Splash, Then Ripples

I’m at the first ever Social Media Weekend 2011 at the Columbia University School of Journalism until tomorrow. It’s the perfect time to blast this info about LinkedIn out again since I just sat through a 90-minute session on job hunting and career management.

The information below was distributed to attendees of an event I organized for the Columbia Business School Club of New York this past winter. It includes links to videos, blogs, and posts about maximizing your LinkedIn profile for your professional development for job search and even lead generation.

Hello and thank you for your interest in the Columbia Business School Alumni Club of New York’s Your LinkedIn Profile: To make it to the top, make it POP Social Media Event held at the Samsung Experience on December 6, 2010.

Below are links to the video of the presentation as well as links to more info on maximizing the effectiveness of your LinkedIn profile and network from the advisor and other sources.

Whether you attended or not, if you watch the video, we would like to receive your feedback, so please fill out a 5-minute 7-question survey help us plan for new and even better social media related events.

Here is the link to the survey:  http://svy.mk/cbs120610

We trust and hope that you will fill it out. Please take a moment to fill it out. If you provide your contact information, we will select one survey respondent who will receive a personalized one-time evaluation, including providing suggestions, of their LinkedIn profile. However, we do not require personalized info to submit survey responses. You may enter a pseudonym, if you don’t want us to know who said what.

Here is the contact info for the presenter & advisors for the event:

Contact Information for the Presenter &the HANDS-ON SOCIAL MEDIA ADVISORY COUNCIL

Presenter: Ruben Quinones, Director of New Media, Path Interactive

rquinones@pathinteractive.com 646-881-4594

HANDS-ON SOCIAL MEDIA ADVISORY COUNCIL

Ben Bloom, Digital Strategist, Wunderman

benjaminbloom@gmail.com 646-942-8438   

Cecilia Pineda Feret, Digital Marketing Strategist, CBS MBA

LinkedIn Event Organizer

ceciliaferet@yahoo.com 917 202 8895

Brad Jobling, Social Media Manager, Columbia University Department of Surgery, CBS MBA

isbjobling95@gsb.columbia.edu.    201-723-8605.

Mo Krochmal, Journalist, Educator and Social Median

Mo.krochmal@gmail.com 917.514.0197

Catherine Ventura, Social Media Content Strategist, Venn Diagram

917-292-0519

Amy Vernon, Director of Viral Marketing Strategies, BlueGlass Interactive Inc.

avernon@blueglass.com

Christine B. Whittemore, Chief Simplifier, Simple Marketing Now, CBS MBA

CBWhittemore@SimpleMarketingNow.com 973-283-2424

ONCE AGAIN, THANK YOU TO:

SAMSUNG & MARY REILLY & MARCIA ROBBINS, Members of the Columbia Business School Club of New York

LINKS on LINKEDIN

Christine B. Whittemore,

Making Your LinkedIn Profile Pop: CBSAC/NY Social Media Event

Summary of the event

http://www.simplemarketingblog.com/2010/12/making-your-linkedin-profile-pop.html

and

http://www.simplemarketingblog.com/2010/11/linkedin-content-marketing-podcast.html

With Find and Convert’s Bernie Borges

Her 3-part LinkedIn series:

• http://www.simplemarketingblog.com/2010/07/talkfloor-social-media-marketing-series.html
• http://www.simplemarketingblog.com/2010/09/linkedin-advanced-on-talkfloor-social.html
• http://www.simplemarketingblog.com/2010/11/linkedin-business-successes-on.html

Amy Vernon

The Evolution of Business Social Networks: Beyond LinkedIn

December 16th, 2010 by Amy Vernon (See 6 more posts by Amy)

http://www.blueglass.com/blog/the-evolution-of-business-social-networks-beyond-linkedin/

Mo Krochmal

Leveraging LinkedIn

http://krochmal.tumblr.com/post/1717392292/leveraging-linkedin

Catherine Ventura,

Why LinkedIn Should Be Your First Social Stop

British Airways Blog Business Connect

http://businessconnect.ba.com/2010/12/20/news/face-to-face-blog/why-linkedin-should-be-your-first-social-stop/

Videos of Your LinkedIn Profile: To make it to the top, make it POP Presentation and Q & A

Presenter, Ruben Quinones

1)      http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/11295657

Courtesy of Mo Krochmal. Thank you, Mo!

Presentation was streamed live and archived by Mo Krochmal using Ustream.TV and his MacBook Pro.

2)      http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13443194/123_0508.MOV

Presentation was recorded by Sanford Dickert using his Flip Video Camera.

Courtesy of Sanford Dickert. Thank you, Sanford!

Additional links to more info on using LinkedIn

Selected Posts from Mashable on LinkedIn and Online Networking

• 5 Ways Small Businesses Can Leverage LinkedIn’s New Features
• HOW TO: Reignite Your Business Network Online
• 5 Tips for Using LinkedIn to Find Star Employees
• 8 Tips for Managing a LinkedIn Group
• 5 Ways to Avoid Sabotaging Your Personal Brand Online
• 13 Essential Tips for Landing a Job on LinkedIn

Blogs with More Info on LinkedIn

1. LinkedIntelligence
2. Business + Technology
3. I’m on LinkedIn — Now What???
4. Integrated Alliances
5. LinkedIn Blog
6. LinkedIn for Dummies How-Tos
7. LinkedWorking
8. Mr. LinkedIn
9. Rock The World with LinkedIn
10. Social Media Is My Middle Name
11. The Executive’s Guide to LinkedIn
12. The LinkedIn Personal Trainer
13. The Networking Coach
14. The Virtual Handshake
15. WindMill Networking

HAVE ANY OTHER HELPFUL LINKS? POST THEM HERE AND I’LL ADD THEM IN THE UPDATES. Thanks!

