients.

Publish content that is worth publishing. A lot of people publish stuff that isn’t really valuable. If you do decide to use social media as a means to put up a business, then share things that are important, that people may find important.

Start with your people who like you already. There will always be people who will respond to your posts positively (some negatively!). Increase your interaction with those that have a higher probability of responding to you. It's possible that these people also have other people following them. It's very likely that people who follow them will have something in common with you, which is another ground for branching out to other people.

Repeat The First Tip. Always keep in mind that in order to keep your readers or followers on following, you have to feed them good stuff every day. Create a daily routine that will make them want to read your tweets or posts on a daily basis. Give them a reason to follow you.

Reach out to your friend's friends. The good thing about social media is that you'll be able to connect with people who have something in common with you. It may be a hobby, a page you like, or even a friend. Having a common friend is enough for people to accept your invitation as a friend. Don't scare them off by delivering the sales pitch right after they've accepted your friendship. Build a relationship first.

Remember that social media may as well be at its infancy. There are a lot of strategies to that you can use in order to use it at its maximum potential. Still, whatever uses you may have for social media networks, it is clear that having a lot of readers, followers, or friends is a good thing.

Tips on Maintaining Professionalism on Social Media

As there are now a lot of professionals turning to Social Media for furthering their careers, they need to establish ground rules else they may be damaging their careers.

To maintain a sense of professionalism in a place where almost everything goes, here are a few things to keep in mind.

You have boundaries. Knowing that you are now using your professional and personal spaces interchangeably, you still need to define your boundaries. It's important to be careful with what you say and you need to learn proper online etiquette.

All eyes are on you. Before sending out that tweet or pressing that "publish" button, know that everyone is watching. Everything is documented within the internet. Even if you decide to delete it, it still manages its way into hard drives. Make sure to look at your posts from different perspectives. What would your colleagues think if they saw your post? What about your boss? Potential Employer?

Imitate People You Respect. This goes for online and offline. It is important to maintain a respectable character online as it is offline. Imitating people that you respect is one way of earning your own. Aside from that, you also need to respect others online. Respect begets respect.

Tweet only when sober. Things might easily pour out after a few drinks. However, it's one thing that you don't want to be doing. It's the same as waking up in the morning with a huge hangover and a short memory lapse.

Dialog with your employer. Keeping tabs on one's self is one way of improving one's self. By dialoging with your employer, you also get the sense of what is acceptable behavior...for him that is.

Social media networks are places where a simple mistake can ruin a reputation. So make sure you keep on policing yourself.

Content is King!!! So they Say!

I may be going out on a limb in saying this. A lot of SEO gurus have time and time again told you that content is king. Have you ever heard the phrase "If you write it, they will come!"

Unfortunately, good content is not easy to come by. Others would say it is overrated. There's too much of them, it's very hard to come up with them, and worse, it's too expensive and time consuming to get the latest and groundbreaking news.

Converting content into returns is not very easy. Most of it is written for the purpose of using keywords. Though it may be able to catch the attention of some readers, the turn-out will always be a small percentage of the whole.

I guess you could say it isn't worth it. For some, that is.

Instead of coming up with "great content", it would be better to focus on creating connections. Social media networking or social bookmarking come are great examples of this. Instead of depending on search engines to throw readers your way, why not take a proactive approach? Stir up something, anything.

Create opportunities for members of your community to interact with one another. Introduce them, ask questions, interview them, do things that will somehow lead to more activity. This in itself helps in making unique content. Content can easily be generated especially if there are interactions. Generating content this way will make it very hard for your competitors to copy.

By doing this, you get to create a community that participates, not just read.

Anyone can google a keyphrase and just jump to the next page when they're done reading the article. They're simply guests. Anyone can be guests in your community. But I would rather have a participating community.

Social Sites Are Sharing Profile Info Without User Consent

It's no surprise that social networks and other popular sites are sharing this kind of content with advertisers.

A report in the Wall Street Journal indicates that Facebook, along with MySpace, Digg and a handful of other social-networking sites, have been sharing users' personal data with advertisers without users' knowledge or consent.

The data shared includes names, user IDs, and other information sufficient to enable ad companies such as the Google-owned DoubleClick to identify distinct user profiles. Some of the sites in question, including MySpace and Facebook, stopped sharing the data after the Journal asked them about it.

The surreptitious data sharing was first noticed by researchers from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and AT&T Labs in August 2009, who brought it up with the sites in question. It wasn't until WSJ contacted them that changes were made.

Not surprisingly, Facebook appears to have gone farther than the other sites when it comes to sharing data. When Facebook's users clicked on ads appearing on a profile page, the site would at times provide data such as the username behind the click, as well as the user whose profile page from which the click came.