LinkedIn - Utilizing Your Connections

I would guess that 8 out 10 LinkedIn users basically add connections of clients, industry partners and other networking connections and never realize ways to efficiently utilize these connections.

What I suggest doing is use the “TAGS” feature and create organized sub lists of each type of connection type you have. These lists could be Clients, Potential Clients, Friends, Etc. You then need to go through all of your connections and put them in the correct TAG folder.

How To Get Started
Go to Connections
Click “Manage Tags” and create your folder names
Now go through your connections and select all of your “Clients”
Once all are selected click on the “Edit Tag” Link and select “Clients”
This will put all those connections in one Client folder.
Once this is complete you can then easily create a customized LinkedIn message targeted to that group.. Giving you the ability to utilize the LinkedIn Messaging feature very efficiently and quickly.

Facebook Fan Page Tips Part II

Treat Facebook like a new channel - This may be obvious at first glance, try to think differently about how to effectively use your Facebook page in conjunction with your other business activities to achieve your goals.


Interact directly and candidly with your fans - So many company Facebook pages are just PR vehicles with sanitized messages. The standard corporate speak doesn’t fly on Facebook — it does nothing to build trust or interactivity with your audience. Boring corporate speak may even cause potential fans to skip “liking” your page. Be real and respectful — your fans will appreciate it. You may want to identify the person who interacts with fans and let them get to know him or her.

Build your fan base - Remember when building your e-mail list was the most valuable way to reach potential customers? For e-mail, many tactics are employed to get the users to opt-in, but with Facebook, a simple click of the “Like” button is enough to create that connection with your customers. There are so many ways to build your fan base, but simply asking people to “Like” your page is the most successful. Be careful to not use misleading tricks to gain fans, the social media universe will rise up against you.

Offer preference to fans who “like” you - Offer unique content, special incentives or even trivia question to your fans! Whatever it is, be clear about what fans receive so that you don’t have lots of likes and then subsequent unlikes. This is also an opportunity for cross-over integration between Facebook and your other channels: website, e-mail, twitter, etc.

Create Facebook-only offers - If you offer free or trial products or have users that are contemplating your product or service, Facebook-only deals are a great way to monetize those people, who are likely not part of your e-mail list or regular viewers of your website. Use special occasion offers, but be sure to change them up.

Create a Facebook store - Make it easy for your customers, who are feeling more and more comfortable on Facebook, to buy without leaving the Facebook ecosystem..

LinkedIn Connection Strategy

There are two very different strategies to connecting on Linkedin: “Open Networking” and “Trusted Partner Networking”.

On Linkedin, one strategy for getting value is to be an “Open Networker” or LION (LinkedIn Open Networker). Open Networkers focus on growing the size of their network by initiating and accepting connection requests from as many people as possible. Open Networkers typically have many thousands of connections. This means that when they search for useful relationships (potential clients or business partners), for example looking for contacts in specific companies, or geographies or with specific interests or job titles – they are much more likely to find them (exponentially more likely because of the way Linkedin connections work).

The downside of this strategy is that with thousands of connections you don’t know each one very well, if at all. You’re essentially using Linkedin as a giant Rolodex or telephone directory rather than as a way of making deeper connections. That’s neither good nor bad – it just means that if you find someone you want to connect with through one of these “shallow” connections, you’re unlikely to get a strong referral to them.

The other strategy is to have fewer but deeper connections – a “Trusted Partner” strategy. Here you only connect to people you already know and trust. Most likely from face-to-face interaction, but possibly from online interaction too.

With this strategy you have less chance of finding someone via a search because you have less connections. But if you do find someone, it will be through someone who knows and trusts you – and they will be able to give a strong referral to you and put you in touch with the person you’re interested in connecting with.

In my experience, this Trusted Partner strategy works best for most professionals. It mirrors the way we develop trusted relationships in the real world. And it reduces the risk that your trusted connections will be spammed from other connections you barely know.

Both strategies can work, but you must be consistent. If you’re following a Trusted Partner strategy, you must only connect to people you really know & trust and turn down connections from people you don’t (Open Networkers for example).

New Facebook Fanpage Layout!

If you logged into your Facebook fan page today you may have come across the message prompting you to switch to the new layout that will be rolled out on March 1st. The new Facebook fan pages looks a lot like your new personal page. I'll let you look at some of the developments for yourself, but I wanted to point out two that are the most interesting to me.


When you are logged into your page you are given the option to "switch" and navigate Facebook as your fan page. Yes, you can post and make comments on OTHER pages as YOUR own page. This new option is really interesting and one that could go a long way to help you build your page's number of "likes." When you are logged in as your page there are even notifications of new "likes" and comments on your fan page, just like on your personal page. The other thing about the new design that I like is that you are able to select the featured pages you liked under your page in the sidebar. You're allowed to select your favorites to be highlighted in your sidebar. This gives you a great place to promote the pages of friends, brands you like or work with you or pages you just find interesting.

Sphere of Influence

I just did a quick study of the Facebook presence for a variety of insurance companies. Clearly the Auto Insurance carriers are way ahead of the Medical & Life insurance carriers.


Number of Fans
Geico – 151,000
Farmers – 129,000
StateFarm – 58,000
AllState – 25,000
Progessive – 21,000
NY Life – 7,000
Metlife – 4,300
Aetna – 710
Genworth – 388
Wellpoint – 358

This is an indication of two things, (1) you’re in trouble if you sell a lot of auto insurance! Direct on-line sales will start to eat at your block (2) What are the medical insurance companies doing? Aetna has millions of insured people and they only have a distribution of 710 people….very odd!