LinkedIn: Why you should only include your name in the name field

There has been a recent discussion on one of my LinkedIn groups about whether to include a job title in the name field on LinkedIn. You probably know some people who do this. When you see their updates they will appear as ‘Kirsten Hodgson – professional services marketer’ (or something along those lines) rather than just their name. For all of you thinking it’s a good idea or who do this: PLEASE DON’T.

In addition to the fact that LinkedIn doesn’t allow it (and some people have allegedly had their accounts suspended as a result of doing this) it’s also a bit like walking up to someone in a pub and overwhelming them with information about yourself right upfront. LinkedIn is an online network so it’s wise to treat it as you would a face-to-face networking opportunity. There are plenty of other places within your profile  to include information about who you can help and what you can help them with.

I asked LinkedIn what its position is on this and one of the customer service team replied with the following:

“The LinkedIn User Agreement requires use of true names rather than pseudonyms, business names, associations, groups, email addresses, or other characters when registering on our site. We believe that any information other than first and last names in the name fields undermines the professional nature of our site and services.
User Agreement:
http://www.linkedin.com/static?key=user_agreement

Therefore, we do not allow any additional information (other than certifications) to be added to the name fields.”

If you want to highlight who you can help and what you can help them with, then use the professional headline space to do so. If you want to edit it then select:

• Profile
• Edit Profile
• And click on the Edit button that appears next to your name

This will take you to a form. Half way down you will see the Professional Headline section. Use this to convey your key points.

If you haven’t done so already, you may also want to ensure that your LinkedIn profile is compelling and 100% complete. This will ensure that you position yourself in the best possible light to people who do view your profile or who you are recommended to. Try using BOLD or italics for added emphasis.

What’s your view? 

Has your LinkedIn account ever been suspended for something you inadvertently did? We’d love to hear from you so that we can compile a list to ensure others don’t make the same mistake. 

How can social media help you get qualified prospects into your sales pipeline?

The great thing about social media is that you can determine how much, when and where you contribute to it. But if you want to get qualified prospects into your sales pipeline (which a number of those working in professional services say they do) you will need to regularly engage with your target audience and build credibility and trust.

There are so many examples out there of people who post sales pitches to group discussions – often multiple times – and never actually seek to engage with others outside of that. I think they’ve missed a fundamental point: social media is about dialogue and engagement NOT selling per se.

Having said that, LinkedIn is a powerful tool professionals can use to identify and pre-qualify prospects and start a dialogue with them.

Just how can you use LinkedIn to qualify prospects and get them into your sales pipeline?

1. Use your status updates to post your key prospecting questions – for example, a real estate agent may say ‘thinking of selling your home in the Central Auckland area or know someone who is?’ and then link the person to some useful information on this.

The typical scenario is that you click the link, read an interesting piece and then see an offer (often via a pop-up screen) which offers you a free report if you subscribe to the person’s blog or newsletter. Do people really subscribe? Yes, if they see the free report as valuable and if they like what the other person is saying.

2. Start or contribute to group discussions – again ask questions or contribute to discussions on topics you wish to discuss. Position yourself in your area(s) of expertise and then follow up with a free guide or a webinar to draw people in. You can offer these within relevant LinkedIn and Facebook groups and via your updates and tweets. As a rule of thumb, share others’ information and help others 9/10 times before promoting yourself.

3. Another good way to identify prospects is to set up searches on keywords/phrases in Signal (a LinkedIn product that basically allows you to filter and search across the stream) and on Twitter. You can then respond to people with questions in your area(s) of expertise or who are looking for help.

What other ways have you used social media to help you get qualified prospects into your sales pipeline? 

Is your social media marketing hiding in plain sight?

There are a number of people and companies that I know are active on social media but you’d never guess from looking at their other online and offline materials. This is what I call ‘hiding in plain sight’ and it’s a missed opportunity.

If you are clear about how social media can help you achieve your business and marketing goals and are using it purposefully, then it’s important that other participants you’re interested in engaging with, know you too are active. Sure, there’s a school of thought that says provide good content and people will come but that takes time – and there’s heaps of good content out there that doesn’t appear to get high volumes of traffic.

So, what can you do in the meantime? 

