How to make introductions through LinkedIn

I love to introduce people to each other, and LinkedIn has made that super easy!

I have noticed that a few people wanted to introduce me to one of their contacts, and more often than not we were both on Linked In, but the person introducing us didn’t use LinkedIn to introduce us to each other (sharing profiles), and I thought that I would show you how easy this is in a few steps.

Start by going into your contacts:

Choose the contact you want to introduce to someone, open their profile, select the drop down menu on the right side of send a message, then select … Share Profile.

Then send their profile to the contact you have selected (start typing their name in the box) and remember to include a message to the contact on why you are making the introduction.

Sharing profiles really works, as you get a chance to read a bit about the contact before you call them to meet up.

What’s been the best introduction you made? Or was made to you?

Do you have any LinkedIn tips to share or question I can help with?

Why people won’t buy what you are offering.

When someone asks what you do, please do not ask them to do the work, don’t send them to your website, or simply send them a bit of marketing material.

Why the rant, well this past few weeks I was on the search to find someone to outsource some work too. I put up discussions on LinkedIn, a few forums and asked a few people who they could recommend. I have learnt a valuable lesson doing this exercise.

With perhaps one or two exceptions at most, the companies that have made contact with me have not tried to find out what I wanted, they have told me to look at the website, or send me a long email explaining what they do.

The first stage of any marketing (or sales) exercise, or as I like to put it, relationship building, is to first asked “whats the problem?” Then gear anything you send to that person around solving the problem.

I know someone important quoted something along these lines, ……solve the problem and you’ll never have to sell again. The worst thing you can do when you are trying to engage a new potential customer or partner, is to send them to generic page on your website, or send them some marketing material that was developed as a one fits all!

Clients want to be seen as individuals, clients want to know that you can solve their problems and add value to the business. They are not interested in what you do.

Building relationships is hard work and just because you’ve written material once it really doesn’t mean you can use it over and over and over again. That does not mean you shouldn’t have systems that can help you gather information, but please if somebody asks what you do, why don’t you ask them what they need and then tell them how you can help them.

“Customers buy for their reasons … not yours”

I know I have made this mistake, have you?

Creating a Facebook page cover that works

Thanks to Social Media Examiner for a great article about  the new rules for Facebook pages.

Now you can have 20% text , allowing you to add a call to action, an address or a contact number. Remember your cover photograph is seen by people before they decide to like your page, and it’s the perfect place to get people to take action.

Make sure you comply with the rules with this tool  http://coverphoto.paavo.ch/ , its fun and easy to use.

3 examples of the cover photograph that I think really work:

This uses very little text, but has a very strong and clear call to action.

This is an example of a local agency adding contact details, if you are a local business this is vital.

And I thought this was a clever use of a page cover, adding an image of the latest blog post

Have you got a great Facebook page cover, why not share it with us?

Analysis of Pharma Engagement on Twitter – Pfizer, Sanofi and Novartis lead the race

A really thorough look at engagement through Twitter in the Pharma Industry.

Analysis of Pharma Engagement on Twitter – Pfizer, Sanofi and Novartis lead the race.

Why you should add live chat to your website

After a fabulous trip to France and them we decided every day that we would make a decision about where we would stay that meant logging in each day while were driving to find accommodation in the town we had decided to stay in.

This had its own complications because we had to make last minute decisions, and without always having Wi-Fi at our disposal we relied on our phones to help us find and book hotels. Now always known importance of having a mobile friendly website, but this really brought it home to me how important it is that you check that your website works well on mobile phones. On arriving in Dieppe we tried to book what looked like a really lovely family friendly, small boutique hotel, but on trying to fill in the required information on the contact form, we found it wouldn’t work on our phones. So we just drove into the town and found the first available hotel, and that lovely hotel lost our custom.

Quite often we all lose potential customers to our competitors and we aren’t even aware, are people able to look you up easily, can they find the right information that they’re looking for, and are you easy to contact.

One of the features that I think most businesses should have, especially hotels, is a live chat facility. It could run during normal working hours, but it would make it easy for people to be able to ask you if you have room for that night, or if you’re not a hotel, just for customers to be able to ask you that impulsive question that may stop them making a purchase.

