LinkedIn, Part III: Networking and groups

It is quite possible that even those who do not own a LinkedIn account know that the primary purpose is to build and enhance networks.  LinkedIn has a few tools that I have found useful to share with other LinkedIn users and to learn from others in my industry.

Tweet to your links

I am an active Twitter user and have connected my Twitter and LinkedIn accounts such that what I post on LinkedIn can also post to Twitter (I have also done this in a social media dashboard that I use, HootSuite, where I can select the tweet to post to Twitter and LinkedIn).  This is not mandatory; I do have the option of just strictly posting the content on just LinkedIn.  But, think about your audiences who follow/link to you on different social networks you might be involved with – might some of your postings apply to more than one audience?  If so, why save time and post to more than one network by clicking just one “share” button?

How to set up the ability to post to LinkedIn and Twitter simultaneously. 

Why have I chosen to do this?  The more often that my posts appear on any friends’, followers’, or linkages’ feed - the more often they (may) see my posts, topics I like to discuss or contribute to, and may be more likely to read these posts, access my other social media profiles, and view me as more of a resources who shares information that is of value to them. 

Provide and ask those you’re linked to for recommendations

Aside from sharing content on LinkedIn, I have also been asked, and obliged, to provide recommendations for some of my connections.  A recommendation is merely a shot description of the person’s skills, experiences you've had based on interacting with them, and similar.  Consider other businesses that you have relationships with.  If you were to endorse them on LinkedIn – could you help build their reputation and credibility as a leader in their industry? Certainly, you would not want to provide recommendations for each and every LinkedIn user you are connected to, so be selective and provide honest insight as your name, as well as reputation, is tied with you include in the recommendation.

An example of a recommendation I wrote for a guest lecturer who has spoken in one of the classes I teach at Penn State. 

It is not necessary to wait for someone to ask you for a recommendation in order for you to write one, rather anytime you click on one of your connection’s profile you are presented with the option: “would you like to recommend (name)?”  Pretty simple and straightforward just like your ability to add/select keywords that describe your connection’s skills or expertise. 

Join or start a LinkedIn group

The ability to join a LinkedIn group, based on an interest or industry, is one of the strengths of this social network.  Some specifics about groups:

·       You do not need to join most groups to view what members are posting, unless it is a closed group and an administrator must approve your membership before you can participate, but if you want to receive updates with about the group’s activities (posted on your feed page) you do need to join. 

·       You can join up to 50 groups and browse discussions, learn about promotions group members are offering (e.g. classes, special discounts on merchandise), job postings, and see a listing of group members. 

Groups can be very useful resources.  Members post questions and other members can respond or “like” comments.  My own experience with joining a group evolved from connecting with key group members to asking group members to suggest topics for a course I teach.  This informal exchange resulted in some interesting and diverse comments and viewpoints.  Even if you never initiate a discussion, it is interesting to learn from others about how they solved a problem similar to what you are experiencing or learn about potential opportunities. 

This is the message I wrote and that was posted on my group's page.  Other group members provide thought provoking and valuable replies. 

LinkedIn provides a few tools that can help you identify groups you may want join. You can:

• do a general search for a group based on keywords (as I write this blog there are 1.5 million groups) 
•  filter the entire list of groups by language and/or by instructing LinkedIn to only select groups that your connections belong to – doing this narrowed my results to 880. 

If you do not find a group that you want to join you can always create your own.  The process is very straightforward and you have the option of having an open or closed group.  Additionally, you can alert others about your group by using the “invite others” option in each group’s page.  By clicking on this link an email is generated with a brief description of the group’s purpose that you can send to others who might be interested in joining. 

In the last of this series of blog postings on LinkedIn I'll describe company pages and how easy it is for businesses to build their own.  

Don't Get Left in the Cold. Use Social Media to Connect with Your Customers!

With sixty-five percent (65%) of internet users using social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and others (Pew Internet, 2011), social media can justifiably be considered a legitimate marketing tool by businesses large and small.  In fact, in a survey by Chief Marketer, 92% of respondents indicated that they either were using or planned to use social media for marketing of their brands.

Farmers and small ag business owners shouldn't overlook the power that social media tools provide in connecting with consumers.  Surveys conducted by two of my colleagues, Kathy Kelley and Jeff Hyde, in May 2010 with consumers who used social media, found that over 30% of respondents expected farmers' market/on-farm markets and U-Pick operations to have Facebook presence.  Consumers' expected use of Twitter and blogs by these types of ag businesses hovered around 20%.  I would expect that surveyed again two and a half years later, we would see these results, or expectations, to be higher yet.

