How does Facebook interact with brands?

September 16, 2010 By timfahndrich Leave a Comment

A recent article in Mashable found out that while much of finding what works for your business on social media sites is a process of trial and error, recent stats from e-mail marketing firm ExactTarget (which recently acquired social CRM platform CoTweet) shed some light on how the Facebook population uses the site, and specifically, how it interacts with brands.

First, the good news: Based on its study of 1,500 Facebook users, ExactTarget concluded that 38% of online U.S. consumers “Like” (formerly “Fan”) a brand on the social networking site. And the average fan Likes nine different brands, giving you plenty of opportunity to find your way into potential customers’ news feeds.

Here’s the breakdown of why users might “Like” your brand, illustrated by the percentage of respondents who said that they use Facebook for the listed activity:

* 40% to receive discounts and promotions

* 39% to show my support for the company to others

* 36% to get a “freebie”

* 34% to stay informed about the activities of the company

* 33% to get updates on future products

* 30% to get updates on upcoming sales

* 29% for fun or entertainment

* 25% to get access to exclusive content

* 22% someone recommended it to me

* 21% to learn more about the company

* 13% for education about company topics

* 13% to interact

On the surface, some of these findings seem to conflict with the idea of users being resistant to marketing messages. But the real takeaway is that users like brands for a wide variety of reasons, and the mix of content you post to your Facebook Page should reflect that.

To read more, click here, to go go straight to Mashable.

At thirdRiver, we halp small to medium sized businesses launch, develop and manage their brands via Social Media. How can we help you?

Filed Under: Featured Content, Social Media Tagged With: facebook, social media manager, social media marketing

Do I really need a Social Media Manager?

July 28, 2010 By timfahndrich Leave a Comment

First of all, let’s consider the question, “What is Social Media?” Is it just Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube? Well, no….it’s not….OK maybe it is …just a little. But in fact it’s so much more. The challenge most small business owners face is they want to jump on the Social Media bandwagon and start making money….right away. However, as Michelle MacPhearson points out in her report, The Social Media Myth, it’s tough to sell a product directly to people on a social media site because they’re there to talk to friends, not to hear your pitch.

However, that’s where the two components of social media marketing come into play. And without an understanding of this, you’re dead in the water as soon as you hit a Web 2.0 domain.

The vast webspace comprised of “social media” and “Web 2.0” properties are actually, from a marketing perspective, two kinds of sites and there are, as of right now, over 2000+ of them:

1. Social Media for Networking

2. Social Media for LinkBuilding

In his book, the 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, Steven Covey recommends that we begin with the end in mind. That “habit” is just as salient in an off-line world as it is in the Social Media world. So, we encourage all of our clients to think about what results they want from social media marketing. Is it to brand you or your product? To bring more referral traffic? To help with search engine optimization?

Michelle goes on to say, “It’s important to have your goals prioritized too so you know exactly where you should focus your energies at any given time. Is branding (Networking) more important than SEO (Linkbuilding)? Is referral traffic (Linkbuilding) more important than branding (Networking)? ” The answers to that question will bring clarity and allow you to develop a cohesive approach to your internet marketing strategy. In addition, it will help you set an accurate online marketing budget.

So, can you do it yourself? Yes…but if you’re a small business owner you already have a full time job. You could also consider outsourcing your social media managment needs to a Social Media firm like thirdRiver.

In her blog, SearchAmelia, tommielee, had this to say about the Social Media Manager as a new job in the new economy:

“Many small and midsized business entrepreneurs, as witnessed in our workshops, do simply not have the time to learn how to build, manage and profile themselves in the Social Media circus. And a circus it is but… unfortunately not getting involved means “Not Mattering Anymore” and you WILL lose out and could face extinction because your competitors are either more internet savvy or understand the importance of engaging with customers on social media.

Just as a refresher for some and an eye opener for others, Facebook today is the third largest country (if it where a country) in population with a little under 500 million users, responsible for over 40 billion sign-ins per month and well over 500 billion human interactions. Twitter is a distant second, but is gaining momentum regarding interaction and messages send and ranks now as the 6th largest, traffic wise, website in the world while YouTube, not strictly a Social Medium, is adding 25 hours of video per minute, 24 hours a day, as people and businesses getting into high gear of personal branding.

