6 Tips for Being More Effective on LinkedIn

Everyone has their own style of networking. Some of us go to chamber luncheons and distribute business cards left and right. Others are more reserved and find online networking or less formal meet-ups more effective. 

 

When it comes to online networking, LinkedIn can be a powerful tool in your arsenal. It’s the professional network of choice yet many people come across as rude or spammy due to laziness or a lack of understanding. I’m going to present some helpful tips that I’ve learned over the years and some links to other helpful LinkedIn resources. 

1. Make your introductions personal Few things are more irritating on LinkedIn than the generic greeting or connection request. It’s easy to send a connection request simply by touching the button next to the person’s name on the LinkedIn phone app or clicking “Connect” in the web app, but that’s impersonal. The person will probably accept if you know them well but that’s not the point; even if they’re a coworker, take the time to express something personal. “Jim, I’ve really enjoyed working with you on the mortgage project,” sounds a lot better than the generic “I’d like to connect with you on LinkedIn.” Also, think about how generic requests reflect on your personal brand and that of your company. Every networking interaction says something about you as a person. If you come across as rude, people can see where you work and that’s going to sour their impression of your business. So take the time to be professional in your LinkedIn messages just like you would in person. 

2. Don’t ask for recommendations on a whim It’s been my experience that people are generally very obliging in writing a recommendation if you ask for one. However, never ask someone just for the heck of it. Writing a recommendation takes time, especially if it’s heartfelt; you don’t want to make that ask unless you have a legitimate reason. Maybe you’ve just lost your job or you’re looking to shore up your profile so you can move into a different job or industry. Those are legitimate reasons. Satisfying your vanity is not. (Leave a comment if you disagree with me on that one.) In any case, you’ll find that the best recommendations are unsolicited. 

3. Be generous with your praise This is related to the previous point. If someone around you does an awesome job, find a way to express it – whether that’s a verbal comment at work or an unsolicited recommendation on LinkedIn. Even a LinkedIn endorsement can serve as a lesser form of affirmation. Just make sure you’re endorsing a skill they actually have. 

4. Choose your skills wisely Speaking of endorsements, people are generally going to endorse you for the skills you already have listed on your profile rather than adding new skills. So make sure you do a good job of listing those initial skills or you'll end up with too many endorsements for the wrong skills.

5. Think about the big picture Every part of your LinkedIn profile says something about you – from the Summary to the companies you follow to your Additional Organizations and Interests. Make sure that everything is in line with the personal brand you want to project. 

6. Schedule a LinkedIn lunch and learn Wherever you might live, there’s undoubtedly someone who has a reputation as a LinkedIn expert. This might even be someone in your company. If you’re serious about your LinkedIn networking, social media marketing or coordinating the promotion of your content, it’s not a bad idea to schedule a “Lunch and Learn” event with a LinkedIn expert. (This can also be helpful for other social networks like Twitter or Google+ if you have a group of people who are interested in taking an hour to learn more.) Even if you’re a busy executive, you can gain a handful of helpful tips without having to dedicate more time than it would take to grab a sandwich. The LinkedIn speaker should be able to share the latest developments like the new inbox or a new way to search Influencer content. One of the things you'll undoubtedly hear is that LinkedIn works best when it's used in tandem with in-person networking. So how do you use LinkedIn? What features do you like the best and what features irritate you? And what are the best insights you have for increasing your effectiveness on the network?

Read original article HERE 

How to Target Your Email Subscribers with Facebook Ads

Email and Facebook are probably the two most powerful marketing tools online today.
What’s even more powerful, is the possibilities you have to integrate them and put them to work together, for you.
You probably know that a Facebook Page can help grow your email list using custom apps, but today, we’re going the opposite way: How to create a Facebook ad campaign that targets your email subscribers.

Sounds technical? It’s not. I’ll give you each step of the process in this post.

1) Get your email list

 

The first step is to head over to your email service provider (ESP), I’m going to assume the majority uses either Aweber or Mailchimp, so I’ll focus on those two.
We’ll start with Aweber, the process will be similar if you use any other ESP. Mailchimp on the hand has a special way of doing this, we’ll come back to talk about this in a minute.
What you need to do is download your list into your computer, usually via a CSV file. You need to look for the option to “export your list” (if your ESP doesn’t offer this, you need to look for a new service).
On Aweber…

• You’ll have to go to the “Subscribers” tab on top
• Select “Manage Subscribers” from the dropdown menu options
• That will take you to page you see in the image below. You’ll find several options to filter your list by different criteria, in this case you’ll want to export your entire list, so there is no need for that, unless you want to run an ad campaign to an specific segment in your list
• Click on the “Export CSV” button right below the list. This should take a couple of minutes depending on the size of your list

Alright, now you should have a CSV sitting in your computer. We’ll come back to get it.

