Top Ten Tips for LinkedIn for Business

We are regularly asked for our top tips for engaging on social networks. Sharing with you this month, our top ten tips for engaging and optimising on LinkedIn, including updates and optimisations on Company Pages and personal LinkedIn accounts.

Feel free to share your LinkedIn tips in the comments section below.

Top Ten Tips for LinkedIn for Business

1. Know who, what and why you are looking to connect on LinkedIn. Define your goals. Listen and search.

2. Edit the description of your Company Page. Add keywords within speciality section. Choose the most appropriate industry. Optimise on the products and services pages. 

3. Create a professional headline and a summary about you and your experience on your personal account.

4. Select an appropriate networking approach. Send a personal message when reaching out and connecting. 

5. Develop a campaign on the Company Page to create community dialogue. 

6. Get involved with communities / Engage in group discussions and news. 

7. Add interesting and useful content to your Company Page, the type of content that would receive recommendations, likes, comments.

8. Follow influencers and news channels, so that stories you are interested in appear in your 'Home page' feed. 

9. Stay up to date with changes within the LinkedIn network.

10. Cross promote other social channels from your LinkedIn Company Page and personal profile page.  

You may also be interested in reading our Top Ten Twitter Tips for Business and Pleasure.

Author: Sarah Griffiths

Geek Video of the Month

This month’s 'Geek Video of the Month', shares ‘10 amazing science stunts from the psychologist, author and performer that is Richard Wiseman. View his website for a 30 second introduction slide show on him here: www.RichardWiseman.com

We sourced the video from Richard’s YouTube channel ‘Quirkology’, which has nearly 800K subscribers. Well done team Wiseman!

Some of these science stunts featured on this video you will remember from school, others were totally new to us. So if you do have a need to impress your friends, class mates or neighbours, this Summer, with impressive science stunts, then Richard’s Quirkology YouTube channel is a must watch.

Enjoy ;) 


We would love to know if you are thinking of trying out any of these interactive experiments. Feel free to comment below.

Author: Sarah Griffiths

Top Ten Twitter Tips for Business and Pleasure

We are regularly asked for our top tips for engaging on social networks.   Sharing with you this month, our top ten tips for engaging and optimising on Twitter.   Feel free to share your Twitter tips in the comments section below.

Sharing our Top Ten Twitter Tips for Business and Pleasure


1. Know who, what and why you are looking to connect on Twitter.  Define your goals. Listen and search.


2. Be responsive to those who contact you on Twitter and look to connect with new people every day.  


3. Use Twitter lists to organise influencers. Understand Twitter Etiquette. Try not to be too salesy and watch out for spammers. 


4. Talk about what interests you, share articles on topics that interest you.  Share thoughts, tips, resources that will help your target connections.


5. Use hash-tags to help others find topics you are interested in.


6. Build relationships, respond to tweets, add value to the stream.


7. To maximise on re-tweets, keep tweet length to 70-100 so to leave space for RT @username and comment.


8. Treat others here as you would at a networking event. Engage your followers and speak to them.  It’s just as important online as offline to be authentic, fun, creative and where possible, inspire others with your words and action.


9. Stay up to date with changes to Twitter.


10. Cross Promote other social channels from your Twitter account.

You may also be interested in our Top Ten Tips for LinkedIn for Business.


Author: Sarah Griffiths

Team Event: Exhilarating Experience

As part of our monthly team events, Farah and I arranged for the team to experience a RIB Speed Boat Ride along the Jurassic Coast which is located just a 5 minute walk from our Head Office.

We are very lucky indeed to be working so close to the coastline, alas all of us are guilty for not making the most of it.
The RIB ride was arranged with Poole Sea Safari, who has received some fabulous 5 star visitor rating reviews on their Trip Advisor account.  It was great to see that Poole Sea Safari were responding to the positive comments on Trip Advisor too. Great online customer engagement, we like it! The comments they had received on TripAdvisor was the main reason for booking this trip, it gave us confidence that everyone was going to have a great time.

The team spent a lovely afternoon together on their 90 minute coastline tour, learning about the local wildlife, geology and the history of the coastline.  Along with the interesting commentary, the team also learnt what ‘donuts’ are in skipper terms, and that “iPhone 5’s” are water proof!

The passengers enjoyed every minute and were buzzing with compliments after the trip.