Foursquare, Flickr (yes, even them), Google Buzz are gaining traction in the circus and with more than 220,000 iPhone apps of which a good 20% are geared towards social media, as well as the development of social Android apps, the forest is growing into a jungle where trees are becoming more difficult to uniquely identify.

What tools to chose? Which networks to follow? How much time is needed to maintain the social media status? How to push the products and services in the social marketplace? All good questions and this is where the Social Media Manager Job description and thus services come into play. The job has grown exponentially in the last several months and consequently demand and job open positions is staggering. One small Job market website alone has over 17,000 Social Media Manager job openings listed.

A very recent survey shows that 91.5% of all small and medium sized businesses are considering a Social Media Manager while 85% who already have a social media manager have seen more than abnormal growth. These are staggering numbers if one realizes that there are over 30 million small businesses in the US alone. Many small businesses share a Social Media Manager and consultancy fees totaling $10,000 per month for a manager are not abnormal. Even if one considers that only one in 50 small businesses considers a Social Media Manager to take care of their social media needs, this would mean that 600,000 companies would be in a need to hire about 200,000 Managers in the next 3-6 months.”

To read the entire article, click right here.

As a small business owner, you are well aware you cannot NOT have a presence on Social Media sites…whether they be networking or link building sites. And as we’ve already said, “have your goals prioritized so you know exactly where you should focus your energies at any given time. Is branding more important than SEO? Is referral traffic more important than branding?”

If you have any questions, shoot us an email or just pick up your iPhone, Droid or ….gasp…landline phone…. and call us…we’d love to help YOU.

Filed Under: Featured Content, Social Media Tagged With: facebook, Social Media, social media manager

What is Google Caffeine and why is it good for you?

July 21, 2010 By timfahndrich 2 Comments

What is Google Caffeine?

Just a little over a month ago, Google announced its new search index: Caffeine. For those who have yet to do their homework on the announcement, the first thing to know about Caffeine is that it is not a rankings algorithm update; rather it is a new indexing system. According to the Google blog,

Today, we’re announcing the completion of a new web indexing system called Caffeine. Caffeine provides 50 percent fresher results for web searches than our last index, and it’s the largest collection of web content we’ve offered. Whether it’s a news story, a blog or a forum post, you can now find links to relevant content much sooner after it is published than was possible ever before.

Some background for those of you who don’t build search engines for a living like us: when you search Google, you’re not searching the live web. Instead you’re searching Google’s index of the web which, like the list in the back of a book, helps you pinpoint exactly the information you need.

So why did we build a new search indexing system? Content on the web is blossoming. It’s growing not just in size and numbers but with the advent of video, images, news and real-time updates, the average webpage is richer and more complex. In addition, people’s expectations for search are higher than they used to be. Searchers want to find the latest relevant content and publishers expect to be found the instant they publish.

To keep up with the evolution of the web and to meet rising user expectations, we’ve built Caffeine. The image below illustrates how our old indexing system worked compared to Caffeine:

Our old index had several layers, some of which were refreshed at a faster rate than others; the main layer would update every couple of weeks. To refresh a layer of the old index, we would analyze the entire web, which meant there was a significant delay between when we found a page and made it available to you.

With Caffeine, we analyze the web in small portions and update our search index on a continuous basis, globally. As we find new pages, or new information on existing pages, we can add these straight to the index. That means you can find fresher information than ever before—no matter when or where it was published.

Caffeine lets us index web pages on an enormous scale. In fact, every second Caffeine processes hundreds of thousands of pages in parallel. If this were a pile of paper it would grow three miles taller every second. Caffeine takes up nearly 100 million gigabytes of storage in one database and adds new information at a rate of hundreds of thousands of gigabytes per day. You would need 625,000 of the largest iPods to store that much information; if these were stacked end-to-end they would go for more than 40 miles.

We’ve built Caffeine with the future in mind. Not only is it fresher, it’s a robust foundation that makes it possible for us to build an even faster and comprehensive search engine that scales with the growth of information online, and delivers even more relevant search results to you. So stay tuned, and look for more improvements in the months to come.