I am in the throes of building Make Digital Work, my new website, and I definitely want live chat to be added as a feature, do you have experience using its and how do you use it in your business would love to hear from you.

Meating new product demands

I haven’t had a laugh like this in years, this man is such a fantastically funny writer, read it and it will make you day!

I’m okay with artificial flowers. I don’t mind artificial turf. Who can argue with artificial intelligence? (Apparently, not even the people on Jeopardy.) Honestly, some of my friends are kind of artificial so it would be wrong for me to object to anything that had that label.
However, this headline did catch my attention: ARTIFICIAL MEAT IS SIX MONTHS AWAY. I almost choked on my reduced-fat Hebrew National Hot Dog. This announcement comes from research at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands. The institution used to be called Rijksuniversiteit Limburg, but even the Dutch couldn’t pronounce that so now they’ve shortened it to UM. You hear a lot of students saying, “I’m going to UM, a really cool college.” Which is what every undergrad says when you, um, ask them where they are studying. By the way, Holland is an odd place for this kind of research. The Dutch make their shoes out of wood when they could have chosen leather. Is this who we want developing a tasty substitute for meat?

The article reports that scientists are growing synthetic sausages from “pig cells fed by horse serum,” and what a catchy phrase that will make on the package. It has a better ring to it than Johnsonville Fakes. This is obviously not an option for vegans or vegetarians. It’s for people who enjoy meat, but prefer that what they eat has spent its entire life in a test tube, not chewing its cud and emitting greenhouse gasses. I have been informed that these gasses come mostly from the cows burping. Somehow, I thought you’d be relieved to hear this.

Savvy marketers are gearing up for a media blitz to embarrass real carnivores into trying what they plan to call a Vitro Burger. The ad agency has already started spreading rumors that the most popular McDonald’s menu choice has dead cow in it. This approach was persuasive in focus groups, especially with people who still question the President’s birth certificate and the moon landing.
One scientist admits that right now the meat they are making is generic looking, but in his words, “I’m hopeful we can have an actual hamburger in less than a year,” which is also a commonly heard phrase from people in line at the Burger King drive-thru. Creating this first artificial burger will cost about $350,000, but that does include a soft drink and a small order of fries.

Apparently, the color of the “meat” is kind of a pasty white due to the lack of blood. The result is the product doesn’t look very appetizing. I could see where that might hinder sales. I totally lose my appetite when my food doesn’t look bloody.
The corporate chefs promoting this new creation are suggesting the faux burger be served on a gluten-free, low-carb, no-sodium bun. Is there any actual food in this sandwich? I’ll eat anything, but it does have to be something.

If my friends want to go to a restaurant that offers bogus beef, I’ll simply refuse to eat that artificial stuff. I’ll just have a Diet Coke, thank you.

This is from Wolfie.com

How to link your profile with your business page on Facebook

Yesterday a friend asked me to help her link her profile to her business page, you may need the same help so here goes.

Just a reminder, if you haven’t got a company page, create one first.

Start off by going to your Personal Profile Page

• Hover over your Work Information link and see what pops up.
•  If it’s a blank page like the photo below…then you have a little work to do!
• If you see your page, then you don’t need to read any further.

Facebook Business Page Link – Edit Your Work Information

• Go to the Work and Education Section
• Into the first box, Start typing your Facebook Business Page.  A list of pages should pop up, select your page.
• If your page does not show up, then check for the correct name.
• Open up your Facebook business page and copy the URL (copy anything after the / ie makedigitalwork….) and paste this into your workbox page.

Enter details

• Enter Your Position, City/Town, Description and Time Period Worked
• Enter the information
• Position, city/town, description and time period (make sure this says currently work here)
•  Click on “Add Job”
• Click done editing

Remove incorrect job links

• Go back to your profile, go to work and education
• Click on the X next to the incorrect Job
•  A box will pop up “Are You Sure?”, Select YES
•  Then click on “Done Editing”

That’s it done!