Presentation given to Women of the World on June 8th.

1. The Power of Personal
Connections:
Using LinkedIn to Market Your
Business and Yourself
Presented by:
Mary Bahr
6/08/10

2. How Small Businesses Use Social Media
Figure 19
The areas that users have been successful in are generally the same as expectations. However,
there is one notable gap: while 73 percent of users expect to identify and attract new customers
with social media, only 61 percent have accomplished this successfully. Thus, social media
performance is below expectations in bringing new business in the door, although it meets
expectations for building brand awareness and staying engaged with customers.
Figure 20 What do Small Businesses Hope to Accomplish with Social Media?
What Types of Social Media Do Small Businesses Use?
Most users of social media – 58 percent – find the medium just “met expectations” for success.
For the remainder, twice as many feel the medium fell short of expectations (26 percent) than
exceeded expectations (12 percent) for success.
The expectations small business owners have for social media are related to external marketing
and engagement, and include identifying and attracting new customers, building brand
awareness, and staying engaged with customers. Fewer small business owners expect social
media to help them with collaborating with external suppliers, partners and colleagues or with
staff internally. The external marketing is an obvious use of social media, but there may be a vast
untapped potential for using Small Business Report”,
Source: “The State of the medium to link members of the supply network, colleagues and
Network Solutions LLC, and the Center for
staff to gain advantages in creativity and productivity. Such internal uses are harder to imagine
Excellence in Business at the University of Maryland.
and in their infancy, but have the potential to unleash a vast reservoir of creativity and joint
problem solving as social media users grow exponentially. Examples of such uses are
developing a new product or service, finding low cost resources, teaming to pursue business
opportunities, or leveraging an expert source to solve a special problem.
Social media use is not without problems, the main one being the amount of time involved. Half
(50 percent) of small business users of social media have found that it has taken up more time
than they expected. A common concern about social media in a business context is that it gives
people a chance to criticize the business on the internet, but only 17 percent cite this as a

4. Some Background on LinkedIn
• Founded in 2003
• Over 67 million members; 1 new member per
second; 50% outside US
• All Fortune 500 represented; over 4 million
small businesses
4

5. Why embrace LinkedIn?
• Increase your visibility, improve your Google page rank and
search engine results
• Increase your connectability: locate people from your past,
present and future
• Research companies and people (staff movement, hiring
turnover, job descriptions)
• Give and get—ask questions, answer questions, write
recommendations
• Promote yourself and your business with added apps,
and website, blog visibility
• Scope our the competition, potential customers and
employers
• Keep track of job movement of your network
5

6. How to do it…
• Strive for 100% complete profile (click on the button that
shows how complete your profile is: it will help you
complete it!)
• Use the “professional headline” for more than your current
title: use it to describe yourself (in Basic Information
section)
• Use “current status” field to raise your professional profile:
e.g.: what are you working on, what are you reading, what
are you attending…
• Make your profile and work experience as complete as
possible: it will bring more potential connections to your
attention
6

7. How to do it…
• Remember your LinkedIn profile should complement
your resume, not duplicate it
• If you’re a business owner, create a business page for
your business
• Change your public profile URL to your name; add
this URL as a hyperlink to your email signature
• Add your websites and blogs to website listings: you
can list up to three (could also list causes that you are
involved in)
• Summary: is NOT a resume: use it to explain who
you are and what you are passionate about
7

8. How to do it…
• Applications add functionality and visibility to your profile:
select ones that you’ll use (I love Amazon Reading Lists,
SlideShare and Blog Link, but choose what works for you)
• Give and get recommendations strategically: do not give
recommendations that you would not give in “real life”
• Look for groups that will complement both your
professional and personal interests
• Ask questions when you are trying to solve a problem or
find a solution: particularly if you are looking for something
specific
• Track companies
8