Point people to your social media activity: 

1. Include links on your website to your social media profiles and blog (and vice versa)

2. Include your social media URLs/handles on your marketing collateral such as:

• business cards
• letterhead
• comps slips (if you have them)
• email sign-off
• invoices
• tenders and proposals (where appropriate)
• brochures and credential statements

3. Include your URL in adverts. I’ve seen so many adverts that say ‘Join/Like us on Facebook’ but that don’t include the URL and it’s sometimes not that obvious. I’ve had trouble finding the official Facebook pages for a few big organisations because they weren’t what I intuitively thought they would be. Not including this information means you’re putting up an additional barrier to those who might be interested in connecting with you.

Engage with your target audience(s) in those places in which they’re active:

Find out where they hang out (by looking at their profile and activity information) and:

1. Go to them rather than expecting them to come to you. Engage them in discussions, share good content they’ve generated or ask them a question.

2. Engage one-on-one with key people in your industry. Look for opportunities to promote them by sharing their content or interview them for your blog so that they promote it to their networks.

3. Comment on other people’s blogs, and where appropriate include a link to your content. Only include a link to your content when you can add something extra to their post and/or the discussion.

Social media isn’t a silver bullet. It does take commitment, time, effort and focus to pay off…but if you are clear about why you are using social media and what you want to achieve, then there’s no reason at all why you should hide in plain sight.

What other ways have you used to engage others? 

Are you seeing returns from your social media engagement? 

When connecting with people you don’t know on LinkedIn – use your common sense

I have no problem with people I don’t know connecting with me on LinkedIn provided they are clear about why they want to do so.

What I absolutely don’t understand is why someone would send the standard LinkedIn message and expect a stranger to accept their invite. It’s actually quite a risky thing to do given that if five users state that they don’t know a person, the person’s account gets suspended. And while I don’t advocate doing that there are people out there advising their networks to do so.

So, what should you do if you want to connect to people you don’t know? 

• Do your research. Take a look at their profile and think about why you want to connect with the person. And, more importantly, let them know why they should connect with you.
• Send a personalised invitation to connect letting the person know how you came across them (in a group, in a search, through a contact etc) and why you would like to connect. It may be they share great content and you’d like to learn from them or you want to share ideas. Let the other person know what’s in it for them.
• If the person you want to connect with is not in one of your groups, it can be tempting to say they are a friend rather than selecting ‘Other’. My advice is don’t! It’s really annoying getting invites from people who say they are your friend when you have never come across them. When you select ‘other’ you will need to input the person’s email address but if it’s someone you really want to connect with, I’d advise taking the time to do a google search to find out their email address – you can probably find a link to their website from their LinkedIn homepage. It shows you are honest and that you’re not just trying to randomly grow your number of connections.

A friend of mine, Natalie Sisson, also blogged on social media mistakes people make last week. This was one of the things on her list – I recommend you read her full list. 

What other advice would you give to people wanting to connect with those they don’t know on LinkedIn? 

What is the best time of day to post content or questions on LinkedIn?

I’ve seen lots of information about the fact that most people access LinkedIn during working hours, while the majority access Facebook during the evenings and weekends. However, I wanted to test this.

About six weeks ago I posted an offer of a ‘free guide to getting the right client feedback in your firm’ on three LinkedIn groups. Over 200 people have requested a copy to-date so I’ve had a look at when their requests came in to see what (if any) patterns emerge.

The vast majority of people (72%) asked for a copy of our guide before 2pm weekdays, and 58% before midday (in their local timezone).

Most people responded on either a Monday or a Thursday (20.7% and 23.2% respectively), followed by a Wednesday (17.2%), a Friday (15.3%) and a Tuesday (12.3%).

While I did receive requests at the weekends: 6.4% on Saturday and 4.9% on Sunday, these were overwhelmingly from those who are self-employed. While it’s rough logic, this seems to suggest that self-employed people use the weekends to catch up on what’s been happening in the groups they belong to.

What does this mean? 

Not a lot in itself. But it does start to give a feel for when the best times to post content are. If you want to increase your chances of your content being found, and people engaging with you, I recommend posting content on a Monday or Thursday before 8.30am. Unless of course, you are targeting self-employed people when you may want to wait until Friday night/Saturday morning to post.