Consumers' Expected Internet Presence by Type of Food Business

But having a social media presence, or profile, on any of these tools isn't enough.  You need to provide consumers with a reason to "like" or follow your business.  When questioned on why they connect with businesses on social media, approximately 60% of the individuals responding to Kelley and Hyde's survey indicated that they did so to learn about new products/direction of the business, while almost half wanted to learn about sales before the general public.

Expectations by Consumers who Follow Businesses on Social Networks

We see that the evidence exists that consumers expect ag and food businesses to exist on social networks, as well as to provide them with things that they value in return for following them.  You probably also have your own reasons, or objectives, for committing to developing and sustaining a social media presence for your business.  By developing a social media strategy, you can ensure that you, and your followers, get what you need from a social media relationship.

If you own, or are involved with, a farm or small ag business in Pennsylvania, and want to jump into the world of social media with a guiding hand, Penn State Extension can help.  Come to one of three scheduled Social Media Boot Camps for Ag Businesses.  These two-day workshops will give you a hands-on opportunity to develop Facebook, Twitter, and foursquare/Yelp profiles, as well as mapping out your personal social media marketing objectives and strategy. 

Not Being Retweeted?

It's not enough to create social media accounts - be it Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or any of the others that exist.  You've also got to post and share content that your followers find valuable in some fashion.  On Twitter, value is often measured in retweets. If your followers find value in what you have tweeted, they will retweet it - sharing your message with their followers.

I recently came across the aptly titled article, "10 Reason I Don't Retweet You & Your Content."  I've picked out a few of the author's reasons (in bold italics) that I think hold water and added my own thoughts about each.

• Your blog stinks. Whether it's a blog or a website for your business, the site and it's content need to have a certain level of professionalism.  Make sure you're providing the information that you advertise is there (product info, contact info, helpful resources, etc), and in a visually appealing and easily navigated fashion.  Most people won't waste time going back to a site if they were unable to find what they were looking for the first time.  Make sure that content is readable (i.e. proper spelling and grammar) and appropriate for your target market.
• Your content stinks. What are you sharing?  Quotes? A running updates of your daily activities?  Some of this is fine, and even valuable from the perspective that it gives your followers some insight to your personality.  However, you need to tweet content that resonates with your followers.  If you run a garden center, think about tweeting answers to commonly asked questions, pictures of newly available plants, links to relevant Extension publications, etc. Get engaged in Twitter conversations that are in your area of expertise.
• The only time you talk is when you want me to share your content.  If your content is good and has value (see previous point), then when the time comes that you want to (explicitly) ask your followers to share a particular tweet they will be more likely to do so. 
• You make it hard to share your tweet. The Twitter limit of 140 characters can be challenging at times, but if you want people to retweet you need to make it easy to do so.  Aim for your tweets to only use around 120 characters.  This should leave plenty of space for the "RT" and retweeter's handle.  The last thing you want is for someone to a) not retweet because it would take too much effort on their part to re-craft your message or b) retweet after altering the post so that it no longer reflects your view or purpose.
• You tweet the same stuff everyday.  Contrary to the popular saying, you can have too much of a good thing.  People like variety.  So, first make sure your content is good and then vary it.  Perhaps a link or two to an educational article mixed with a notice of an event that you're hosting.  You want people to be happy that they're seeing you're tweets (or at least not unhappy enough that they hide or unfollow you).

 If you're using Twitter for your farm or food business and have been thinking about how to gain more traction with your tweets, I hope this has been helpful.

The Value of Social Media as a Market Research Tool

You've got a Facebook page and/or Twitter account for your business.  You're letting followers (hopefully also your customers!) know when you're market is open, what's happening on the farm, what events you've got planned for them, specials you're offering, and so forth.

Source: http://www.homegauge.com

This article, that appeared on Mashable, reminds business owners of the value that you can pull from social media engagement with your followers. So, how can the messages and information on social media help you and your business?  Here are the author's five points:

1. Shed light on perceptions of your brand.  While you may not think you have a brand, you do.  You have a reputation and the public and customers have perceptions of you, the business, the products you produce and/or sell, your employees, your customer service, etc.  So take advantage of social media and take note of comments and questions that followers make. 

2. Peek into your customers' heads. By keeping tabs on what your customers are saying, you learn what is important to them.  This knowledge can help you frame questions that you may have, determine what you can provide that they will value, or if you should make changes to keep up with new trends.

3. Understand which products resonate the best.  When you post something to Facebook or Twitter, which items are generating the most buzz?  How many comments are followers making and what are they saying?  Are your posts being shared? This information is there, use it.

4. Learn from major customer issues.  Sometimes a follower/customer will post a complaint or question(s) that you thought was clearly communicated.  These things happen. Rather than becoming defensive, take these occurrences as opportunities to learn and make necessary changes.  Remember to respond to these complaints and questions, on- or off-line as appropriate.  Kathy Kelley provided tips on responding to negative reviews in this past blog post.