The ride started off sedately out of the shallow harbour but soon got up to an exhilarating speed. The views offer an amazingly different perspective, being so ‘up close’ to the geological folds and layers of the rock formations and cliffs from The Triassic to Cretaceous Eras. Another highlight was cutting the engine and floating into a cave of nesting guillemots and puffins. It is easy to see why the Jurassic Coast is England's first natural World Heritage Site. It was a ‘naturally’ great shared experience and a good laugh!

Further compliments included: A Rib-Tastic afternoon, exhilarating experience, highly recommended and one to remember.

Last month's team event included a Pool Competition and prizes were awarded for not just the winners, but those who provided support and encouragement.

This month Alex and David are planning the team event.  Should be interesting!

Author: Sarah Griffiths and Farah Khan

Geek Video of the Month

Sharing with you a topical Geek Video, topical as relates to Wimbledon and ties in with our most popular blog subject Google.

For the past two weeks the American Pro tennis player Bethanie Mattek-Sands (AKA: Bee), often referred to as the Lady Gaga of Tennis thanks to her non traditional outfits on an off court, has been part of a select Google Explorer group of about 1K people who are testing Google Glass in the products pre-release format. To keep up to date with the project, follow Project Glass on Google+ or view some of their Google Glass introduction videos over at their YouTube Channel.

In summary 'Google Glass' or 'Google Glasses' is a voice activated device designed to be worn as a pair of spectacles. It can be used for activities you would normally use your phone for, for example: take pictures, reply to emails, check diary, view sat nav directions...

This video is a good example on how you can use Google Glass in your daily life.  Bee reports in the video: 

"Glass helps me stay organised, so I can stay focused on my tennis and what I need to do"

Personally I love the part in the video, when she is packing her bag and she has her packing list, right there in her eye line. Brilliant ! I would find this feature so useful when wrapping presents at Christmas time.

I Google so much, Glasses would be ideal for me, to find out about the things around me.

Bee will be reporting back to Google's Explorer team soon, giving her thoughts on usability and what things could be improved upon.   

So are you excited?  Can you see yourself embracing Google Glasses in the coming years? 

I certainly can. So Google if you are reading this, the answer is yes, I would love to be part of your #glassexplorers team, send me a pair!

Author: Sarah Griffiths

Did you Google or did you DuckDuckGo?

Search Engine Land reported on Tuesday last week that the upstart search engine 'DuckDuckGo', which has the USP (Unique Selling Point) of protecting its users’ privacy, hit a new milestone on Monday as searches for the website hit 2 million direct searches. 

Pretty impressive statistics, right!!

A huge growth spurred by New Media advertising and most probably because of the recent PRISIM scandal which questions how Google, Bing and Yahoo etc are sharing their data with Government agencies.

DuckDuckGo’s meta description states:

“Search anonymously. Find instantly. DuckDuckGo is a search engine that does not track you and, has more instant answers and less spam/clutter”.

 

Could DuckDuckGo be a threat to the three main search engines, well given an appropriate marketing budget, we certainly think it has potential from a ‘search experience’ point of view (less clutter).

Search Engine Land conducted a review of keyphrase placement here: and it appears to be doing a good job. Read the comments on the review, have a go with the search engine and decide for yourself. 

Will you make the jump to DuckDuckGo or will you find it hard to break the ‘To Google’ habit?

Don’t forget if your website, product, brand, service needs help being found in search engines please do get in touch with our Sales team, to discuss your Search Engine Marketing requirements further. 

We would love to hear from you.

Author: Sarah Griffiths

Geek Video of the Month

This month's Geek Video was sourced by Fiona Anderson, from the Flashlight Search Marketing team.

The 37 second video promotes a 'pro-type' smartphone which changes shape dependent on whether it receives a text, email or phone call.  The idea is that the flexible smart phone technology will provide visual cues as to what type of communication you are to engage with.  The 'brains' behind this are researchers at Queens University Human Media Lab in Canada.

Despite all the work that must have gone into developing this prototype, the flexible smartphone reminds us of those 'little red palm reading fish' (named 'Fortune Teller, Miracle Fish') that you receive in cheap party bags. If it curls up you are happy, lies flat bored, raised edges in love etc.  The fish are a novelty and we believe the above is too.

What do you think?   Can you envisage this technology being used elsewhere in the home or office?

Personally, rather than changing shape to tell me whether I am to receive a call, text, email etc, I would be more interested in the smartphone if it was able to jump out of my handbag  (or where ever I put it down!) and walk, or roll over to me, or even better, fly. (Harry Potter Talking Letters AKA Howlers!).

Now that would be smartphone progression!

Author: Sarah Griffiths (Sourced by: Fiona Anderson)