Why is Google Caffeine good for me?

Underline it, highlight it, draw circles around it, asterick’s, star it…whatever …here’s the thing…fresh content is more important than ever! In a world of real-time, right now, in the the moment results brought to Internet users from Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, et al…. Google has to pay attention to providing most up to date results, especially if they want to stay atop the two social media giants

SEOBoy has this to say about what you should do:

* Sitemaps – As Google more frequently indexes information, make sure you’re updating and resubmitting your sitemap. For en e-commerce client who regularly adds products to their site, I like to generate a map 2x a month.

* New Content – I can’t stress this point enough. The more unique, fresh, and relevant content you have on your site, the better you’re going to perform in search. Managing a website is not easy. If you want to be an authority on a topic or product, and thereby rank better, you have to prove your worth with great content. There is no such thing as setting up a site and sitting back while the rewards roll in.

* More Activity: Not only will you need to generate more content on your website, but in order to succeed in the world of Caffeine, you’ll need to be active on the real-time sites as well, which means Twitter, Facebook, etc.

This last point leads me to think that Caffeine could actually bring some huge changes to the SEM/PPC industry. If you’re already a client of the third river marketing, then you already know we’re ahead of the “Google Caffeine” curve by utilizing WordPress as a CRM platform because it allows you, as a client, to easily make quick changes to your website and add fresh, relevant content very quickly. In addition, we’ve long advocated using your website as the HUB for all your social media, which is why we rarely, if ever design a site that does not incorporate and link to a clients’ Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts.

Web 2.0 is all about being where the people are and engaging and interacting. Social Media is here to stay and just as a company as large and far reaching as Google has had to adapt their business model to it….your business needs to adapt to it as well.

If you have any questions about this or the whole idea of “Social Media Management”, feel free to reach out. We’re here and ready to help.

Sources: Official Google Blog, SE O Boy

Filed Under: Archive, Featured Content, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Tagged With: Google, SEO, Social Media, Wordpress

The War for Your Business Future Is On

June 25, 2010 By timfahndrich Leave a Comment

April 19, 1775: The shot was fired that was heard ’round the world.

At the Battles of Concord and Battle Road in Massachussetts, the British met a surprising militia formation of American farmers. The Redcoats marched in plain view while colonial minutemen hid behind every house, tree and fencepost.

The score: Americans lost 93, but the British lost 273. It was a humiliating start to a war they would eventually lose.

As my friend Perry Marshall would say….that’s Guerrilla Warfare, my friend. Traditional warfare is “playing by the rules,” but Guerrilla warfare means re-defining the rules, even as the game is being played. It’s tossing conventional wisdom out the window and becoming your opponent’s unseen enemy.

Every week I talk to people who are sick and tired of playing by the rules, and not winning nearly as much as they could or should.

They’re sick of pulling that black checkbook out of their top desk drawer, giving money to some media rep and not knowing if that money is coming back, when it’s coming back, or how they’ll ever know.

But the game is shifting…and the battlefield is CHANGED. Are you ready?

The amount U.S. companies spend marketing themselves on social networking sites like Facebook is expected to grow from an estimated $4.5 billion last year to nearly $38 billion by 2015, according to a new report from Borrell Associates Inc.

More than 1.5 million local businesses participate in social networks, and they accounted for about half of all spending on social-network marketing last year, the report said.

“Given their unique ability to move messages among connected users, social networks have been irresistible to marketers looking for ways to deliver advertising and promotional messages,” the report said. “The results to date have been breathtaking.”

Borrell projects spending on social networking marketing will jump 68 percent this year alone, to $7.5 billion, with 11 cents of every online marketing dollar earmarked for such efforts. Five years from now, Borrell thinks social networking will capture one-third of all online marketing spending.

An increasing proportion of that spending will be on promotional campaigns rather than advertising, the consulting firm projects. While 88 percent of social networking marketing spending in 2009 went into advertising, that percentage is expected to drop about 50 percent in 2010 and 36 percent by 2015.

