So many people are jumping on bandwagons these days, so many trying to find their next gig, trying to do something to pay the bills. And so the issue comes up that anyone can do anything for anyone if they just know a little more than the next guy. But is that good enough?

I received yet another notice in my inbox from a new social media “expert” that purports to have figured it out. When I looked at the facebook video link, it was of such poor quality that it was sad to watch. He’s sitting on an old couch in a wrinkled shirt with bad audio (making it hard to hear) on a dim webcam so the only feature I can really pick out against the background is rather large ears.

Am I dissing this guy? No; not at all. I am being honest about how he is portraying himself in his quest to “sell” social media training to small business owners. Maybe he will find success; perhaps he will help some people go further than they are going themselves. In the meantime, he doesn’t understand that he comes across as someone who’s not in it for the long haul, someone who will leave the side of his client the moment a job offer comes in.

Contrast that with the quality product a real training company or professional strives to provide and you’ll see a huge difference in the potential return on your investment. Here’s a real life example: Mike and I were recently at HyperThreat Studios to record a CD-quality audio companion to our first book Rock the World with your Online Presence. The picture attached to this post is my partner, Mike O’Neil in front of the microphone.

The point is, when people come across so much poor quality, they stop looking. They miss the real professionals who can help them navigate this new world. There are tons of people who are in the field, where good enough is just good enough, sort of like our friend described above. There are fewer real veterans who will someday (perhaps sooner than later) find themselves being inducted into the Social Media Hall of Fame. Those would be the likes of Guy Kawasaki, Jay Deragon, Chris Brogan, Joel Comm, Dean Holmes, Mike O’Neil, Ron Davies, Lewis Howes, Patrick O’Malley, JD Gershbein, and others.

The above is by no means an exhaustive list. Rather only the first who have come to mind. If you know someone who really knows their stuff, feel free to drop a comment below. We’d love to recognize real experts in the field who maintain a level of quality not because they have to, but because they are just that authentic.

#1 – If you find it annoying to attend a networking event with people that bring their resume with them, consider how it appears when you do this:

On LinkedIn, you send your resume directly to the email address of all of your first level connections, asking them to pass it along if they know someone who is hiring.

First of all, you haven’t even educated the recipient of the career move you want to make or the type of position you are looking for. You can’t expect them to take the time to open the resume document (if they are inclined to open an attachment anyway.

If they do open the attachment, you can’t expect them to know from reading your resume what it is you are looking for. Most are not trained staffing professionals.

The better option is to reach out to people ON LinkedIn, which always includes a link back to your profile. Let them know what you are looking for and ask, if they happen to hear of anyone hiring in that area, if they would keep you in mind to refer.

#2 – If you cannot pay attention to detail; then do not say you do. How annoyed do you get at people who send an open email message to an entire list, all included in the TO field rather than the BCC?

On LinkedIn, when you send a message or communication to more than one person, the box: “Allow recipients to see each other’s names and email addresses” is checked by default. Bad form: this sends the message to everyone’s primary email address in the TO field.

Not being caught in this etiquette trap takes only the effort to uncheck that box.

#3 – Broadcasting your message without considering where you are: if you don’t walk into church or the gym with your resume and business cards in your hand, don’t do it on LinkedIn.

Really, just by participating in the community, answering questions, engaging in group discussions, commenting on people’s status updates, all leave a digital business card that will lead people right back to your profile.

Rather than seem desperate and broadcast your search everywhere you go, practice subtlety and engagement. Just by being there, people will notice you. If you have an attractive and relevant headline, and a strong profile, inquiries will come to you as often as those you send out.

How about you? What are your pet peeves from people who just “don’t get it” on LinkedIn?



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“We estimate there are half a billion professionals in the world. And, we’re at north of 60 million [members] today.” Those are the words of LinkedIn’s CEO Jeff Weiner.  That means growth; that means opportunity; that means the more engaged a current user is now, the more benefit they will see moving into the future as the company continues to expand its reach.

Here’s the original article: http://money.cnn.com/2010/03/24/technology/linkedin_social_networking.fortune which includes a video link about half-way down the page.

Really, what we’ve been talking about all along is being recognized by others. LinkedIn is a place for business professionals to network. It’s not a social network, although there

LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner

are a few social components, like listing interests. But think about what you talk about at work anyway.  I find other music fans and sports car enthusiasts at work. We talk about the charities or professional associations that rock our world while we’re at the office, on a business lunch, etc.

