That leaves 2 LinkedIn Experts eating crow…

Listen carefully to the experts, even if you are one yourself. They not only have the knowledge that can help you, but they have the life experiences to back it up. A number of Colorado’s leading LinkedIn Experts and Social Media Experts gathered in Denver on Sat. June 6 at a special National Speakers Association (NSA) training session featuring on-line marketing.

The Denver Athletic Club played host to Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) expert Heather Lutze, founder of The Findability Group. She started the day off with a roar!  Being an authority on LinkedIn Expert myself (We have trained 7,000 people in 400 LinkedIn training sessions), I wasn’t sure that I would learn much.  Boy was I wrong. I came home with 5 pages of notes.  Being an expert and being a great speaker often do NOT go hand in hand.

Viveka von Rosen, a fellow LinkedIn Expert (@LinkedInExpert), and I (@MikeOneilDenver) are taking a new approach to our LinkedIn names as a result.  Viveka is now “Viveka von Rosen: LinkedIn Expert & Speaker“.  Her LAST NAME is entered as “von Rosen: LinkedIn Expert & Speaker”.  It is still searchable in LinkedIn, and Google supposedly likes it a whole lot more. See how it looks on Viveka’s LinkedIn profile.

LinkedIn Expert and Professional Speaker Mike O’Neil

LinkedIn Expert and Social Media Expert Viveka von Rosen

I am trying a slightly different approach.  I put “the LinkedIn Expert” as my former or maiden name so I am now “Mike (the LinkedIn Expert) O’Neil”. See how it looks on my profile.

We will both be independently reporting on how this LinkedIn search and Google search works out and will pray that the forces of the mighty LinkedIn do not come down upon us.  See Viveka’s blog post on this topic.  She has a wealth of other great information on her www.LinkedIntoBusiness.com blog site.

Also “on the bill” Saturday as a co-headliner was Steve Spangler of Steve Spangler Science.  Steve is well known to the public from his 9News appearances showing interesting science experiments.  See Steve blowing up soda bottles with 9News reporter Kim Christianson.  It has had over 1.5 million views!

Ask a LinkedIn Expert Free Q/A Webinar Mondays at Noon Eastern

Have a nagging question about LinkedIn or Social Media?

Want to learn more about the Latest Techniques?

Got 15 minutes to invest?

Join us for IA’s “Ask an @LinkedInExpert” FREE LinkedIn Live Question and Answer Web Conference on Mondays at Noon Eastern.

To register for this free webinar now, visit  Ask an @LinkedIn Expert Webinar

WHEN: Mondays NOON EASTERN
HOW: Webinar – Pre-registration required
WHAT: Open Mic Q&A and by popular request, pre-submit your questions reply email

We look forward to seeing you next Monday!

Your hosts Lori Ruff and Mike O’Neil of Integrated Alliances.

When Experience Matters…

Unless the profile belongs to a job seeker who understands that they need to show potential employers their skills and talents, many LinkedIn profiles are lacking in a very important area, experience. Showing on the profile below Summary, Specialties and any plug-ins may give one a false sense of security. However, the important point is that by including as much employment history as possible makes one more findable.

Here’s why. Many people are found on LinkedIn because of keyword searches. A profile robust in keywords and phrases is much more findable. So, with 750 characters available for each position added, a profile well built-out is much more findable than one just listing previous employer and title.

People ask what should be included. After all, this is the area of LinkedIn that is most like a resume.  That may be so, and it is important that positions correlate with ones resume. However, being found is the most critical focus of this section. So here’s the methodology practiced at IA and recommended to our clients by the most experienced LinkedIn business strategist in the world, IA Founder, Mike O’Neil.

Answer these five questions when completing each position:

1. Who is the Company?

• For example, not everyone realizes that ACN is a distributor of video phones

2. What do they do?

• To carry forward the example, ACN distributes video phones and sells internet-based telecommunications solutions

3. Where do they do it?

• Nationwide, Regional, Locally?

4. Who do they do it for?

• Individuals or Companies, B2B, B2C, etc. What does a customer look like?

5. What is your role at the company; what makes you special?

• Briefly describe your responsibilities and one or two special achievements

This methodology is proven time and again in conversations with recruiters and employers who want to know that potential candidates have what they are looking for. It is also proven by sales, marketing and business development professionals who want to show potential customers that they and their company has the experience needed to get the job done.

For more information: check out Mike O’Neil’s LinkedIn Profiles Guide.

Colorado Concert Scene

For the latest in what’s happening in the Denver area concert and festival scene, visit Mike O’Neil’s personal blog.

Twitter Status vs LinkedIn Status vs Facebook Status

In the LinkedIn and social media training we do, we always seem to get asked about the status function and if one status update might cover all three, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

Twitter statusing is really at the heart of it all. Statuses (Tweets) from here can feed LinkedIn, Facebook and a long list of other social media platforms by using tools like Ping.fm.  But, because you CAN share the status, does that mean you SHOULD?

This is what we do here at Integrated Alliances.  Maybe it will work for you:

Do NOT use a status utility to feed all three.  They have different purposes in terms of what types of information. I think you might want to try the following strategies.

LinkedIn statusing  is best for activities that have a 1 week to 1 month horizon.  It is not a real time statusing system, although you could do that if you liked. One other problem is that LinkedIn inserts your name at the beginning of the status statement. For example, on Twitter you might send:

“At the Denver Metro Chamber event meeting lots of new downtown business partners, Brown Palace, goes until 10.”

Whereas in LinkedIn it becomes:

“ Mike At the Denver Metro Chamber event meeting lots of new downtown business partners, Brown Palace, goes until 10.”

