Brand: Create a personal brand and be consistent with it across your various network communities. Make sure it clearly communicates who you are and what you do. In your words “what do you do and what sets you apart from everybody else that does it?”
URL: Your LinkedIn URL should appear as http://linkedin.com/in/yourfullname, if it doesn’t change, otherwise you’re missing out on your profile ranking higher in Google and making it easy for people to find you.
Summary: include a brief paragraph with no typo’s and proper grammar summarizing your work experience or business.
Keywords: With Search Engines, Pipes, and RSS feeds keywords are essential for being found so take advantage by sprinkling them throughout your profile.
Applications: If you have a Blog add the Blog Link or WordPress Application. Another great one is Box.net, share content and collaborate.
Groups: Join groups that you can be a resource for and learn from. Identify yourself as a leader by asking and answering questions in your group.
Links: LinkedIn allows 3 links, I recommend your business website, and/or your Blog and your Twitter profile.
Contacts: The bigger your network the more marketing leverage you have so import those contacts. LinkedIn makes importing extremely easy with Windows Live, Hotmail, Yahoo and AOL (if you still have an AOL account for your business…dump it!). Beware though because if the people you’re inviting don’t remember you and 5 of them say they don’t know you, LinkedIn will blacklist you. If you are unsure, send an email in advance letting them know who you are and that you want to join their network.
Status: Update your status occasionally, let your network know what you’re up to, it will appear in their weekly updates so they will be reminded of you each week.
Profile: Design a page that stands out a bit with an attractive background and a picture. Again keep in mind your “personal brand”, your Bio should be similar to your LinkedIn profile.
Build: Search for people with similar interests and/or people you would like to target.
Some good sites to find people to follow:
http://www.twellow.com/
http://www.whoshouldifollow.com/
Google Twitter+career consultants= see what comes up
Tweet: Be a consistent tweeter (at least once a day) and provide good tweet content. Your comments should be relevant to your business; don’t to turn people off by giving sales pitches or tweeting about what you had for lunch.
Promote: Add your Twitter handle to your Email signature, Website, Blog, LinkedIn profile, and Facebook profile.
Understand: Read this very simple guide to getting started with Twitter: http://www.deannazandt.com/2009/02/26/a-non-fanatical-beginners-guide-to-twitter/
Contest: The idea behind a Twitter contest is to create more exposure so the contests are always based around the contestants following the host and re-tweeting about the contest. You can offer almost anything, people love free stuff and they love helping out a friend.
Profile: Create a Profile page specifically for your business keeping it consistent with your Business Brand. Be sure to fill out your profile with as much information as possible; email address, pictures, etc.
Community: Invite all your friends and business contacts, even those that are not yet involved. Facebook allows you to easily import email addresses from Windows Live, Gmail, Yahoo and AOL.
Fan Page: Create a Facebook Fan Page to network with your business contacts and reach your target market: http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php
Ad Space: You can create an Ad on Facebook that allows you to target your specific audience, track your progress, who’s clicking on your ad and choose how you would like to pay for it. It is a highly effective and inexpensive way to reach hundreds of thousands of people. You can also promote your business for free in the Facebook Marketplace.
Blog: Facebook has an application that will automatically import all your blog articles into the “Notes” field on your profile. As you post articles to your blog, your Facebook profile will automatically be updated with an update on your wall.
Events: Promote your meetings, conferences, sales, promotions etc., by creating an event and inviting your network.
Promote: Add your Facebook profile to Twitter, Email signature, Website, Blog, and LinkedIn profile.
Blog
Create: There are many free Blog host sites that offer a vast range of themes to choose from. WorPress and Blogger are industry leaders that offer may plugins to link with Facebook, Twitter, etc. The theme you choose should be conducive to the type of content you need to manage. Example: if you own a travel business Blogabond offers map integration.
Talk: Once your blog is “live” start talking; create a more personal relationship with your customers by sharing your personal insight, thoughts and ideas. Talk about the issues surrounding your business, your town, products, services, etc. Sharing the “you” side of you will build trust with your readers and keep them coming back for more.
Keywords: Use descriptive keywords throughout your post to increase traffic. The more text you have describing your content the better the chance your readers will have
RSS: Give your visitors the option to subscribe to your blog via RSS feeds. If they subscribe they won’t forget to come back and read your recent posts.
Read: Seth Godin’s article “How to get traffic for your blog” http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2006/06/how_to_get_traf.html
Promote: Add your Blog link to Twitter, Email signature, Website, and LinkedIn profile.
Marketing Collateral
Promote: Let your audience know where to find you. Add all your Social Network profile links to your email signature, business cards, flyers, etc.
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