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Great news. You are now able to reorder the various sections on your LinkedIn profile to have the information displayed in the order that you would prefer. For example, I have a video embedded in my LinkedIn profile (click here to learn how to do this) and it used to be way at the bottom and many people missed it. I have now been able to move it right up to the top and now more people can see it.

Click here to watch a short video on how to reorder the sections on your LinkedIn profile

Ping.fm is a service that allows you to post to multiple platforms at one time. However they have recently made changes to the way their application logs in to LinkedIn.  Be sure to log in to your account and verify that your settings are still working. You may need to re-validate your login credentials or else your posts will not show up on your LinkedIn status.

In my previous post I wrote about how to get to the 100% completeness mark with the LinkedIn profile.  One of the areas to be filled out is the Specialties area.  I got some questions regarding what to put in that area.

Remember that LinkedIn is a search engine and that it will search for keywords.  The specialty area is one where you can insert the keywords that reflect what you do as well as who you help. This way when someone searches for those keywords, your profile has a chance to appear among the results.

Since one of my specialties is helping BNI members triple the number and quality of referrals they give and receive, I listed that under the specialties in my profile. I also want to attract people to my Corporate Training business and one of the areas I specialize in is in Conflict Resolution among executive teams. So I have that as one of my specialties.

You can list as many specialties as you want. Just make sure that they are relevant to what you do and who you are looking to help.

LinkedIn is undergoing some changes – some major and some minor.  I recently became aware of a change that prevents you from personalizing your invitation message when you send it to multiple people at once. For example, if you upload your contacts from your email client and you find that some of them are already LinkedIn members, you can only send the default LinkedIn invitation message – which is pretty dry and boring.

My suggestion is that for now, you only send individual invitation requests that can be personalized. This will greatly enhance the odds that someone will connect to you. In addition, it will also help you being perceived as someone who is more effective (caring) networker.

LinkedIn responded to me that they are working on addressing this issue and that the ability of customizing multiple invitations will be back in the future.

Debbra Sweet is a good friend of mine and a great marketing professional is giving away an Audio CD and some “How to” marketing videos she just made for women entrepreneurs. These are f’ree. The CD is full of her very best marketing secrets that produce results super fast.

The videos are online but the 77 min CD she has to send to you in the mail. Learn more about it and click here if you want to order yours.

She has a limited supply available so order yours now.

Social Networking is all about building relationships. It is about gaining Visibility and earning Trust. Eventually this leads to sales. That’s the 40,000 foot view. I will now share with you an actual situation I had earlier this week so that you can see it in action.

I posted a Twitter update about me saving three lives as a result of donating blood. This was a personal tweet that had zero to do with business. One of my Twitter followers re-twitted the post. For those of you who don’t know how I found this out, I had set up Twitter alerts that automatically scan all tweets that contain my Twitter name.

I proceeded to thank her by sending a direct message via Twitter – it is a good practice to respond to communications from people who engage with you via the same channel. She responded back to me and we now had a conversation going. She mentioned to me that she was also checking out the QuoteActions email marketing system that I developed.

I then went to her website, found her phone number and called her. We had a nice chat and she mentioned to me that she had been following me for quite some and that she really enjoyed my QuoteActions tweets. She then asked me some questions about the QuoteActions system and I encouraged her to take the free trial. Which she did.

I just got a notification that she purchased a 1-year subscription to QuoteActions.

As you can see from the example, I first built my Visibility and then I gained my Credibility with her. I was building a relationship with her without me even knowing it. The relationship got closer when she came onto my radar because of her re-tweet of my post. And it is now at the point where she has become one of my customers.

So was there any particular action that led to this sale? No. It was a combination of ALL my activities that caused this result. And therein lies the power of Social Networking. No activity by itself in Social Networking will lead to success. However when you aggregate all of the activities together, they become a very powerful force.Malcolm Gladwell does a great job of explaining this in his book The Tipping Point.

I received the message below in response to a connection request on LinkedIn:

Hello Rick – I’ve always been torn about whether or not to link with someone I don’t know. It seems to defeat the purpose – to refer or introduce you to others in my network. Just yesterday I called a friend to ask about someone in her network and she said she didn’t know the person. That makes the connection useless, don’t you think?

I believe this person’s perspective is quite common. She found my response useful and so may you. Would love to hear your comments.

Jim (not his real name),

I fully understand your feelings. When I first started using LinkedIn and other Social Networking sites, my approach was to only accept invitations from people I knew personally. I wasn’t going to be one of those people who have hundreds or thousands of meaningless connections.

I then started realizing that with this approach, my networking was going to be extremely limited – and mostly useless. This is because I would be networking with people I was already networking with. Not a lot of growth potential there.

Back then, I also started doing some article writing. Whenever people commented on my articles, I would write them an email thanking them. This led me to having conversations with many of these folks. And before long I started adding those people to my network.

Social Networking is all about relationships. However, the value of our network is based on both the QUALITY (depth) and the QUANTITY (reach) of our relationships. It is not an “either/or” but rather a “both/and” proposition.

While you and I don’t know each other, we do share several things in common. We are connected to some individuals we both know, we are both in BNI, we participate on LinkedIn and we belong to some of the same LinkedIn groups. That’s a good start to our relationship.

Now we’re having a conversation (albeit by email.) Who knows where this will lead? However, if you fail to accept my invitation, it will certainly lead nowhere.

Does that mean I personally know every person my network? No, it doesn’t. However everyone in my network has the potential to contribute something to someone else in my network. Take you for example, you have knowledge in Reverse Mortgages, something about which I know very little. If someone in my network were to ask me for a question or recommendation in this area, I wouldn’t hesitate to tap into your expertise. I might contact you asking you for information or I may offer your name to my contact and have them contact you directly, etc.

Bottom line, Social Networking is about a mindset. If you are connecting with people for the exclusive purpose of “what can I get?” then numbers are quite useless. However, if your purpose for growing your network is so that you can offer more opportunities to “give” then numbers do matter.

How to Write a LinkedIn Recommendation (8 steps)

To be successful in Social Networking, you must use the VCP model. VCP stands for Visibility, Credibility and Profitability. Simply stated, people must know who you are and trust you before they will consider doing business with you.

LinkedIn recommendations give you an opportunity to gain credibility and visibility. Needless to say that having good recommendations by a 3rd parties go a long way to establish your credentials with people who don’t know you.

The flip side is also something to keep in mind. When you give a recommendation to others, that recommendation can raise the other person’s visibility and credibility. Just remember, that the recommendation you give will also say something about you to others. If you lie, exaggerate, are bland, etc. this will affect how others view YOU.

The following are two good articles on this topic:
LinkedIn Tip #3: Give Useful Recommendations

A recent post by Douglas Castle – a new friend and fellow writer from The National Networker (TNNW), truly illustrates the power of Social Networking and collaboration.

Read it here