Profiling engines on Facebook identify user demographics and interests, allowing advertisers to target ads in specific ways, including age, gender, relationship status, education level, workplace, interests and connection to an advertisers’ Facebook page.

In a report published by Borrell Associates, “Social Networking Explosion: Ad Revenue Outlook,” includes a case study of a marketing campaign used to promote a comic-book convention in South Florida using ads on both Facebook and local cable television.

The Facebook campaign involved buying 54 separate keywords including “pokemon,” “batman” and “comic books,” and creating an ad campaign for each using unique images tailored to the interests of each targeted group.

The Facebook campaign didn’t generate as many ticket sales as the local cable television ads, because they had a smaller audience. But the cost of marketing per attendee was lower — 54 cents, compared to $2 for the television ads, the report said.

“The time it takes to manage this kind of campaign is considerably larger than the time it takes to manage one ad that reaches a mass market, the report concluded.

Although the Facebook advertising platform is an effective way to reach people, the study concluded that promotional campaigns that create “organic” impressions may be more persuasive.

“Share this” and “Like” buttons from Facebook encourage people that are on a brand’s website to share the content of that site with their friends on their profile pages. When users share content generated by businesses or service providers, they expose friends to a brand with an an implicit endorsement, the study said.

So….what to do about this? We can’t go backwards and we can’t retreat. It’s a war after all. A war for your clients, a war for your company’s future.

We’re here to help you win the war. Give us a call today and we’ll help you design a winning social media strategy.

Source: Perry Marshall, Inman News, Borrell Associates

Filed Under: Featured Content, Social Media

Lead Generation Tip #2: Be Intentional About Social Networking

June 14, 2010 By timfahndrich Leave a Comment

There’s a great video that I saw recently called “Facebook in Real Life”. Perhaps you’ve seen it to. It is a hilarious look at how Facebook would play out in real life, and to be honest, how silly it all seems. You can watch the video below;

While it can be a lot of fun (and silly) on a personal level to be social and to keep up with friends on Facebook and other similar sites, from a business perspective, you really should decide how to be intentional about who you connect with and how you interact. I thought I’d share just a few thoughts about things that we have done that has made a big difference in our business and, most importantly, has brought us new leads and buyers.

1. Decide what you want to be known for and what your potential connections want to hear; this determines what you put on your profile(s), who you connect with, and what type of content you post. For example, one of the things we like to be known for is that we’re passionate about using WordPress. WordPress is the platform that we build almost all of our web sites on (including ours). Subsequently, I have that in my various profiles.

2. Use tools to find people who need your expertise; One of the tools we use all the time is Twitter Search. You can search, real time, for conversations happening on Twitter around your area of expertise. For example, we have a query setup in Twitter Search that monitors people looking for help with WordPress. Here is a recent screen shot;

The two highlighted questions represent an opportunity to demonstrated our WordPress expertise and potentially generate a lead for our business services. You or an assistant can monitor this and respond very quickly since this is real time. Imagine the power of getting an answer almost immediately. This strategy alone has resulted in a lot of work for our company.

3. Add yourself to directories or groups; Another way to be intentional about who you connect to on the social networking sites is to use directories and groups. For example, consider joining Twellow.com, the Twitter Yellow Pages. Or, consider joining, or even better, creating a group on Linkedin.

4. Create a Facebook fan page for your business; We do a lot of speaking on the topic of social networking to business groups. One of the things we always do is ask who in the room has various different profiles such as Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter. While almost everybody in the room has a Facebook profile, many fewer people have a fan page. Having your own fan page is a great way to see people who have ‘raised their hands’ and said they like your company. You can then be very specific about the messages and content you post on the fan page, making it all about your business.

These are just some of the ways you can be intentional about social networking (or as I like to call it social media marketing) to generate new leads. Be intentional, and it will pay off.

###

Tim Fahndrich is the co-founder of the Third River, an Oregon-based Internet Marketing company. He is passionate about people, marketing, and technology and loves helping businesses and organizations harness the power of the web. You can follow Tim on Twitter here or contact him at 503.581.4554.

