Web Design, Digital & Social Media Marketing in Singapore

LinkedIn made easy

// June 3rd, 2009 // No Comments » // Social Media Marketing

photo credits : Binkiexxx

One of the most asked questions from my clients – What’s LinkedIn and how it can benefit my business?

If you use Facebook to connect to friends, you can use LinkedIn to connect to business associates. LinkedIn is a social networking site where an individual creates an online profile of his/her professional resume. With that profile, he/she then connects to someone in LinkedIn and through that network, establish new job opportunities or business opportunities.

Within your network of business contacts, you can recommend or as to be introduced to other contacts. LinkedIn allows users to also create and join groups. Within these groups, users can discuss and share ideas on the specific topics.

Here are some ways that you can use LinkedIn to leverage on your career or business:-

Join groups and get involved in discussions

Participate in discussion within groups that are related to a your industry. It is through this participation that you inherit new ideas and also made yourself known. In your discussion, you have the opportunity to be heard, make relevant references to your blog posts and even use case studies in your business to reinforce a point you are making. If you are doing it right, you will be able to increase the visibility of your business and brand, generate sales leads, drive traffic to your websites and even enhance your SEO efforts.

Set up a company profile

A properly crafted company profile page will open your company to attract potential candidates. Add links to your company’s blog, facebook group, twitter account, etc. Your digital footprint is something that you can leverage on to attract talents, at the same time, give your potential clients a feel of your corporate culture.

You may want to know before jumping in…

There are a few issues you may want to keep in mind before launching a campaign on LinkedIn.

Confidential corporate information – Similar to any online social media networks, the risk corporate information leaking is real. That risk is multiplied if there is a huge number of employees in LinkedIn. You may want to communicate some simple house rules for employees to aid them in understanding what’s considered ‘confidential’.

Poaching – It is known that recruiters use LinkedIn and other professional networking sites to headhunt potential candidates for their assignments. You may also want to know even without LinkedIn, poaching and headhunting still exists.

You are want you posted - Again, like any social networking, you are what you post. Your corporate culture is also reflected based on how you ‘behave’ on LinkedIn. Be mindful that you are being watched by potential employers, clients and more importantly, your BOSS!

Have fun!

Is having a huge number of twitter followers that important?

// May 25th, 2009 // No Comments » // Social Media Marketing

photo credits : brajeswhwar
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If you are a twitter user, you probably will have a couple of people following you every week. You visit their twitter page, realized that these ’social media celebrities’ has tens of thousands of followers. You think to yourself, I should reciprocate and follow back. You are not alone.

Many marketers believe that it is important  to have many twitter followers – as many as possible. It helps them create a channel to broadcast, to establish their online reputation as “I am important” or it simply makes they credible. I beg to differ.

The method of mass following is common. Many ‘twitter gurus’ make a business out of this by teaching others how to increase the number of followers in a very short time. Their tools include softwares that automatically follows people, hoping that they will reciprocate. I am not saying it is wrong. I just don’t agree.

It is about your content

In my earlier post in Social Media Optimization, I talk about quality and not quantity. I also talk about social media as 2-way communications and it is about establishing a relationship. The number of followers is irrelevant if most of them don’t even know who you are, what you do and what you are saying. Would they care a sxxt what you are trying to ‘push’ them when you have a product to sell? I don’t think so.

We heard about the success of dell using twitter to market its products, reaping in a million dollars.  They did not do mass following. They offered twitter exclusive offers instead. Dell creates a reason for followers to follow them. In this sense, it is 2-way. There are ‘contents’ that the followers are interested.

It is about commitment (time & resources)

Social media marketing requires commitment. It is time, money and manpower. It requires sustained efforts. I relate that to real-life socialization where you need to dedicate time and money to get out there and know more people, and be known at the same time. If all these sounds a lot to you or your boss, social media marketing may not be your cup of tea.

New to Twitter?

// May 15th, 2009 // No Comments » // Social Media Marketing

Twitter don’t seem to have picked up in this region, compared to US & UK. nevertheless, if you are keen to know more, here’s a video which you may first useful.

It is the ultimate guide to twitter

I have also found an excellent guide to twitter from Design Depot. After you are done with these, read on how your business can benefit from using twitter as a marketing tool.

Enjoy.