Viveka von Rosen is one of the top LinkedIn Experts and my go-to gal for all things LinkedIn. She’s passionate about using and showing others how to optimally use LinkedIn. Viveka’s positive, fun-loving style makes it easy to learn and implement her LinkedIn strategies.  In this adventure we explore visibility tactics you, as an entrepreneur can implement to get better results as well as get some behind-the-scenes insights on how LinkedIn is evolving.

In this Adventure Viveka and I discuss:

• Tips for using LinkedIn to build your online presence
• 4 steps for staying top of mind with prospects 
• How to get the most out of LinkedIn Publisher and Pulse
• What’s new on LinkedIn
• Excellent tips for maximizing your profile starting at 11:01

Check out the event page for comments, questions and photos.

Download the Audio 

For your convenience, the mp3 is posted below, from the live Hangout with Ande.

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About the Guest

Viveka von Rosen is author of LinkedIn Marketing: An Hour a Day and is known internationally as the “LinkedIn Expert”.  She hosts the biggest LinkedIn chat on Twitter.  Her seminars, webinars, workshops and programs have taught and trained well over 100,000 people.  She has personally worked with executives at several Fortune 500 Companies and is regularly asked to speak at and write for thought-leading Social companies like the Social Media Examiner. 

Forbes listed her as a top social media influencer for 3 years and she has been cited and featured in Money Magazine, Simple Living, Ragan, CNN, Forbes, Entrepreneur, Fortune, Mashable, The Miami Herald, The Pittsburg Gazette, Social Media Today and The Social Media Examiner.

Connect with Viveka:

Web/blog: http://www.linkedintobusiness.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/linkedinexpert
LinkedIn Training: www.b2blinkedintraining.com
LinkedInExperts Google+ Community << Join Viveka’s active Community!

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The post LinkedIn Visibility Strategies for Entrepreneurs | Adventures in Visibility with Viveka von Rosen appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.

Well, I think people who say that, simply don’t use LinkedIn to it’s fullest potential. LinkedIn is the ideal platform for service based entrepreneurs, as long as they know a few rules and make the LinkedIn experience a social one.

9 ways to make your networking on LinkedIn more social

1. Your summary shouldn’t read like a CV: it starts with your summary. I still see many LinkedIn summaries which read like a resume. “Sarah Santacroce is a small business marketing mentor. She helps entrepreneurs… “ Forget that. Own your LinkedIn profile ! Treat it like your “About” page on your website. Use the first person: “I am a small business marketing mentor”.

2. Add some personal info at the bottom of your summary: If you feel comfortable with it, add a few lines of personal information. It makes you more personal & approachable. Here’s what I have on mine:

3. Add a video: you can even add a little welcome video which will play automatically, welcoming visitors to your profile & telling them in a few sentences what you do. Unfortunately there is no option to play it only on demand – it automatically starts playing when people visit your profile. I learned this from the one and only Lewis Howes. Read his article on how to do this.

4. Always personalize your invitations: LinkedIn is kind enough to offer default messages when you invite someone to connect. Thank you, but no thank you. Never, ever use those standard messages. They mean “I don’t care, I don’t even take 30 seconds to personalize this invitation”. So next time, take the time, explain how you’ve met & why you’d like to connect. Not only is there a higher chance that your invitation is accepted, but you will also be remembered more easily.

5. Take initiative: when people send you default invitations, decide whether this person is of value to your network. If yes, then accept their invitation but take initiative & reach out to them. Say something like “Hi Peter, I gladly accept your invitation to connect. Out of curiosity, where did you come across my profile? I look forward to being in touch. Best wishes – Sarah” This way, you establish a first contact & are not only a number in the other person’s network, but a real connection. If you’re not sure which requests to accept, read about My LinkedIn Connection Strategy. 

6. Comment on people’s status updates: when you see a status update you find interesting, comment on it. Use people’s first names, thank them for sharing or share their update with your network. It’s a Win-Win: their post gets more visibility because your comment shows up in your network – and your profile gets more visibility because it shows up next to their comment on their network.