Filed Under: Business, Social Media

Turn Your Passion Into Profits Workshop

May 17, 2010 By timfahndrich Leave a Comment

Leverage Social Media Marketing to Explode Your Business

Whether you are an experienced business owner or marketing professional or you are just starting out, NOW is the time to harness the power of social media marketing. Small business experts around the country agree: social media marketing is one of THE most important things that small businesses should be doing RIGHT NOW!

When: June 15th, 2010

Where: Chemeketa Center for Business & Industry

Time: 9am – 4pm

Are you using social media marketing to grow your business? Join speakers Tim Fahndrich, David Chandler, and others for a hands-on workshop to help you turn your passion into profits!

By the end of our seminar, you’ll know how to;

Create professional looking web sites that blow away your competition and turn visitors into warm leads
Find buyer keywords that your competitors are not targeting on the search engines and how this could dramatically increase your conversion rate
Harness search engine optimization (SEO) to get found on the first page of Google and dominate the local search results
Use Social Media sites like Twitter and Facebook to build the “know, like and trust” factor and turn contacts into cash
How to tap into a huge audience that is hungry for your message by using Youtube and online video
Little known tricks that can turn your web site into a money making machine
Follow-up techniques that we can almost guarantee your competitors are NOT using that will blow your clients away
… and more

PLUS, you’ll also learn;

How location based social media marketing and mobile marketing are changing the game, AGAIN, right in front of us.

You’ll also receive the following valuable add-on bonuses;

a complete workbook of the presentations
an analysis of your existing web site and modern marketing ‘grade’
networking time
purchase the complete video of the event for just $47

Who should attend?

small business owners
marketing managers
business professsionals
hobbyists
network marketers

Limited to 75 attendees

Cost:

Early Registration by June 7th: $97 (bring additional guests for just $47)

After June 7th: $147

Call 503.581.4554 or click the button below to register today!

Filed Under: Social Media

Local Bookstore uses Social Media to save the day

December 17, 2009 By timfahndrich 1 Comment

My new friend, Marie Trucco of the Greater Independence (Oregon) Business Incubator, posted a story on Facebook that I just had to pass along.

Broadway Books, Portland Oregon

It is a story about blogs, burritos, and books, (I know – a seemingly odd threesome) and how it saved Broadway Books, an independent bookstore in Portland.

You can read the entire article here. It is a great read and made me want to stand up and cheer.

A couple of interesting things stood out for me in the article.

Turning to social media to help the business was more of a knee jerk reaction than a planned marketing campaign … therefore it was very authentic and heartfelt. A good reminder for us who use social media for business that sometimes the best laid plans get trumped by total authenticity and passion.
It brought a different set of buyers into the store than they usually got. A great illustration of how you can start connecting with entirely new audiences using social media.
The power of ‘going viral’. What was posted by just one person … ended up being shared with thousands. Who could ask for more?

While the local bookseller still has challenges ahead in this economy and social media is not necessarily a magic bullet, it looks like they are fully embracing it and it has made a real difference in their business. Way to go Broadway!

I’d love to hear your stories of how you’re using social media in your business to attract new prospects and clients. Just leave me a comment below. And if you’d like to discuss your social media strategy, give us a call at 503.581.4554. I look forward to the conversation.

~ Tim Fahndrich is the President and Chief Relationship officer with The Third River, Inc. a Salem Oregon web design and marketing firm. He is passionate about people, technology, and relationships, and loves to help his clients harness the power of the web.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: Blogging, Social Media, Twitter

Do I really need to Tweet what I ate for breakfast?

December 15, 2009 By timfahndrich 2 Comments

I recently presented a one-hour seminar for the Chemeketa Small Business Management Power Advising Group on the topic of ~~Social~~ Business Networking. I focused on answering the following questions;

Is it relevant?
How do I find the time?
How do I ‘do it’?
Where is the return on investment?