Whether at work or in our personal lives, people want to connect on a human level. I think the brilliance of LinkedIn, is that it’s not just a place to store your resume. Rather, it is a place you can engage with and learn from and about other professionals interested in the same things you are interested in.  It is a place you can find a dozen people to do business with, and then select the best based on a cultural fit. Its a place you can connect with people on a personal level and provide service and support to people who know you will “get them” because you speak the same language outside of work.

So, are you “On” LinkedIn, or do you just have a profile full of facts and data.  If so, dust off that data, add some life, get engaged in the groups, answer a few questions, and breathe some life into the opportunities awaiting you on this growing and powerful platform.  It can change your life. It did mine!

Yesterday, I received yet another bulk email asking me and everyone else to send the person a LinkedIn invitation. Before you make the same mistake, please read my response below:

Dear ****:

You stated in your original email “Please note as i have exceeded my limit so i can send invitation through email, & once you send me invitation i ll be happy to accept”

The fact that you only have 2,624 connections, and that LinkedIn gives you 3,000 initial invitations leads me to believe that you either have sent a blast (like this one) or that you don’t understand how the system works.

I am responding to all so that everyone who may not be aware will learn also.

So here goes: LinkedIn grants every user a maximum of 3,000 invitations when they register. You are not aware of the limit until you’ve gone through 2,000, at which point you see a countdown of now many invitations you have left. Once you’ve exhausted your supply, you can send a request to LinkedIn to get more invitations every thirty days.

Although the concept of asking permission to send someone an invitation via email is polite, asking them to send you an invitation is not. You are in essence asking someone who doesn’t know you to buy you a cup of coffee.

Another misperception is when you are required to enter an email address to send an invitation. That means that 7 people have indicated in response to your invitations that they didn’t know you. This usually happens when you upload a large database of unrelated people to send invites in bulk. If you send an email to LinkedIn Customer Service [linkedin_support@cs.linkedin.com] – you can ask for the restriction to be removed.

Finally, when you send a group email like this one, please protect other people’s identity and communications by using blind carbon copy (BCC). Again, in the business world, it is considered rude not to do so.

I hope I’ve helped. Please let me know if you have any questions. Feel free to visit our blogs at http://www.rocktheworldbook.com/blog or http://www.integratedblog.com

Best regards,

Lori Ruff | Chief Learning Officer
Lead Social Media Consultant, Speaker, Trainer & Author
IA Social Media | Phone (303) 683-9600
LinkedIn Professional Profile: www.LoriRuff.com
Social Media Presence: www.xeesm.com/LoriRuff
Co-Author: http://www.RockTheWorldBook.com

I received an interesting LinkedIn message today from someone who’s headline reads “SEO & Social Media Expert, Author, Consultant & Blogger!” The message reads as follows (copied exactly – the typos are his own):

Hi,

I am trying to establish mysefl as an expert in eBusiness (Mainly Internet Marketing, SEO & Social Media).

Can you share some advice with me:

What areas have you diversified into?
What one area brings in most revenue?
How do you promote or create awareness of this service or product?

If you could answer my questions i would be eternally grateful.

Thanks in advance,

I am, of course, honored to be asked to assist someone on their journey to become knowledgeable in this field. But touting oneself as an expert when you are clearly not is not only a fabrication and unsupportable, it will ruin your reputation online and off. So what is my answer to this person and others who would seek us out for our expertise to mentor or train or provide advice?

Taking the time to provide insightful answers through type written answers is unrealistic. A phone conversation (or Skype) would be a better start, but even that won’t make you an “expert.” If you look up the term online you’ll learn that it takes 10,000 hours of Experience, not just training or education alone, to become an expert in a given subject matter.

While we purport honestly to be The LinkedIn Rock Stars and LinkedIn and Social Media Marketing Experts (having been active users of the platforms, training and speaking for over 4 years to the tune of more than 400 sessions to over 10,000 participants, you won’t see anyone on our team saying that we are experts on Facebook or Twitter or other “new” platforms. Those platforms are just too new for anyone to have acquired the necessary experience to become true experts. Overall, we consider ourselves to be–and have proven ourselves to be–knowledgeable and experienced in the social media arena to the point where we understand the industry and what is necessary to navigate safely through these ever changing waters for business and personal applications.

That brings to mind the analogy of a ship captain navigating through treacherous waters off the Ivory Coast. While you might have a rookie on the ship to learn, they don’t start in the position of captain and you certainly don’t put the in a position to command or navigate. It takes years of experience in all kinds of situations and in all types of water to do it well, and even some of the most experienced and best captains make costly errors (as evidenced by the number of ships at the bottom of the world’s oceans).