If you’re targeting those in the same timezone then it’s easy. But if you want to engage with those in other countries you will need to think about when they will be online (for example, if you’re in New Zealand and want to engage with those in the USA there is little point posting content or questions on a Monday as they will not have begun their week). Luckily you can use tools, such as Hootsuite, to pre-schedule your posts.

The other thing to remember is that the majority of LinkedIn users don’t access their accounts every day. Questions you ask, comments you post and content you share will only be found by a large number of people if others respond. If a discussion stays towards the top of a group for an extended period of time, more people will join in. There is no silver bullet but you can listen to your target audience and engage with them on topics that matter to them.

What times of the day/week have you found work best to post content? Does this differ geographically? 

What other tips would you give to professionals to maximise their chances of engaging with their target audience(s)? 

4 ways to use LinkedIn you may not know about

LinkedIn has some great functionality but some of the things you can do aren’t that obvious. We’ve summarised four things, that you may not know about, that we think will really help professionals and their firms to extract greater value from LinkedIn.

1. Advanced search function – the advanced search screen enables you to search for people via a range of criteria including:

• Keywords
• First name
• Surname
• Location
• Country
• Postcode – there is then the option to specify the distance from the postcode you would like to search. The ability to search by postcode only works in some countries (although sadly not in New Zealand).
• Title
• Company
• School (read Uni)
• Industry
• Groups you belong to
• Relationship to you – i.e. all LinkedIn users or 1st and 2nd connections
• Language

There are further search options for those who have a paid LinkedIn account. To access the Advanced Search screen, you need to ensure the search box is set to ‘People’ (alternatively, if you’re looking for work, you can access an advanced search screen for that purpose ifyou select ‘Jobs’ in the search box). Then click on the word ‘Advanced’.

2. Saving searches – it’s possible to save up to 3 advanced searches. You can then select whether (and, if so, how often) to receive email updates. To do so, run the search and then click ‘save’ (in the grey tool bar next to the number of results your search has returned).

3. LinkedIn Today – it’s hard to miss the LinkedIn Today headlines that now appear on your homepage. If you’re like me, the interesting ones always seem to appear when you have no time to read them. The good thing is you can save those that interest you to read later. To do so, you need to click ‘See more headlines’. This will take you to the LinkedIn Today page, where you can select the save button next to an article. When you’re ready to read it click on the ‘saved’ button on the right hand side of the black toolbar on the LinkedIn Today homepage.

4. Signal, or search updates, has been around for a while now. It’s a great way to follow what’s been shared/said on LinkedIn on topics of interest to you. Again, you have the ability to save searches so that you don’t need to repeat them going forwards. To access Signal, either click the ‘search updates’ button (located just below the LinkedIn Today section on your homepage) or select it in the News option on your toolbar. Once you’ve run your search select ‘save this search’ (located at the top of the results).

What other LinkedIn functionality have you discovered that professionals may not be aware of? 

Three common social media mistakes professionals and their firms make

How you use social media is very much a personal decision. So long as you have a plan and are clear about what you’re doing and why, then you shouldn’t go too far wrong.

However, three of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen professionals and their firms make are to do with inactivity.

1. Incomplete personal profiles: If you are on LinkedIn or Twitter for business purposes make sure you have a complete profile. Professionals need to be mindful of the fact that social media profiles rank highly in search engine results. If a potential client types in their name and the person is on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook, or has a blog, these will usually appear towards the top of the search results. This means prospective clients or referrers may click on one of your social media profiles rather than your website. If they do, what will they find? An incomplete profile looks bad and you’ve missed the opportunity to impress them.

2. Inactive or infrequently maintained Twitter account: A number of professionals and firms have set up Twitter accounts but have either never tweated or tweat very infrequently, and then simply to broadcast a new blog post or firm development. While I am a Twitter novice I’ve definitely noticed that I’m getting more traction on Twitter now I have direct conversations with others and thank them for valuable content they share. If you follow the right people, Twitter can be a really useful source of great information that you can pass on to your own followers – by ‘retweeting’ useful information produced by others you generate goodwill and your followers benefit. When I see accounts that appear ‘abandoned’ after three or four months worth of tweets I wonder why – and I have to ask the question: is that the person or firm’s attitude towards their clients? Will they start off with gusto only to let things fall by the wayside down the track? While that might be unfair, first impressions count so, if you’re on Twitter, what sort of impression are you making? If you no longer wish to use it, close your account.

