Archive for the ‘Online Branding’ Category:
10 LinkedIn tips for recruiters based on common mistakes recruiters make.
- Don’t make your profile private. How will clients and candidates connect with you otherwise.
- Add your picture and complete your profile. This gives assurance that you are not a group of consultants maintaining a LinkedIn profile.
- Be available to network with both candidates and Clients. This is the reason most people join LinkedIn is to network.
- Seek recommendations from both clients and candidates. This gives your network the assurance that you are good at your job and offers an independent view of you and your organisation.
- Don’t require a user know your email address to join your network. How else will people be able to network with you and contract your services as a consultant and recruiter?
- Use the status box for general job openings. Not specific individual jobs. Maximise the limited characters and advertise all of your jobs.
- Keep your status updates current or clear it when jobs are not available. A status with a job opportunity that is weeks old or even months old can give the impression that you can not fulfil roles.
- Join Industry groups within your country and participate in the conversations so people know you. How else can you keep informed of trends with your stakeholders ?. This also gives you and potential clients more opportunity to network with you.
- Don’t ask for someone’s CV that has just joined your Network. This is what LinkedIn is if used correctly “A living and up to date CV”.
- Be responsive to all requests and messages. Clients may become candidates and candidates may become clients.
During the Christmas break we launched our FaceBook Fan Page at http://www.FaceBook.com/NetMania. We have also included the FanPage badge to the left of our web site http://www.NetMania.co.nz to make it easier for both our clients and followers to join us and take advantage of FanPage only specials.
Since we launched our FanPage we have made some customisations based on your emails to us. Thank you to everyone who shared their thoughts.
We hope to have more interaction with you in our FanPage so feel free to visit and join us.
Recently the media highlighted the need for small businesses to monitor their online presence. It reported that a competitor altered their competitions Google Local Business Maps details and that it took sometime for her to get caught.
Too often small businesses in New Zealand believe that they are immune to being hacked and that nobody would defame them or their business online. This results in the common thought that they should not bother to invest in online technologies to monitor their online presence.
An even more common issue for New Zealand Businesses is that they do not have any consideration for for Search Engine Optimisation or online marketing. Thus, they do not list themselves in online directories, instead waiting for an automatic listing to occur.
The media report states that a Hamilton Florist manipulated her competitors Google Map listings resulting in her competitors loosing an alleged substantial amount of business.
Google Local Business Maps is an effective and reliable free option to be ranked high in search engines and is an easy way to find local businesses in your area. You log in and add a number of details about your business such as location info, contact information, services, hours of operation and business website link.
To register your organisation in Google Lcoal Maps you need to have a free Google account.
FaceBook recently added a new shortened URL “fb.me” to make it simpler to access pages, profiles and groups.
Initially it may appear that there is no need for such an URL shortener as most people have heard of FaceBook and know the FaceBook Url www.faceBook.com .
But there are 3 main advantages:
- The increasingly popular Twitter service with its 140 character limit can show readers that it is a facebook link and promote your brand at the same time.
- The popular mobile market that access the web via their smart phones and other mobile devices.
- It is much easier to give people a short URL to your pictures on your profile.
There are 2 main disadvantage at the moment.
- There is no way to track how many clicks your links are getting which will make online marketing with the fb.me URL difficult to analyse its success.
- If your Fan Page does not meet the minimum criteria of 25 Fans then you do not have a vanity url and therefore your Fan Page will not have a memorable fb.me URL.
The benefits of having statistics and other analytical tools associated with a URL shortener are so emence that we would expect that FaceBook will roll out the new features in the near future.
Adding a profile picture to WordPress comments is an easy process that will give your comments and posts more authority and credentials. The image or avatar is officially referred to as a Gravatar.
If you have a Wordpress Website
If you have a WordPress website, you probably already have an online profile but haven’t uploaded an image and email address to be associated with it.
Hosted Wordpress websites need an API key to run the spam filter. When you obtain an API key from WordPress, you also get an online profile complete with Gravatar.
1. Go to www.wordpress.com.
2. Login using your Wordpress.com username and password or click on the Signup button and get a username only account.
3. Hold your mouse over the My Account link at the top right of the screen.
4. Select Edit Profile from the drop-down list.
5. Click on the Change Your Gravatar link under the grey face and upload your image.
6. Make sure the email address is correct (if you change it you will need to confirm by email).
7. Add your website address.
8. Click Update Profile button at the bottom.
9. Logout of Wordpress.com (top right).
If you don’t have a Wordpress Website
1. Go to http://en.gravatar.com/
2. Setup a free account
3. Enter your email address and upload a photo or image.
This is ideal if you are a regular commenter on other peoples blogs or perhaps a regular commenter on a variety of blogs.