So, the question becomes: Who do you want to help you navigate your ship through the ocean that is social media?

Mike O’Neil, The LinkedIn Rock Star
- Active Charter User since 2004 (among the first 128,000 members), 28,000+ connections and the 27th most connected person on LinkedIn
- Over 280 solid recommendations on LinkedIn (remember that he is in front of a lot of people who have a chance to honestly review his work)
- On Facebook with over 3,500 friends, over 1,000 fans
- On Twitter with @MikeOneilDenver with over 32,000 followers; with @IASocialMedia with over 16,000 followers – and both of those accounts following most of their followers
- A long-time classic rock aficionado having seen over 1,000 concerts (he still has over 500 ticket stubs) – he is authentic to the brand

Lori Ruff, The LinkedIn Diva
- Active LinkedIn User since early 2005 (among the first 3 million members), 14,000+ connections, the 9th most connected woman on LinkedIn
- Over 68 solid recommendations on LinkedIn (remember that I am also in front of a lot of people who have a chance to honestly review my work)
- On Facebook since they were still just in school, with over 3,000 friends
- On Twitter with @LoriRuff with over 33,000 followers; with @LinkedInTrainer with over 21,000 followers – and both of those accounts following most of their followers
- Not enough concerts, but a lover of music and authentic to the brand

or my new friend… who according to his LinkedIn profile has been doing SEO work since July 2009 and a web developer since 2006, with 227 connections, 3 LinkedIn recommendations, and 60 Twitter followers and 26 Tweets, and is now an expert in social media?

I’ll refer back to the cartoon in our book: Rock the World with your Online Presence. In this particular cartoon, a woman is asked what she does. Her answer: “I don’t know, but according to my LinkedIn profile, I’m an expert!”

It is sort of a step in the right direction. Personally, I would rather have the option than having it happen automatically, but the convenience outshines the drawback.  After accepting, you can send a message right then and there.  This message, what we call a Thank You Message, is a terrific way to get ROI from LinkedIn.

In our LinkedIn trainings (400 so far) we teach to send Thank You Messages as a way of drumming up business.  Give it a try and see your wallet get thicker.

We have a wealth of great tips in our hot new LinkedIn book entitled Rock The World with your Online Presence.  See the Book Site

We’ve got some great news for you… We wanted to let you know we’ll be speaking March 19-21 at Jeff Mills’ upcoming “Boost Seminar” in St. Paul, Minnesota. And there is a great chance you’ll be able to meet us and the other speakers at that event to network and learn together how people are making money online as well as building successful businesses with internet marketing practices.

Go here now and sign up for their free training: http://www.shopgoldmills.com

Jeff invited Mike and Lori to be his guest on a special tele-seminar which took place February 9th at 8:00 EST.

Once you sign up for the free training via tele-seminar (or webcasts), you’ll get to hear about his fantastic conference and all the other great speakers coming to the Boost Seminar.

Why You Need to Attend Seminars:

Networking at these internet marketing events are some of the best business boosting tasks that I think you should be focusing on. I can tell you for a fact, it’s helped me in my own business, meeting people at events and making deals happen.

So, to hear the tele-seminar, just go to

http://www.shopgoldmills.com

and sign up to listen in on the call where Jeff and the IA team shared some great content.

NEWS: We have 10 FREE Passes to Jeff’s Event!

How would you like a free ticket to Jeff’s event?

Normally Jeff charges $997 to attend, but if you enter the code: lrboost on the checkout page, you’ll see the price go to ZERO. (You’ll need to do this quickly cause these tickets will all get picked up fast).

Now, we cannot do this for our entire list, we’re not sending out an email, and it’s only the first 10 absolutely serious people. If you wait, they’ll all be gone for sure, so be one of the 10 people now. After 10 are gone, you’ll have to pay the current price. It’s worth it, but FREE is better!

Listen to the call!

Sign up at the Link Below:

http://www.shopgoldmills.com

If you follow the LinkedIn best practices we teach (and many other experts as well), you are making use of most, if not all of the text space that LinkedIn allots in your profile. This is especially important in the Headline, Summary and Specialties – prime real estate.

Well, things just changed and some people will be really scratching their heads on this one. LinkedIn just made a Carriage Return count as 3, yes 3, characters. As LinkedIn and Rock aficionados (see our Rock The World LinkedIn book), we are always “living on the edge” to discover the way for others.