7. Reach out to people who viewed your profile: on your home page you have a little box that tells you who’s viewed your LinkedIn profile. Reach out to them, tell them that you have seen that they had a look at your profile & that you had a look at theirs & then invite them to connect. Most of the time people were just too shy to invite you but happily accept your invitation. 

8. Add the Amazon Reading list application: if you read a lot, why not share with your network which books you enjoyed most. The Amazon Reading list application is ideal for that. Of course if you have published your own books, don’t forget to add those!

9. Be a connector on LinkedIn. If you know two people who should know each other, introduce them. You can simply send out a message, via LinkedIn, to both of them. “Jane, meet Joe. Joe, meet Jane” and then explain why you are connecting the two. This will always pay back in the long run, but for now you are simply doing a good thing that maybe will help two people…

Now it’s your turn. Which other ways do you use to make the LinkedIn experience more social? I’d love to hear about them in the comments below.

About the Author

Sarah Santacroce helps small business owners and coaches to find their place in today’s online world, increase their visibility & brand awareness. To find out more about her go to http://www.simplicityadmins.ch/about.

The post 9 Ways To Make LinkedIn More Social appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.

Interesting to me was that Twitter and LinkedIn were tied. Google+ got only 2 votes which isn't too surprising since it's a very young network and no one voted for YouTube. That tells me most people use YouTube either 1) not at all or 2) as a secondary site for boosting visibiltiy and traffic. When I asked a similar question in 2010, Twitter came in second with LinkedIn well behind. So it appears LinkedIn is gaining ground as an important site for businesses to be using for their networking.

Of course there is nothing scientific about this poll. Asking one question doesn't provide a full picture of who and how businesses in my network are using these sites. The next questioni is: does your business cater primarily to other businesses (B to B) or to consumers (B to C)?

Another question might be: Are you getting results (traffic, leads, customers/clients, opportunities) from the time you spend on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn? How do you know?

Each network requires its own special form of attention to create visibility, attract new fans/followers/connections, and actually have meaningful engagement. 

In my experience, Facebook is the most challenging. With their crazy algorithyms, you have to work consistently and thoughtfully to build your fan base and get your content seen in their newsfeeds so you get the engagement that attract more fans and more engagment (I realize that's a long, run on sentence; it's how I sometimes feel about Facebook!). It's an endless cycle of experimentation. 

Last week I watched Amy Porterfield's excellent webinar on 7 Simple Strategies to Profit from Facebook Marketing. Even though I've been using Facebook since January 1, 2008, I learned quite a few cool tactics from Amy which I've been implementing for the last week. One tip – to ask simpler, short questions that require only one word answers – has increased "likes" and comments. Amy provided several examples which sparked some ideas so I'm going to post questions on a weekly basis. I'm also using more pictures with my status updates even though it takes a little more time to find an appropriate image. The result is a lot more visibility and therefore interaction, in the newsfeed.

If you haven't watched Amy's webinar, I highly recommend it (Pre-recorded and available daily through December 18). You'll get a lot of immediately actionable ideas. I also purchased her FBInfluence product and am impressed with the depth, detail and delivery and resources. It's way underpriced at $97.

Another recommendation for increasing interaction on your Facebook page, is to check out this article by Andrea Vahl on Social Media Examiner: Top 10 Facebook Apps for Fan Engagement and Building Community.  Andrea outlines a couple great apps for acknowledging your fans (Booshaka and Fan of the Week). 

By the way, Amy Porterfield and Andrea Vahl, along with Phylls Khare, are co-authors of the definitive book on Facebook for business: Facebook Marketing All-in-One for Dummies. You've got plenty of ways to learn about how to master Facebook for your business!

Back to my question above, if Facebook is your primary social network for business, are you getting the results you want and how do you measure/track that? 

The post Facebook Continues to Dominate as Social Network of Choice appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.