During my presentation I talked about 4 steps to getting started and maximizing your social media efforts for your business;

Get started: sign up for accounts at Linkedin, Twitter, Youtube, and Facebook (both a personal profile and setup a Fan page). Setup keyword-rich profiles at each one and brand your presence to match your current branding.
Start connecting: Reach out to others who may want to connect to you. While each of the sites provide a tool for you to import and invite your entire address book – doing so is probably not necessary nor is it appropriate. You can use these tools, but be selective when you invite. Remember, you are out to build relationships, not numbers.
Setup a routine that works for you: Don’t feel like you “have to” tweet, post, or nudge a certain number of times per day or certain content just because somebody else says you should.
Continually promote: put your social media icons on your web site, in your email signature, forum and blog signatures, and anywhere people might see it. (Link to your Facebook Fan page, not your personal profile).

I didn’t realize how close #3 had hit home until later after the presentation. You see, I had started out on a lighter note with the following slide (No offense intended with the politically-incorrect ‘R’ word)

One of the attendees, Fred Molesworth, a Salem Oregon photographer, mentioned how he had recently attended another seminar in Salem where the presenter was talking about how you should get up in the morning and Tweet what you are having for breakfast, and keep tweeting throughout the day exactly what you are doing. Really.

Really?? My slide was intended to be funny, not a statement of what you should do. Now I’m not going say that I’ve never posted about food (especially my daughter’s brownies) but I don’t make a regular habit of it. And neither should you. If you are trying to use social networking for your business, focus on things like the following;

Building relationships by engaging in conversation
Providing value for those connected with you
Keeping people abreast of what’s happening in your company (and life, but don’t overdo it)
Positioning yourself as an expert

While we are all certainly interested in the details of each others’ lives (to a point), and the occasional posting about food isn’t going to hurt anything … we can only handle so much detail. If you’re doing it every day … pretty soon it just becomes overwhelming and we begin to tune it out, which doesn’t do anybody any good.

Usually, I end my presentations with my one and only rule “Never, ever post something you wouldn’t want your spouse, kids, boss, or colleagues to see” …

but now I’m adding a new rule. “Just because you can …. doesn’t mean you should“.

If you’d like help with your social media strategy for your business, give us a call at 503.581.4554. We’d love to chat.

Tim presenting to Chemeketa Small Business Management Group

Filed Under: Featured Content, Social Media

Which Social Networking site is the best for business?

November 17, 2009 By timfahndrich Leave a Comment

Hmmm, this is a great question, and one that I hear a lot. The answer, in my best politicians voice (no offense to my political friends) … is “it depends“. You might think that is a copout answer … but I think it is true.

It depends because the site that is the best for your business is really the one that works best for you.

Ok, so what do I mean by that? I mean you have to find the one that best works with your personality, style, corporate culture, target audience, and needs. There are literally hundreds of social networking sites (actually, let’s start calling them business networking sites).

The big three that I talk about all the time are Linkedin, Facebook, and Twitter. If you’re a member of the Salem Chamber, don’t forget Face2Face. BUT, that doesn’t necessarily mean these are the only ones or that either of these is “it” for you. Each one has it’s unique characteristics. And, there may be a niche networking site that generates more leads and relationships for you than the big three.

So how do you determine which one is best? Let me first say that it is not an overnight kind of deal. Just like any other marketing strategy, it will take time and some testing, measuring, and tweaking to fine tune your strategy.

Here’s my suggestion;

Setup profiles on all of the big name networks. Follow a branded approach so that you present your company brand consistently among the networks.
Also research and find either 2-3 niche networks or groups within the big three that are your target market. A great place to start is to go to Ning.com and search niche social networks to find one that interests you.
Start building connections, friends, followers, etc. on each site by inviting select current contacts to connect with you AND by carefully selecting others who are a) like minded or b) are in your target demographic.
Start writing articles (aka blogging) to a) position yourself as an expert, and b) test response to your articles
Connect your articles so that they automatically post to your online profiles. Some call this magic … and I would agree.
Engage, provide value, and build relationships. See who responds and on what sites. Determine which site(s) you are most confortable on.
Get married to the process, NOT to a particular site. What works today may be outdated a year from now … but if you engage in the process, and are willing to adapt and change as necessary, you will always be ready to thrive.

Make no mistake, online business networking is here to stay. Business is being done. Relationships are being built. Time is being leveraged (yes, you read that correctly). Brands are being built.