3. Blogging but not inviting a response: There are a number of great legal and accounting blogs out there. However, I do think some of the authors of these are missing the opportunity to engage with their audience because they don’t invite a response at the end of their posts. I would recommend anyone with a blog to ask a question at the end to try and initiate discussion – it could simply be – What’s your view? or What other things do you think are important? While you may not get responses on every post, when you do you have a great opportunity to engage with these people and build your professional network.

What other mistakes or missed opportunities have you noticed professionals and their firms making? 

What other tips would you share? 

Two cool ways for professionals to use LinkedIn

LinkedIn can be an incredibly powerful marketing and business development tool and there are some fantastic examples of professionals using it really well to engage with their target audiences.

I thought it would be good to share some great things others are doing every now and again. Here are two that I particularly like:

The first example is from Toby Marshall who runs the GBO (Get Booked Out) Group on LinkedIn. He and his team regularly initiate great discussions but the brilliant thing they do is summarize discussion threads in a blog, pulling out the salient points and attributing them to group members. Toby then:

• posts this for members of the group to share with their networks
• tweets the link to the blog

This provides a really good record of the discussion in an easily digestible form enabling people to see all perspectives. It also gives those members who have commented additional exposure.

The second example I like (and that I recently did myself) is producing a free guide, or a summary of some market research that your target audience will value and offering this to people via relevant LinkedIn groups. This is not only a great way of positioning yourself but is also a great way to try to help people. As a result of offering a free guide to getting valuable client feedback, I have had some interesting discussions with several people and have sent well over 100 people a copy over the past month.

I’ve also taken others up on their offers of sharing free information and have always been able to take away at least one or two things I can implement in my own business – to me that’s really valuable. For example, late last year I requested Adam Gordon’s free LinkedIn opportunities guide, which I thought was well written and provided some good ideas about how to start leveraging LinkedIn. It inspired me to further research some LinkedIn functionality I wasn’t previously aware of. Since then I’ve had a couple of discussions with Adam and would definitely recommend him to friends and ex-colleagues in the UK looking to leverage LinkedIn.

The great thing about offering a free guide is that you tend to stay top of the discussion forum for a while. This is important because people often don’t check LinkedIn every day. Having your discussion show up near the top of the page for a prolonged period maximises your exposure to others and increases uptake.

What other examples of professionals using LinkedIn well from a business development and marketing perspective have you seen? 

What would your top tip for engaging with groups be? 

LinkedIn plans in action

Thanks to Robert Algeri and Promod Sharma for inspiring this post. I recently put together a blog about common things successful LinkedIn users do. Robert and Promod said they’d be interested to find out more about other people’s LinkedIn plans and how they put them into action…so here is what I’ve discovered.

What do I mean when I say that successful LinkedIn users have clear plans?

1. They have explicitly stated objectives

2. They have identified clear actions in order to achieve their objectives

3. Their social media efforts are MUST do’s – rather than nice to do’s

4. They measure their results and tweak things accordingly

What objectives do those in the professional services space have (other than recruitment)? 

These vary from person to person but some examples successful LinkedIn users have shared with me include:

“To engage with a defined target segment and to lead a discussion on things I want to talk about. The added advantage of this is that any inbound enquiries are based on these value-added topics” (i.e. the person gets pre-qualified prospects into his sales funnel).

“I use social media to polarize people. I want them to be drawn towards me or repelled. This helps create my niche. The deeper purpose is to build trust. The elements are expertise and intent. We have competitors who our prospects see as reasonable substitutes for us. The real differentiator is intent, which must be proven continually. Social media is the ideal tool. You can’t fake intent for long. Most competitors quit.”

“To position myself as a specialist in my field amongst my target audience and to, ultimately, build new relationships with key influencers and prospects so that, should a project arise in my area, they consider me”.

Other objectives people have shared include:

• growing their brand awareness
• growing their marketing reach
• positioning themselves for a specific opportunity
• growing their number of leads
• promoting an event
• keeping up-to-date with their industry/competitors/clients
• getting new work.