The last time I asked (in 2008!), I included blogs, Flickr and MySpace. At the time, blogs edged out Facebook by a few percent. In May 2010, I posed the hypothetical question: if you could only use one social networking site, which one would it be….Facebook beat Twitter and LinkedIn.

This time, I'm most interested in social networking sites, not blogs. The landscape has changed a bit and now includes Google+. While there are hundreds of niche social networking sites, I'm interested in knowing which of the "big 5" you're using to promote and build your business.

Please select the PRIMARY social networking site you use for your business. I realize you most likely use multiple sites, however, I'm curious where you spend most of your energy to attract and connect with clients and prospects, as well as promote your business.

I would love to hear your thoughts on why you use one site over another or if you have changed your focus from one site to another and why. Please post your comments below.

Me? I find myself gravitating from Facebook to LinkedIn more and more. I've found the level of business-related conversation and traffic back to my blog, better since starting a group on LinkedIn. Many of my colleagues feel the depth of connection is better on Google+, though the jury is still out for me since very few people in my community have migrated over there yet. 

I look forward to your response!

The post What’s the Primary Social Networking Site You Use for Your Business? [poll] appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.

If you want to maintain a viable presence on a Facebook page, on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and now Google+, where do you spend your energy and how do you decide what to post where?

I've been pondering this question for a few days. Mari Smith asked her G+ followers and I have posed the question to my Online Visibility Boost Group on LinkedIn.

While there are tools to help with posting content (I use Hootsuite), I think the bigger question is WHAT type of content do you post on each site? I've been on Google+ for about a week now and I've noticed lots of videos and pictures along with prolific article sharing and tons of commenting. As expected, a lot of the content is about Google+ and the 10+ million users are tech savvy, early adopters. There's also quite a bit of personal conversation going on. The cool thing about Google+ is how granular you can segment your contacts and choose very specifically who will see what.

If you are new to Google+ and want a good getting started overview, check out this article on Social Media Examiner. If you're already using G+ and would like to connect with me there, please add me to a Circle. If you would like a G+ invite, post your request in the comments and I'll send you one.

Right before Google+ launched, I started a LinkedIn group for entrepreneurs interested in boosting their online visibility. I'd been contemplating this for a while as I've become increasingly frustrated with Facebook and their complex algorithms which make it so difficult to get your content seen by your "likers". I've been pleasantly surprised by how fast the group has grown (315 members in just 2 weeks) and active discussions going on every day. So far the group is not spammy is generally focused on members sharing content and tips about their businesses so we can help each other get more visibility.

The level of interaction is so much more satisfying that it is on my Facebook page. I've worked hard to maintain an active FB page, but it seems that fewer and fewer people see the content and fewer and fewer are participating. Too much stuff flying by on the newsfeed, I think.

Then there's Twitter. It's a great way to broadcast your content, share links and have quick conversations. But how many people really see your content? And do they click through to read it?

Ultimately, you have to know your audience and the type of content they want and respond to. And you need to figure out a strategy for managing your time. I'm rethinking my approach to many of these sites and will be refining my approach over the next few months.

To start, I will be removing all contacts from my personal Facebook profile and limit it to only those I am related to, are a personal friend, client or colleague. Everyone else, you are most welcome to connect with me where you like: my Facebook page, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+ and/or YouTube. My LinkedIn group is probably going to get my most active participation right now since it's focused on helping entrepreneurs boost their visibility. My Twitter stream will continue to get links to the interesting articles I find about technology, online marketing, business and blogging. My sense is that my Facebook page will focus mostly on business blogging since that's the content that gets the best engagement. 

How about you? How are you tackling this challenge? Do you have a strategy for where you post your content? Please share your strategies, tips and tactics in the comments.

If you're confused and overwhelmed about how you can integrate social media into your marketing, let's set up a strategy session so you can get clear on how to move forward efficiently and effectively, building your business with less stress.

The post Are Your Social Networks Getting Out of Control? appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.