I just read an article in AdAge written by Freddie Laker, Director of Digital Strategy at Sapient. He describes a situation that taunts the most impulsive among us. Those who cannot bear to let an uninformed writer and simply wrong piece of information float around out there in the nethersphere of cyberspace need to: STOP. REFLECT. PONDER.

As Freddie, (I can call you Freddie, can’t I? We’re both in this together here.) points out, sometimes drawing attention to a naysayer plays right into their original intention: drawing even more attention to their comments. His conclusion, in this case, ignore the tweet where a clueless reporter unaware of the role Sapient has played in the development of interactive marketing calls them “complete clowns.”

I can’t think of, immediately anyway, an industry where this kind of situation arises more frequently than in hospitality.

You sleep, you know how a hotel should be run. You eat, so you have every right to dictate how a restaurant should be run, how a dish should be cooked, served. Most people agree on that premise, or else we wouldn’t be witnesses to the success that is and has been Zagat‘s and CitySearch and Yelp.

That said, yes, as a guest you have a right to your opinion and are free to post it wherever you can find nowadays, whether it’s Yelp or an up-and-coming I need to add to the list, BooRah.

The problem develops when someone who is talking out of their hat has a clever or funny or distinctly credible way of phrasing things. Then that business’ reputation is at risk from a negative review that may have gone viral, if only in the sense that it influenced subsequent reviewers pushing them to be undeservedly panned to such a degree.

It’s happened to me, in fact, and I am an owner of a restaurant and a consultant to other ones, so I should know better. Sigh.

So, oh wizened readers and writers of AdAge and of Splash, Then Ripples, when then? When do we step in? What are our options to stem the flood of negative comments to our profiles and reputations when in an industry where people naturally turn to community reviews by their fellow guests?

It’s highly amusing, and also incredibly frustrating, to hear accomplished business professionals claim that they simply DO NOT HAVE TIME for social media. Do they REALLY need it, they ask? They haven’t needed it before!

They are MUCH too busy to devote time to a communications vehicle that is, as far as they are concerned, an unproven method within the business arena, particularly where their industry is concerned . . .whether it is architecture, jewelry making, or even the latest unbeliever, a SOFTWARE COMPANY! I know! Crazy, right? They think, “Ok, if I try this, my sales are supposed to EXPLODE! Or at least that’s what you are telling me, RIGHT???. . .” Ummmm, nooooo . . .

Given the amount of information available on all of these networks, feeders, blog apps, widgets, etc. I think they are just overwhelmed and don’t know where or how to start. Even when they understand the WHY. They are willing to pay a consultant, but there are so many of us out here scrambling to open the eyes of Marketing Managers to entrepreneurs to CIOs to CMOs to CEOs, if given the opportunity.

Sometimes they feel they can try it on their own first and then they fail to make the most effective use of their time, (like the consultant who told me Twitter was useless and overwhelming for her, but had never heard of Tweetdeck . . . insert eyeroll here, hers!!) or they take a chance with someone who claimed to know what to do with Social Media and Networking just because they have been working in marketing for years.

These old media marketers then either denigrate, or otherwise minimize the potential success of an ongoing communications campaign that includes Social Media, or they promise the moon with it. Either way, expectations must be managed realistically, markets must be analyzed as well as the tools to use, and a strategy must be developed.

Then the tactics must be executed to further those objectives. That said many people just jump in and then go from there once they wade around a bit and assess the temperature of the water.

Here’s a quick checklist for businesses to consider:
1. Are their clients human at any level?
2. Are they individual consumers? Or do they only purchase products and services at work?
3. Are their clients online?
4. Do they want their clients to interact?
5. Are they willing to listen and not just post?
6. Are they willing to act as an information resource that covers an industry or even just a niche?
7. Are they willing to wait for results? How long?
8. What results do they expect?
9. Are they going to compare their results to those of others even if they are apples and oranges?
10. Are there specialty networks to address that they may not be aware of?
11. Do they realize that time is money, and if they don’t have money, they need to make the time?
12. And that if they don’t have the time now, do they think they will have MORE time later on when they will have to play catch up once all their competitors have established their brands within social media.

The list is endless . . .what questions would you ask?

This post was inspired by Chris Brogan’s post on the Social Media Life Raft.

I’ll save you the click, HERE’S HIS ORIGINAL POST . . .

Social Media Is Not a Life Raft

January 23, 2009 · 40 comments

US Airways Evacuation. When thinking about what social media is going to do for your business, please be wary of setting it up to be the salvation, the be-all, the life raft. It’s a set of tools, a strategy, and a handful of tactics. It’s not always appropriate. It’s not always the best thing in the world. But it’s not a guaranteed everything.

What we’re doing is changing how some of business communications are being done. And how? We’re looking for ways to rehumanize the web.

Sometimes, that’s not the goal. Sometimes, companies don’t need that service. As social media practitioners, make sure you’re thinking like this all the time. Ask yourself EVERY time whether this is the right fit. Though this isn’t surgery, we need to ask whether every diagnosis ends in an operation. Answer: no.

What’s the checklist for thinking about this? I’ve got my thoughts, but I want to hear yours. How about we think about that some more together? What do you think are the tell-tales for when a company might try social media and when not?

Link Summary

• http://www.chrisbroga...ia-is-not-a-life-raft