5. Construct a social media customer conversation plan. Similar to developing a social media strategy (for content sharing), consider developing a plan on how you and your team will interact and converse with followers/customers on social media.  How will you categorize social media feedback?  What conversations do you want to have?  If you have more than one person involved in your business's social media presence, who will be responsible for different actions?

Source: www.buzzom.com

Make sure that you're taking advantage of the information your followers and connections are sharing via social media.  You could be missing out if you're not "listening" as much or more than the amount of sharing you do.

Social media dashboards: Useful features

In my last post I introduced the idea of using dashboards to monitor more than one social media account and adding streams for lists  and hashtags.  To read more: http://t.co/B4GE3vdA. Today I would like to introduce a couple of features that you may find helpful when posting to one or more of your accounts.

Posting a message to more than one account

Have you ever posted on Twitter and thought that the message would be equally valuable for your Facebook Page?  I so, then you will find dashboards useful for this task.  As you can see below, with a dashboard I am able to type the message (the number of characters is limited to 140) and then select which account I want the message to post (designated by the green check marks).

Scheduling your tweets       

Or, perhaps you had a goal of posting to your accounts at least once a day during the week but travel would prevent you from doing so “live.”  Dashboards allow users to program tweets to post on a scheduled basis.  I have the option of typing my message and then selecting the day and time that I would like the message to post.  Just another reason why you might find dashboards to be beneficial.  

Once word of caution.  If you are scheduling tweets that may be associated with good weather, or another factor that could impact the usefulness of the tweet, do make sure that you can cancel the intended tweet if needed – just so your followers are not confused by the perplexing message. 

Analytics

As of today's posting, HootSuite is one of the few dashboards that provides  analytics.  By accessing the analytics panel (left-hand side of the dashboard interface) I have access to free Twitter statistics (Ow.ly Click Summary).  Or, if I purchased the HootSuite Pro plan I can spend "credits" I earn on this plan to develop more extensive reports, for example Google Analytics.  For more information about reports visit: http://goo.gl/pHCs2.  An example of a free Ow.ly Click Summary for my Twitter account (@kmk17psu) is below. 

I can customize the summary report by selecting the date or date range for which statistics are presented.  For this example, I selected a date range of March 26 through the 31.  A section of the report shows a visual of the number of people who clicked on a link I posted in a Tweet on each of these days.  A short video that describes what additional information provided in the free summary is available: http://goo.gl/yU3IE

Not only can I access reports on demand but I can also have them sent to my and others' email, daily or as infrequently as the first day of each month.  

Again, there are several dashboard options available.  Your preference and style should ultimately dictate which one you choose.  In my next blog posting I will describe the usefulness of using dashboard apps on your smarthphone and/or tablet.  

Why you should consider desktop social media dashboards

Novice and experienced social media users, alike, may find it difficult to keep track of who retweets their tweets, which customers or followers “like” or place comments on their Facebook Page, or the number of LinkedIn invitations they receive.  This is especially true for business owners who travel often or those who serve customers away from their computer.  This blog posting, and the next few to follow, is not meant to describe the various brands of dashboards inexistence, rather to highlight some of the usefulness that dashboards provide. 

It is possible to check all these accounts on a desktop by accessing each individual website or downloading separate Twitter, Facebook, FourSquare, etc. apps, but users may find that being able to manage multiple accounts by accessing just one program can provide convenience, allow for posting to multiple accounts, and save time by reducing the number of logins necessary to read all postings and updates.

Using dashboards to monitor more than one account

There are several different dashboards that are available, each with different advantages and disadvantages, but one that is mentioned frequently and used to demonstrate features in this posting is HootSuite (see example below).  In the screenshot that I have provided, you will see five tabs – each associated with a different social network (within the red rectangle, from left to right: three twitter accounts, a personal Facebook account, and the Ag. Entrepreneurship Extension Team Facebook Page). 

Adding lists you create and hashtags that you follow

Not only does a dashboard allow me to check these accounts simultaneously, but I can add streams to each account.   For example, while the home feed column (leftmost column in the screenshot below) allows me to read all the tweets posted by those I follow on Twitter, I can also see:

·       tweets that mention my Twitter handle (@kmk17psu) grouped together (second column from the left),

·       tweets I have posted (third column), and

·       a list I created (A list is simply a way of grouping those I follow on twitter by criteria I choose.  For example, topic they tweet about or type of business they operate.  For more Twitter lingo definitions consult: http://goo.gl/sgW1E).  The example list you see below (in the rightmost column) aggregates Tweets posted by select Penn State Extension personnel (@kmk17psu/psu).   

