LinkedIn is a very popular networking tool for people in business these days, but there are still so many who do not seem to know how to use it, or perhaps haven't thought about it a great deal. There was an article published today about how to protect your account at LinkedIn and prevent your account from being restricted. The article was aimed at job-seekers but it very much applies to us all. Basically the writer gives 4 tips for using LinkedIn: Personalise your invitations Go outside … [Read more...]
Starting out as a VA
On one of the LinkedIn groups for VAs a new VA asked about getting started and landing her first client. Some had been giving her advice about her LinkedIn profile. Below is my (edited) response to her. At LinkedIn people prefer to see photos rather than an illustration. So you might want to consider changing your profile pic. Your LinkedIn profile definitely needs adding to. Have you tried Googling your name? If people knew about you and were looking for you, the results that come up should … [Read more...]
Building relationships at LinkedIn
I was participating in a discussion at the Women in Photography group at LinkedIn recently as many of us are connecting to each other. We had a discussion about the importance of letting people know where they came from, rather than just send the standard invitation that LinkedIn provides. Here is my commentary on that subject: Checking the box does show up on the invite when received via email but isn't that obvious - the message that is sent says: I'd like to add you to my professional … [Read more...]
The Faceless People at LinkedIn
Social and business networks offer the opportunity for people to show their faces online when connecting with others. Which is why they have a place for uploading your photo. On social networks people often use images of their pets, favourite artists or their kids but when it comes to something relating to their business I really do believe they should be using their own photos. There are some who say they think their photo would get in the way of others doing business with them but I do … [Read more...]
Have the networking rules changed for a top networking site?
LinkedIn has grown to an enormous professional networking site with over 150million members now. It was only a few short years ago that I began to take it seriously and there were just over 14million in those days. There was a time when receiving an invitation to connect at LinkedIn, that LinkedIn would have a warning message at the bottom of the email invitation about whether you should connect with people you don't know. People used to be penalised if they got 5 or more IDKs (I don't knows) … [Read more...]
Famous people at LinkedIn
I did a double take when I saw the latest selection of 'people you might know' this morning at LinkedIn. I bet you recognise some of these names too? Obviously an April Fool's joke - although it's now April 2nd in Australia. Or perhaps LinkedIn has found a way to resurrect people too. Wonder how many people try to connect to them? … [Read more...]
Virtual Assistant tools you use – Facebook/LinkedIn
Touching on Facebook, and LinkedIn for that matter, I recently installed a useful add-on to Outlook called the Social Connector. It will show you what people have been saying in both Facebook and LinkedIn, while using the program Outlook. I wasn't sure at first how useful it might be and had to play around with where to have it set up in Outlook so it's not using up valuable real estate on my screen. I now only have it showing when I'm reading individual emails and responding to them. It has … [Read more...]
Using networking tools for VAs
At one of the VA forums I belong to a member asked if someone could explain how a small home transcription business can grow their business using Facebook, Linked-in or Twitter or is it more for the merchant business? My answer was brief - there's a lot to cover for each of these tools, but hopefully this will help answer it for others thinking the same thing. Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter work quite differently but often with similar results. I'll try to explain briefly here: Facebook helps … [Read more...]
Social networking – good or bad?
We've recently had a very interesting discussion on the VA forum about the use of photos on websites and that then grew into a discussion on social networking. Is SN good or bad? Is it necessary or time wasting? Does it work? And then recently on LinkedIn a question relating to the same thing was asked and I thought I'd share with you my response there and some of my response at the VA forum. "Spam is probably the 'worst' part about it. Geez people/spammers, get a life! But apart from that … [Read more...]