Google recently released a new feature to their Web arsenal to assist businesses become more competitive and their customer service more transparent – Google SideWiki.
Google SideWiki http://www.google.com/sidewikiallows users to sign into their Google account and leave unmoderated comments and various other information about your company and staff. In turn your Google search rankings will be affected by the quality of comments.
The negative side to Side Wiki at the moment is the lack of ability to moderate spam and malicious comments in a timely fashion. Users also have the ability to send thier comments via Twitter, FaceBook and email.
Whilst there is a Google Terms and Conditions to make comments, there is no automated manner to see comments in real time. Organisations should check for new comments at least once a day. If your site has heavy traffic then you should adjust the amount of times per day accordingly.
Within days of Side Wiki being released users are making malicious and rude comments on some of the larger more well known brands such as Microsoft, Apple and WalMart.
Our advise is to sign up to the Google Webmaster Tools and make an introduction comment on your SideWiki thus allowing your comment to always be at the top of all the other comments. You should also update your Google Profile and add as many details as possible.
Digital Engagement – Internet Marketing that Captures Customers and Builds Brand Loyalty. Authored by Leland Harden and Bob Heyman. Published 2009.
This is an easy to read book of about 230 pages of text that is well spaced out over 11 chapters. The language is almost conversational and is accompanied by plenty of illustrations to some of the more detailed dialogue the authors create.
It is not a book I would recommend to any competent Internet consultant nor is it a book that will make you a competent Internet consultant. But I do strongly recommend this book for any small business owner that is thinking of creating an online presence or who already has an online presence.
Too often consultants mislead their clients as to what is required or omit to tell their clients of available services as the consultant does not have the necessary skill set to deliver these to you the client. This book gives a brief overview of what you should expect and the available services to market your online presence.
Digital Engagement is a little USA centric at times. But overall the advise is relevant for the New Zealand market but just with different resources, links and organisations.
Chapters cover an array of online marketing topics including; Search Engine Optimisation, Viral marketing, Video, Affiliate marketing, paid advertising and social media.
In summary this is a great book for any small business but you should still carefully choose a Internet consultant.
The book can be purchased from the usual online book stores and is available at the local library.
Today FaceBook announced the ability to tag friends, Fan Pages and groups in your status updates by using the @ then your friends etc name. FaceBook call this new feature status tagging.
Simply type your message and then add the @ symbol. This will put a link to your friend/Fan Page or Groups. At the bottom of your status box will appear a list of your friends, fan pages and groups in a manner similar to the search options in FaceBook.
Apart from the large social benefits, there is an increased opportunity for businesses and brands to be status tagged with both positive and negative comments from happy or unhappy customers. Considering the fast spread of news amongst friends businesses and brand owners will need to keep a watchful eye this new service.
There are several ways you can follow us online to ensure you have the most up to date social and web media news, alerts and tips.
Your own web address/domain name makes it easy for your friends and family to access your FaceBook, Twitter etc. If you are a job seeker then it is equally easy for your potential employer to remember you and to seek out your professional profile.
The default addresses that FaceBook once offered were hard to remember and not intended for human reading. You should at least try to register your own FaceBook name. But for many this is not a reality. Likewise sites such as LinkedIn offer personalised addresses but if you have a common name or are not the first person to register your name then you will be left with a decision to keep the default address or be creative with the default address by using first initial,last name or lastname,firstname etc. The later suggestions are not very effective at all.
Registering your own domain name is cheap and an effective method for people to remember your address and can be used to access all of your online pages. There are many options for personal domains names such as .me , .pro, .com . Choosing the right memorable domain name is important.
Those that do have their own domain often use it ineffectively by:
(a) Use it to go to one of their sites as opposed to all of their sites.
(b) The domain name goes to a social media site but the address shows the social media address and not the domain name.
Effectively use your own domain name.
Firstly ensure that your domain name provider offers redirection and sub domain services freely of charge. If they do not, change your provider.
Single site
If you have one site say at My Sapce then point your domain name to that site and remember to make sure that only your domain name appears in the browser window and not the other complicated address.
Multiple sites
You should use sub domains. A sub domain is any relevant word you think of that is added before the main part of your domain name. Net Mania sub domain for its FaceBook Fan Page is http://FaceBook.NetMania.co.nz. Thus making it relevant by using the word FaceBook and easy to remember. DO this for all of your social networking pages.
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