 Facebook statusing is generally for activities that are on the 1 day to 1 week horizon.  It works out well getting the feed from Twitter. People often comment on my Tweets right on my Facebook wall. This allows me to see and reply quickly to each comment.

So, how might actual status messages differ?

Some good examples of status updates for LinkedIn:

• “Meeting with new customers from India, never thought that there would be more English speaking people there than in the US.”
• “Looking for C++ programmers for 6 month project, data architect and coders needed. http://www.tinyurl.com/Tcsw3“

Some good examples of status updates for  Facebook:

• “Taste of Colorado this weekend. Opie Gone Bad hits the main stage at 3:30 on Sunday. Look for me in front.  I’ll be dancin”.
• “Scored big – touring the commercial studio where they make 9News commercials, excited to meet Adele Arakawa, heard she races Porche’s.”

Some good examples of Twitter Tweets (status updates):

• Hazel Miller band rockin’ the house at the Taste of Colorado, tunes from the new album.
• At National Speaker Association event watching @klutze, knows her stuff. @stevespangler is up next – Learning how to do a YouTube Channel.
• At #SXSW with my East Coast Buds, hitting 6th Street tonight for the VIP party, end up at Chili Willy’s.

LinkedIn Rule Breaker?

There was a big stir in the LinkedIn world Thursday; we received calls from friends and clients about an unusual number of invitations in their LinkedIn inbox from people whose names were in all caps. In looking at the profiles, we discovered that they are nearly identical, right down to college degree, or lack thereof… and groups represented by each profile. Thanks to Rob Hayes at Cynocast for the initial heads up!

The company “Social Media Magic” seemingly put up dozens of profiles of individuals with no pictures, with identical profiles, different colleges and no degree, all showing a concentration in marketing and each have different groups. Without looking at everyone, the only profile that seems to have a photo is that of John Souza, and he actually has two—profiles that is. John is listed as CEO or Chief Strategist at Vertical Partners and other companies. There is also no company profile on LinkedIn. One would think that a company touting to provide expert social media services for others, they’d have their own presence up to par.

Brent Jordan did a little digging and learned Souza has at least 269 domain names including socialmediamagic.com, verticalpartners.com, and dedicatedrep.com. Looking at his websites, we’ll grant that he is evidently an Internet Marketing Wiz.

As we continued to dig, we learned that Souza was the only member of the Toplinked.com Group, which is a network building group dedicated to helping people build opportunities and resources. It appears that he, or someone representing him, downloaded the weekly list and used it to send invitations from all of the company’s profiles. This is a Toplinked.com service agreement violation and he was immediately banned from the group and the service. He made a huge mistake by not understanding how the program works, or he might not have been caught so fast. Because he didn’t follow the rules or the standard protocol, his company profiles represent the majority of the invitations that showed up on Thursday in the inboxes of people who use Toplinked.com.

Screen shot of suspicious invitations from Social Media Magic

So, we dug a bit further, asking LinkedIn for assistance. It takes a while for them to respond, so we have delayed our own response via blog. We also began tweeting about the issue and had great feedback from people like @DenverPete, who was on a webinar by Social Media Magic while this was going down. They offered a free webinar to describe how they can provide “Managed Services” for people. If they were to build my social media presence like they built their own, I don’t want or need their service!

Brent Jordan described the issue well at lunch on Friday… compare a quality G2 Pilot pen to a store brand knock-off. They look almost identical until you use the pens and compare the results. Then the difference becomes clear and you either use the better quality pen, paying a little more for the difference, or you just put up with the poor quality.

Until the investigation is complete and we have an idea if these guys are legitimate connections, we have instructed our Managed Services team to ignore the invitations and recommended that our friends and LinkedInsiders do the same. The bottom line is that it looks as if these profiles are not for real people. Avoid them.

LinkedIn Groups Training June 3 Video Promo

Linked Groups training is Wed. June 3, July 1, Noon Eastern.  This is 75 minutes of expert training on LinkedIn Groups.

Just $69 ahead of time, $79 the final week. Handouts provided.  Recordings will be available for sale.

More Information and Registration

LinkedIn Adds Personal Information Fields to Profiles

After 5+ years of LinkedIn telling users not to put personal information like phone numbers in our profiles, they gently slipped in this very capability the past few days.  It is almost a secret it seems so I am out telling the world.

It isn’t all we want, but it helps.  Here is what mine looks like now:

Mike O'Neil's LinkedIn Personal Information Screen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This capability appears at the botton of a profile, above the Contact Settings.  The data must be entered by the user.  It includes Phone, Address, IM, Birthday and Marital Status (engaged is not an option, sorry). 

See my entire LinkedIn Profile for other ideas like Slidecast and Video (See me interview Jay Deragon of  The Social Media Connection).

Pray and maybe they will add a field for E-Mail in another 5 years!  I will take 5 to 1 odds on that never happening.  Please pass the word so we can better start communicating with one another.

Pictures disappearing from LinkedIn?

There have been reports of LinkedIn pictures being mysteriously deleted.  One must think it is happening due to something at LinkedIn.  If your picture is not a pure and ordinary headshot, you may want to consider making it such.  A “quick pic” from a cell phone camera may even be enough. 

 

Mike O’Neil as an Obamicon

Mike O’Neil headshot

 

Case in point: my Obamicon headshot picture disappeared over the weekend.  If this has happened to you (Obamicon or other), please comment back so others can learn from our experiences.

Follow Lori on the Road…

Follow Lori as she’s on the road speaking and training or filming DVDs… her latest pictures and Flip videos can be viewed at www.LoriOnFacebook.com

Lori in Brentwood TN, Amy Grant's Estate