What sorts of clear actions have people identified to ensure they achieve their objectives? 

Typically those I spoke to consider:

• how to use status updates – both in terms of content and frequency. For example, I typically use this to share relevant content that both I, and others, have created. Other people pose sales questions, or talk about what they’re working on. The similarities I’ve noticed in status updates that capture my attention is that they are all designed to make people think.
• how to engage with others via LinkedIn groups – this includes selecting the right groups and being clear about which topics you wish to engage on (it’s very easy to get carried away and waste a lot of time without clear parameters). The best posts I’ve seen are those that share valuable content, pose interesting questions or provide an interesting perspective on an issue. Successful LinkedIn users tend to keep involved in the discussion thread as it grows.
• LinkedIn questions and answers – again, it comes down to being clear about which questions you want to pose or answer. I do notice that some people seem to answer a LOT of these questions and I marvel at the time they have to invest in LinkedIn!
• direct messages – this is something a number of people do really well. Once they’ve been involved in a group discussion for example, they may direct message someone else who was involved and ask for more information, or seek a meeting. If done well, this can be really powerful.
• identifying and connecting with prospects – this may be through a combination of the above as well as by using the Advanced Search function within LinkedIn.
• other LinkedIn functions some people use effectively to help them achieve their objectives are Signal (Search Updates), Polls, and creating an Event.

Social media as a MUST do rather than a nice to do

This really comes back to making LinkedIn an integral part of your day. It means that blog posts don’t fall by the wayside when you get busy and that you continue to be visible and engage in group discussions. Of course, we all go through phases of lesser activity but for a lot of the people I’ve spoken to, it’s about making time each day to spend on LinkedIn – generally between 15-30 minutes. Greg de Simone, for example, spends 10 minutes reading others content, 10 minutes engaging in group discussions and 10 minutes posting his own content. It’s about recognising that you need to have a consistent presence in order to build credibility and trust. This also demonstrates a person’s commitment and follow through.

Measuring results

Again, how people measure their results really comes down to their objectives and the strategies they adopt. Measures can be anything from number of views of your profile from your target audience, through to number of clicks on links you’ve shared, to web traffic, to direct enquiries or engagement, through to number of prospects who enter your sales funnel. The list is endless.

I strongly believe that, in order to avoid LinkedIn being a major time waster, you need to have clear objectives, a plan to achieve them, the necessary commitment to leveraging LinkedIn and be clear about how you will measure your efforts.

What other things would you include in a LinkedIn plan?

What else do you think helps people in the professional services space to effectively leverage LinkedIn? 

5 pillars of LinkedIn success

Have you ever noticed that there are some people who just seem to use LinkedIn really well? They’re the people you follow even though you’ve never met them, whose content you open because you know they provide good quality information, and who you suspect are getting good returns on their investment/engagement.

But, what is it that makes them so successful?

A number of these people were kind enough to agree to be case studies for some seminars I ran on social media for professional services firms. I noticed they, and others who I follow, are doing some similar things:

1. They have a clear plan – they know who their target audience is, what their goals are, and how they will measure the return on their investment/engagement. They are putting their plan into practice every day.
2. Their profiles are complete and compelling.
3. They regularly share good content, that’s of interest to their target audience. This includes both content they’ve generated as well as information others have produced. They usually have a blog as the repository for their content.
4. They regularly contribute to relevant group discussions and give away tips and good ideas for free. They ask questions and really engage with others. They make their target audience think. Often they ask questions designed to generate inbound leads in the areas in which they want those leads – thus pre-qualifying prospects.
5. They seek to move the relationships beyond LinkedIn – for example, by following up a discussion via LinkedIn email, sending something related to the topic you’ve been discussing, or setting up a time to talk. Their approach is intelligent and polite.

If you want to leverage LinkedIn successfully, I strongly believe that following these five pillars will take you a long way. And if you want to learn from some masters in the professional services space, I recommend you follow (or at least take a look at):

Adam Gordon

Robert Algeri

Kate Billing

Promod Sharma

Cordell Parvin

Nancy Myrland

What are the other secrets of successful LinkedIn users in the professional services space? 

Who else would you recommend following in this area?