I strongly encourage you to incorporate online social business networking into your marketing plans. If you’d like help getting started and determining the best strategy for your company, give us a call at 503.581.4554.

Filed Under: Featured Content, Social Media

The power of a strong Linkedin.com profile

August 19, 2009 By timfahndrich Leave a Comment

I had the opportunity this morning to put on my social media “evangelist” hat and spread the word at the Keller Williams Realty office in Corvallis. There were about 20 Realtors and industry folks in the room. As I typically do, I asked by a show of hands who had a Linkedin profile, Facebook profile and/or Fan page, Twitter profile, and blog.

And as usually is the case, most hands went up for Linkedin … BUT, there was a lot of questions as to “what do I do with it?” There is SO Much you can do with a Linkedin profile, but I thought I’d just share two quick things with you today.

1. Be sure to fill out a complete, keyword-rich profile:

Linkedin takes the longest when setting up your profile because there is a lot to fill in. Past employment, current employment, specialties, etc. But having a complete and keyword rich profile can definitely improve the Linkedin experience and results for your business.

2. Linkedin use a multi-tier connection approach:

One thing that many people don’t know is that Linkedin has 3 tiers of connections. You have your connections of course (level 1), but it also can show you who they are connected to (level 2), and through the Linkedin search engine, also shows a 3rd level.

So let me bring both of these points into a practical, real-life example that I used this morning…

I have a friend (virtual of course – I’ve never met him in person) who was looking to help his dad move to another state. He jumped onto Linkedin and typed in the “Realtor” and the city his dad was moving to. In the search results, a Realtor on the second level of his network showed up.

Now my friend did not know this Realtor, but he was able to talk to their mutual connection and find out if he was worth his salt or not and be a good fit to help find a house for his dad. Turns out the mutual friend gave a glowing recommendation (which can also be done on Linkedin), and the Realtor was enlisted successfully to find a house for my friend’s dad. My friend was able to get a warm referral from a trusted source, and everybody was very happy.

Had the Realtor not filled out a keyword-rich profile and made connections on Linkedin … this transaction would never have happened.

If you’d like to maximize your Social/Business Networking websites and take full advantage of all they have to offer for your business, give us a call at 503.581.4554.

Also, please feel free to connect with me on Linkedin.com

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: Linkedin.com, Social Media

What is #FollowFriday on Twitter?

May 19, 2009 By timfahndrich Leave a Comment

I saw a friend of mine the other day and he looked at me funny and asked me, “Tim, just what the heck does #followfriday mean”? He had seen this on my Facebook page and had no idea what it meant.

After a quick chuckle I realized that many of the terms that I use everyday in my business just don’t make sense to many of my friends who are not involved in internet marketing.

So feeling bad for excluding him, I quickly explained what #followfriday meant and how it is used on Twitter, one of the web’s most popular social networking sites.

So if you don’t know what #followfriday, hashtags, and Twitter are, here is a quick explanation;

Twitter is one of the fastest growing social networking sites that allows you to set up a free profile and connect with other people. People that use Twitter are often called “Twitterers” or “Tweeps” or “Tweethearts”.
Twitter allows you to update your “what are you doing” status in 140 characters or less. This is called a “Tweet”
To engage other “Tweeps” in conversation, include the “@” symbol in front of their Twitter name.
“#” is called a hashtag. This is used when people what to associate their “Tweet” with a particular subject, event, show, etc. This is then easily searched by going to Twitter Search and typing in the “#” + “followfriday” (example). This is a great way to track all conversations happening around that particular topic
“#followfriday” happens on Fridays and is used in a Tweet when one Twitterer wants to recommend that you follow another Twitter.
Here’s an example that I used today: “If you’re not following @MichealSavoie, you should be. He is very much a servant at heart #followfriday”

If you’d like to know more about Twitter, I recommend a good starting point is a book by @JoelComm called Twitter Power: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time

You can also check out a recent video blog post about social networking sites and whether to connect or not.

Social networking is one of the best ways to develop relationships online for your business. I highly recommend that you get started right away.

If you need help setting up and implementing a social networking strategy for your company, let us know and we’d be happy to talk about the options with you.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: Social Media, Twitter

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