Linked In

Like many people I regularly use LinkedIn to connect with work friends and colleagues. Until recently I hadn’t really been aware of what a useful tool it is for lead generation, or to build relationships with potential clients or businesses you would like to form a partnership with.

Here are my top 5 tips for how to connect via LinkedIn:

1: Create a polished personally branded profile. When you first join LinkedIn connect with people you already know and have built up a relationship of trust with.

2: Join LinkedIn groups relevant to areas you want to focus on.

3: Answer questions on groups. Make sure your answer is relevant and correct though. This will make people sit up and take notice of you, especially if it is something you are passionate about. It will also result in more contacts.

4: Share relevant content with groups. Again, as above, make sure anything you post is factually correct and will be of interest to at least some other group members.

5: Create your own LinkedIn group. This is really going for gold and gives you control over it’s content and reach. You can open a group to a small group of people, or if you wish, to a much wider audience.

Although these are useful tips, it does take time and effort to do this effectively, it isn’t a quick win, but the end results can be well worth putting the effort in.

We have seen the (re)launch of Facebook groups, which focus on niche areas, and more recently, the emergence of Path, billed as “the social network for intimate friends” which limits your network to only 50 people. The past year also saw some brands go full throttle on Foursquare’s game-like geo-location platform, attempting to reward mayors and creating custom badges for the network’s power users.

With all this going on it’s amazing that a global survey indicated that only 29 percent of companies even have a social media policy. That’s not as high as I expected and you have to wonder what the remaining 71% are not jumping on the bandwagon.

So what could we see happening in 2011? I’ll take a stab at six trends again. In no particular order:

It’s The Integration Economy, Stupid. From Ford, to Dell, to Starbucks (client), to Jet Blue, and a host of other companies who have pioneered early uses of social media for business, 2011 will be the year these companies take a serious look at integrating social media, not only regionally but globally. Don’t be surprised if the same companies that piloted programs such as Ford’s “Fiesta Movement” and Starbuck’s Foursquare programs also become the first companies to take on the huge challenge of integrating social media into all facets of business from global marketing to crisis management and beyond.

Tablet & Mobile Wars Create Ubiquitous Social Computing. As competition heats up in the form of cheaper, smarter phones and an assortment of tablets that may hit the market (a $35 Tablet in India?), technology consumers will come one step closer to being connected 24/7, and in more powerful ways than previously possible. Social networking will be on the go, out of the house, and out of the office. More competition, variety, power, and affordability in devices will fuel the increase of ubiquitous social computing.

Facebook Interrupts Location-Based Networking. If 2010 belonged to Foursquare and its playful, competitive and sometimes addicting ecosystem of badges, mayorships and specials, it’s likely that Facebook will rain on Foursquare’s parade in 2011. With tons of data and the architecture behind Facebook’s response to Foursquare about to be rolled out globally, Facebook is well positioned to actually make location based services useful to business.

Average Participants Experience Social Media Schizophrenia. While social media schizophrenia (the overload of multiple social profiles) is nothing new to tech mavens, it will become something that more and more “average” users experience as they tweet, Facebook, G-mail, chat, Skype, BBM, SMS, and Tumble their way across the social web. While many mavens have adopted ways to manage and cope, average users may find themselves at the beginning of the curve in need of a 12-step social identity program. This may lead to increased demand from typical participants to have a more integrated and simplified social graph and an opportunity for platforms and companies alike to meet this demand.

Google Doesn’t Beat Them, They Join Them. In 2010, Wired told us that Facebook could beat Google to win the net. But even at the end of 2010 after failed attempts to create their own networks such as Buzz, Google could prove that the best way to beat Facebook, Twitter, and the rest is to do what Google does best: Index them to pieces. Indeed, I’ve already noticed Google’s algorithm has become smarter about Twitter data. I only have to type in a few words to locate old tweets. It’s possible that by sticking to what Google does best, they may be able to take advantage of the social web by indexing any and all social data they can get their hands on. Expect the Googleplex to “strike back” in 2011, and perhaps demonstrate that they may figure out their role and relevancy on the social Web.

Social Functionality Makes Websites Fashionable Again. After several years of being told to “fish where the fish are,” businesses realize that users expect social integration to existing Websites. Sites such as AMEX Open forum serve as a model for how networks such as Twitter can integrate with the Web experience. Websites will increasingly serve as “digital hubs” that integrate social activity from many platforms. For example, Apple’s music social network, named Ping, recently integrated Twitter. While the integration has kinks, it demonstrates that even the most iconic of brands realizes that they do not exist in their own walled garden. They must integrate to be relevant in a socially connected world.

Many companies are popping up, especially in that technical hotspot Manchester in the north west of the UK, but what services do they offer and why are some a con?

I recently came across this service provider offering a Link Building service 250 Directory Submissions, 50 Article Submissions and 50 Social Bookmarks at a £50 per month fee!

I was a little intrigued by the service offering as we offer similar services and charge a much higher fee, initially this was quite worrying as I thought it was likely that we were being undercut massively.

After further investigations I found out that it was a smokescreen and offered no value to the customer whatsoever.

All that was needed to be done by any customer before falling into this trap, was to compare and Apple to an Apple! In doing so the following facts become evident.

Working on a principle of the company spending £10 per hour to complete the work, in reality it will be more than this which will make the time spent even lower, we have the following scenario.

If it costs £10 per hour, then 5 hours work have been paid for. There is a total of 350 submissions (ignoring the copywriting costs), so that gives just over 51 seconds to do a single submission. (300 / 350 * 60).

If they are actually still doing 250 directory submissions, 50 bookmarks and 50 article submissions each, within 4 hours – There has to be some ‘Automated Tool’ doing the submissions. Since it is humanly not possible to do all of the following tasks in a short timescale!

• Open a link from a Directory Database
• Identify the right category for the submission
• Write/(or paste) content into a form and in cases even fill out a registration form.
• Verify a Captcha code (usually present on all forms)
• Check the submission
• Submit the form
• Wait for a Thank you Message
• Verify the Listing on the site
• Then Login the Entry into a data sheet

In reality each submission can take up to 5 minutes to complete, which leads to the conclusion that some automated submissions must be taking place.

We too have tools that could do the submissions, but we strongly recommend NOT to use such tools for the following reasons -

Tools can’t usually get past captcha code which are a standard in reasonably good directories. So if non-captcha directories are being used for submission of the site – consider the Directory to be sub-standard. Imagine submitting to Dmoz with a Tool – Impossible!

Sites usually ‘catch’ tool based submissions (through various techniques such as Honeypot etc.) and disapprove listings, as there are some very strong Anti-spam tools installed on servers nowadays.

Tools usually used may not identify the right category for the submission. This can hence lead to dilution of content relevance and can in-fact be a negative for the overall SEO strategy.

Matt explains there are two groupings of penalties a site can receive in Google.

(1) Manual Penalties, such as reports submitted to Google for things like off topic porn and things like that.

(2) Algorithmic Penalties in form of classifiers for things like content spam, keyword stuffing, cloaking, sneaky Javascript redirects and so on.

On the algorithmic side, when you change your site and remove the spam (i.e. keyword stuff, etc), after Google recrawls and processes your site and pages, normally, you site will bump back up in the search results.

On the manual site, the penalties “time out” and “expire” after a specific amount of time. The length of the penalty is based on how severe the penalty and how badly you are breaking Google’s webmaster guidelines.

Matt finally adds that you can also do a reconsideration request, which would expedite removing a manual penalty. But a reconsideration request will not help you with an algorithmic penalty – you would need to fix your site to fix the issue.