9. How to do it…
• Use LinkedIn proactively: research someone before you
meet them, if you are going on an interview or business
pitch, request to LinkIn BEFORE your meeting, so that they
can review your profile
• Events: promote professional events you are involved in,
invite your network
• Create your own special interest group: create additional
credibility for your expertise
• To learn more: Guy Kawasaki’s article on LinkedIn (http://
tinyurl.com/2fbver)
• Check out LinkedIn movie:(http://press.linkedin.com/about)
9

10. The Fast Fifty
(or almost free websites)
10

11. google.com/alerts
What are they saying
about you on the web?
Track it and your
competitors…
11

12. google.com/adwords
What are the hot words
on the web?
12

13. google.com/analytics
How does your
website rate?
13

14. google.com/trends
How does your
website rate?
14

15. google.com/reader
Keep all the blogs you
follow in one place
15

16. Docs.google.com
Collaborate, edit, store
16

17. dimdim.com
Free web-
conferencing and
audio bridge for up
to 20 people
17

18. websitegrader.com
Free SEO tool: easy to
use and understand;
also has facebook
and twitter graders
18

19. instapaper.com
Read later icon in
toolbar
19

20. tinyurl.com
Create short URLs with one
click: indispensable for FB
and Twitter
20

21. Healthyskeptic.org
Alternative, informative
Health and diet
information
21

22. marshallgoldsmithlibrary.com
Author of “What Got You
Here, Won’t Get You There
22

23. “Getting Things Done”
Davidandco.com:
David Allen’s
process: GTD
The god of productivity
gurus
23

24. 43folders.com
A David Allen disciple:
great productivity
tips and tricks
24

25. thefourhourworkweek.com
For those of you
who love Tim
Ferriss, or really
hate him; either
way he’s
interesting
25

26. Classes available for
download on any
itunesu.com subject from some of
the best universities in
the world
26

27. Keep track of
what’s hot around
the world: great
Trendhunter.com free reports
27

28. charlesandmarie.com
My favorite
shopping site:
their Soupe du
Jour: a product
offered for only
one day, is
fabulous
28

29. Need I say more?
Can any woman
bagsnob.com have too many
handbags?
29

30. Find out where
your flight REALLY
is
flightstats.com
30

31. For those of us
who prefer snark
to sincerity.
someecards.com
31

32. A government site
that actually
trademarksearch.com works.
32

33. Logos, logos and
more logos brandsoftheworld.com
33

34. Free file transfer/
ftp site. If you
yousendit.com need more, we
suggest sharefile.
34

35. Save paper: print
only what you
Printwhatyoulike.com want from a web
page
35

36. Productivity tools
and tricks:
lifehacker.com particularly
involving
technology
36

37. Good advice for
those of us over-
zenhabits.com scheduled, over-
worked people
37

38. Stay up to date on
what’s going on in
social media, and
mashable.com it changes daily
38

39. Give yourself a gift
and listen to at
ted.com least one TED talk
a week. Share on
Facebook and LI
39

40. presentationzen.com
Have to deal with
powerpoint? This
will help your
presentations not
suck quite so
badly
40

41. findsounds.com
Free SFX. Can be
used in ppt!
41

42. visualthesaurus.com
Note: trial is free,
website is not. If
you write, you’ll
love it
42

43. thesaurus.com
43

44. clichefinder.com
Sometimes that
cliché is right on
the tip of your
tongue…find it
here
44

45. smartbriefentrepreneurship.com
Links to the best
articles for
entrepreneurs.
Many other smart
brief editions
available.
45

46. groupon.com
Great deals, if
enough folks sign
up
46

47. tripadvisor.com
47

48. Set up alerts based
on your own
iltrafficalert.com schedule and
route
48

49. opentable.com
49

50. A somewhat
snarkier CNN.
dailybeast.com Good columnists
that you won’t find
elsewhere
50

51. Similar to Daily
Beast, a smart
newser.com news aggregator
51

52. An aggregator of
great information
alltop.com on almost any
topic. Try here
first rather than
wikipedia…
52

53. Gossip, gossip,
gossip.
pagesix.com
53

54. Gossip, gossip,
gossip.
blurb.com
54