We uncovered this when I went to DELETE a couple of characters and found that my profile was now 24 characters too big as I went to save changes.

Yep.  All those CR’s now count as 3 characters vs. 1 like it has been since LinkedIn was born. LinkedIn is directing people to clump text together vs. spreading it out to make it easier to read. 

Another step backwards that reminds many of the moment LinkedIn limited single invite text to 200 characters and eliminated invite text ENTIRELY when inviting more than 1 person (can you say IDK?).  See related story.

This picture illustrates the point.

After years of struggling on LinkedIn with check boxes (scrolling a list, checking box after box, scrolling some more, checking box after box, etc.) my business partner Lori Ruff  finally stepped in and showed me a shortcut. So, this is really HER post you might say.  Lori was a Microsoft Certified trainer previous to being a The LinkedIn Diva.

If you are staring on your LInkedIn screen at a list that has check boxes included in it, like when sending a message to a group of people, you can use a series of space bar (right hand) and tab key (left hand) that will let you go do 50 selections in almost no time.

You still must go one letter of the alphabet at a time in MOST cases. It doesn’t skip from the end of one letter to the beginning of the next. Still, it is heaven when you are doing sends on LinkedIn.  Thanks Lori!

Let me know if this helps you.

I received this question via LinkedIn today. My response follows.  After I hit Send, I realized how often I am asked this or similar questions and thought it prudent to add it as a blog post for people to refer to as they needed rather than waiting for my response. Please tell me if this helps you or someone you know. If we have a positive response, I will likely post similar posts more regularly.

*** message ***

Dear Lori,

I need some advice from you. A 1st contact in my network, who I have met in person, is linked to someone at a company I am interested in for my next career challenge. He has agreed to introduce us.

I want to make the most of this connection. Should I ask for a simple networking meeting or send her a direct application or simply be direct and inform her that I believe I would be a good fit for her company?

Any advice you can share will be most helpful since my experience in job searching has been limited to 1 job in 25 years!

Please contact me at anytime if I may assist you in some way.

Thank you for your time and interest.

 *** response ***

I am happy to help. My first inclination would be to ask for an introduction request through LinkedIn and be honest about asking for an Informational Interview. Let her know you are looking for work at a company like hers and ask if she would be open to an interview to assist you in preparing for the process.

I am confident that she will agree. Most people will. Then, if she has something available, the contact will have been made. And if she knows anyone else you should speak to, she will be more likely to be able to provide a solid introduction having done an intial interview herself.

Be sure to thank each party for their time and consideration. You might send a handwritten note if you have their address. Ask who would be a good referral for them so that you will be aware of potential introductions you can make in your networking travels. And let them know that their efforts on your behalf paid off. People need good news!

Best regards,

Lori Ruff
Lead Social Media Coach
Integrated Alliances

Wouldn’t it be great if the local and regional LinkedIn groups were to band together somehow? Frankly, I am surprised it hasn’t happened.

With a 7 year history and a name like Integrated Alliances, we might be a logical choice for it. We just don’t have the time with our big Rock The World national book-speaking tour about to begin.

We run Linked to Denver (7,000 members, group #1,751 of 500,000) and Friends of Colorado (3,000) as well as 2 others.

We can help a bit if someone wants to step up or lend a very helpful hand.

Could be a lot of fun and a great way to make lots of influential friends. We are in for PART of it if someone wants to step up.

Ideas?

In all the training that we do here at Integrated Alliances, this is one of the areas that people ask the most questions about – Recommendations.

First of all, you need to have real meaningful business interaction with someone to have a credible recommendation.  You are not recommending the person, but their actions as a business person.  “Bob is a great guy“ doesn’t cut it.

That alone whittles down your list of candidates.  Look for people that you might have worked on a project together with. Someone that has seen you in action, beating away the fires, planting forests of business, etc.

So – once you have that person in mind – have them tell a story of a project that you worked on together.  You are looking for 3-4 sentences.  Having some metrics (numbers) really helps.  Here is an example:

“Bob was one of the reason’s out projects went so smoothly.  In one project alone, he helped us perfectly install telephone services to 20 locations, all on a weekend and all in the face of many obstacles.  Bob is your “go-to person” on telecom projects!”

How does that sound?  It helps paint a picture of what Bob is like to work with, which is what recommendations are used mostly for isn’t it?

We cover this and more in Rock The World with your Online Presence: Your Ticket to a Multi-Pltinum LinkedIn Profile.  Available now at Amazon.com.  See more at http://www.rocktheworldbook.com