Alternatively, I can add streams that show results for tweets which contain a particular hashtag (for a definition, visit: http://goo.gl/sgW1E). In the screenshot, to the left, you will see a series of tweets each containing a hashtag I follow: #winechat.  

#Winechat is an event hosted on Twitter each Wednesday night.  Wine professionals and those who just like to drink wine discuss a topic and each person who posts a tweet related to the discussion includes #winechat so that the tweets are grouped together and easier to search for on Twitter.

You may find that you do not want as many streams, or that you would like more to be visible.  What is nice about most dashboards is that you do have the ability to customize certain aspects, such as the number of accounts and streams that are visible.  In fact, this might be one of your criteria for selecting a dashboard to use. 

Sure, I can check all these streams by going directly to Twitter.com but I like the ease of clicking on another tab and viewing other accounts, such as the Ag. Entrepreneurship Extension Team Facebook Page (final screenshot).  Like the streams I set up in the Twitter tab, I can have multiple streams on a Facebbook tab (e.g. wall post stream and event stream). 

This information should get you at least thinking about using dashboards.  In my next blog posting I will describe some more dashboard features that you may helpful when posting.  

Social Media Aren't the Only Ways to be Social

I was walking through the soccer fields last week when I had a chance to talk to a lady I know from involvement in various activities in the community.  The conversation wound through topics such as our kids, sports, and some work stuff before it came around to Facebook.  She has no use for it!  She has major issues with privacy but, even if that weren't the case, she just doesn't see a need for it.  I hear this a lot, though maybe not quite so adamantly as I did from her.  There is a bunch of people that aren't going to latch onto social media like I have and maybe like you have.  Business owners and we in Extension must continue to engage people where we can, when we can, and how we can.

One of my social media mentors, Max Spiegel, describes social media as a cocktail party.  Party-goers mingle, make small talk with some, have longer, more meaningful chats with others, etc. Based on my experience, I'd agree with Max.  Bottom line; business success is all about communication and social media tools are just another way to do it.  

There's still very much a role for phones, emails, and maybe even written or printed stuff, like flyers or brochures.  None of these are my preferred modes of communication anymore.  (My least favorite feature of my cell phone is the phone.)  But I know there are certain people I can reach best by email and others that I really have to talk to on the phone.  Business owners that desire a personal connection with customers have to meet them where they are.  The old advice still works, whether it's in person, in your farmers' market, or some other venue: be engaging, be responsive, don't oversell your business or products, etc. (See goo.gl/ZK1Vl for some tips on how to engage your audience on social media.)

The key takeaway is this: Use the tool that allows you to meet your audience how and where you need to meet them. Don't force them to find you on Facebook if they don't want to.  Likewise, get your business listed in Google Places if that's how they find businesses in an area.  This stuff isn't rocket science, is it?

Mobile Marketing?

Food Systems Insider today had an interesting commentary regarding the role smartphones play in consumer purchasing behavior. Smartphones, such as Blackberries and iPhones, allow users instant access to all sorts of information.

Many social networking sites also have applications allowing people to access their accounts through their phones. A consumer with a smartphone can let their friends know where they are through foursquare, send a tweet and post a status update about their experience, and post pictures of a product they purchase to Facebook and Twitter.

With the continuing rise in the use of smartphones and the possibilities they offer for connecting with consumers, mobile marketing is yet another facet that ag entrepreneurs should consider as part of their marketing and PR strategies.

Check out the article via the link below.

Got milk? Check the smartphone

Another reason to use Twitter and Facebook

You may have been hearing a lot about Twitter (or tweeting) recently and how it can help you as a business owner talk about your business and hopefully gain customers. To be able to see tweets about a specific topic, a person would need to search on the Twitter website. A recent announcement from Google will help in this search for information.

In October, Google announced a search deal with Twitter to include tweets in search results. On the official Google blog, the benefits of the partnership are described. “Given this new type of information and its value to search, we are very excited to announce that we have reached an agreement with Twitter to include their updates in our search results. We believe that our search results and user experience will greatly benefit from the inclusion of this up-to-the-minute data, and we look forward to having a product that showcases how tweets can make search better in the coming months. That way, the next time you search for something that can be aided by a real-time observation, say, snow conditions at your favorite ski resort, you’ll find tweets from other users who are there and sharing the latest and greatest information.” After entering a search term, Google will scroll data in real-time (no need to refresh the page).

Coming in the beginning of 2010, Google will also be including Facebook updates in search results. The article below gives more information on the partnerships and includes a YouTube video on how the real-time data will be displayed.

Google article

As a business owner, do you use Facebook or Twitter? If you don't, will you start using these services now that Google will be displaying this data? What kind of feedback have you received from customers about your social networking usage?