2) Create a Custom Audience

 

We’ll use Power Editor to import this list to Facebook.
For this you need to create a Custom Audience. In the top right menu of your Power Editor dashboard, select “Audiences.”

Once on the Audiences dashboard, select “Custom Audience” from the “Create Audience” menu on the top left of the page.

You have 4 options to create Custom Audiences:

• Data File
• Mailchimp (we’ll look at this in a second)
• Data from a mobile app
• Website Custom Audience, the latest addition to Facebook ads platform

We’ll use “Data File” to import the CSV file we downloaded from your ESP.

Next step is to create your new audience:

• Name
• Description
• Under Data Type select “Emails”
• Don’t forget to agree to the terms…

 

3) Import your List

 

The “Source” is your CSV file, click on “Choose file” and locate it. Once you do that, click on “Create Audience.”

This process may take up to 30 minutes depending on the size of your email list. You can click “Check Updates” at the top to check its progress.
When it’s done, the status will change to “Ready.”

You can go grab a coffee, I’ll wait…

Now we have an audience!

4) Target your new Audience with an Ad

 

Now that you’ve created a custom audience for your email list, all you have to do is add it whenever you want to target it with an ad campaign. Or you can exclude it too.

 

How to create a Custom Audience with your Mailchimp list

 

As promised, let’s go back to Mailchimp now. I know many of you use it.
The process to create a Mailchimp Custom Audience is actually a lot easier… Basically you are skipping the part where you download the list from your provider and have a CSV file to import.
Forget all that!
All you have to do is select “Mailchimp Custom Audience” from the “Create Audience” menu…



You’ll get this pop up to prompt you to connect Facebook and Mailchimp.



If you have more than one Mailchimp account, you will get an additional step here to select the right one, if not, the next step is to select the list you wish to connect here.



Once you select the list and click on “Create Audience,” it’s all done for you. The rest is the same, you’ll wait for Facebook to match the data with its personal profiles and you’ll get a notification when it’s done.

2 Important considerations

 

There are a couple of things you need to consider when targeting your email subscribers in Facebook.
The Match
You should pay attention to how many records Facebook was able to match from your list. What Facebook does in this process is look for a match between the email address you’ve provided and a user profile. In some cases, they don’t match because people use more than one email address. The same thing happens when you import phone numbers, not every Facebook user lists a phone number.
Update
You should do this periodically, your email list is probably growing. Set an alert to remind yourself to import a new list every month or every 3 months, depending on how fast is growing.

Thoughts?

 

So, what do you think? Is it valuable? Are you already targeting your email subscribers with Facebook ads? Or are you planning to do so soon?
Let me know if you have any questions in the comments section.

How To Use Webinars For Home Parties

It’s time to have some fun with webinars! I’m seeing more coaches, trainers, entrepreneurs, and even bloggers harnessing the power of webinars. However, I’m not seeing too many direct sales folks, specifically those who are in the home party industry, trying them out. Imagine, instead of having to take all of your supplies over to someone’s house, you could do a webinar instead! For those in the home party industry, you already have everything you need to put on a successful webinar.

1. You already have the presentation

 

I sold canvassed art at home art shows for 4 years. The company gave us the complete script for each presentation. Of course, you’d make it your own, but in the end you already had the presentation. Consider hiring a virtual assistant to create power point presentation using that same information as an outline.

2. You already have the product

 

At most home parties there is a demonstration to show everyone how the product works. Why not do this on your webcam for all to see from the comforts of your home, instead of the home of your hostess?

3. You already have a computer

 

When I was doing art shows, I mailed out invitations to each guest and then made a reminder phone call to confirm they’d attend the show. Today, many in home party companies are doing the inviting and reminding with email and eVites. You can create a similar process using an e-mail marketing system like AWeber, allowing you to send follow-up messages and information about the events. Important: You’ll need a webcam for the presentation itself.

4. You definitely have a phone

 

I remember taking part in phone-a-thons at our weekly Monday night meetings. I’d usually spend most of my time looking through my organizer, finding phone numbers, or seeking out someone who needed help with anything other than making calls. With a webinar, your phone is a tool you’ll be happy to use.

5. You have people

 

If you’ve been selling your product for some time, you’ve already built up a clientele who know what you sell, have probably hosted a party already with you, or were guests at a show. What would happen if you sent them an email letting them know of your new option for hosting a party? You could start off by acting as the hostess to demonstrate how it all works. Open it up even more and let everyone on social media know about your webinar. This could open up your potential customer base, beyond your family and friends circle.
If you are in the home party business and you are interested in learning how to present using a webinar, please let me know in the comments below.