Gather.com What Impact Will Facebook's Project Titan Have on Email Marketing ? Gather.com Microsoft has integrated its Outlook email client with LinkedIn . Google has launched Buzz for Gmail, and Email marketing firm ExactTarget has acquired ...
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What Impact Will Facebook's Project Titan Have on Email Marketing? - Gather.com
General-interest networks such as Facebook and Twitter take up so much of our attention that more focused sites sometimes take a back seat. It’s a shame, really, because LinkedIn combines many of the best features of the more popular networks with a practical focus on career advancement. If you’ve been neglecting to sign up for LinkedIn or you want to catch up on the latest best practices, here’s a roundup of LinkedIn stories that made it into our e-mail newsletter, SmartBrief on Social Media . 5 tips for tapping the power of LinkedIn LinkedIn is a powerful marketing tool for businesses, writes Lewis Howes. But to get results, you need to work smart. Use groups, participate in the site’s Answers service and send plenty of personalized messages to build leads, Howes advises. “LinkedIn is the most powerful social-networking site to help you grow your business,” he writes. “It makes Twitter, Facebook and YouTube seem like social-networking sites for kids.” SocialMediaExaminer.com (2/22) Microsoft marries e-mail to networking with Outlook update Microsoft has announced its Office 2010 suite will include a feature allowing users to interact with their Facebook and MySpace feeds via Outlook. The current version of Outlook is getting an add-on that is compatible with LinkedIn, allowing users to keep track of contact information, view postings and add people to their networks. MediaPost Communications/Online Media Daily (2/17) , FastCompany.com (2/17) Developers seize LinkedIn’s API release LinkedIn opened up its API for developers to tweak this Monday, and programmers are already seizing the opportunity to integrate it into their offerings. TweetDeck will be adding a LinkedIn column, Posturous plans to offer an update feature that posts simultaneously to its site and to LinkedIn, and Box.net is planning to share its content with LinkedIn contacts. TechCrunch (11/23) Don’t spam LinkedIn groups with links Newbies to a LinkedIn group need to establish a reputation before they post links, or they will be considered spammers, Doron Gez writes. Some groups go as far as to ban links to avoid unwanted promotion. “Don’t come too strong,” Gez suggests. “Take things gradually. Don’t push your counterpart.” Social Media Today (11/19) LinkedIn syncs updates with tweets LinkedIn and Twitter have synchronized their 140-character status update boxes so that users on either site can post a message to both simultaneously. While Twitter users can be anonymous and read anyone’s tweets, LinkedIn accounts are based on real identities and visible only to those within the person’s networks. Reuters (11/10) 10 tips for asking good questions on LinkedIn The question forum on LinkedIn can be a useful tool, but word your query poorly and you’ll get flooded with pitches, Valeria Maltoni writes. To ensure useful answers, do your homework about the topic, make your question specific and provide enough context, she wrote. “If site users need to interpret your question, they will interpret to their advantage,” she wrote. Conversation Agent (10/23) LinkedIn eases managing potential contacts LinkedIn has introduced a new feature for premium subscribers that lets them create searches and save profiles in folders for future reference. You can also jot notes about each profile to help you remember your last contact with the person. The feature, free for 30 days, is much like a customer-management tool, John Jantsch writes, noting that it makes time spent on LinkedIn even more efficient. Duct Tape Marketing (10/1) Signing up for SBoSM is a fast, free, easy way to make sure you’re never caught off guard concerning social-media news. Our exclusive summaries will help you digest the latest updates in a flash. Check out today’s issue and see what else you’ve been missing. Image credit, Zeffss1 , via iStock
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SmartBrief on: Getting the most out of LinkedIn
The biggest barrier to maximizing the potential of social technology — in sales, PR, marketing or even internal collaboration — is the persistent notion that it is mysterious, complex and utterly impractical. Millions of people that your organization is trying to reach are still staying away from social networks because they don’t feel like they “get” what they’re for. Your boss doesn’t want you using social networks for work because they look like toys. Maybe you’re even still stumbling a little as you build your social presence, still treating these platforms like mystical alien artifacts that will explode if not handled with the utmost care. We need a Rosetta Stone to get us all on the same page, establishing once and for all that social media is neither quantum physics, nor voodoo, nor frivolity. For a long time, I thought that something would be a new, more evolved social network — something so intuitive that anyone could look at it for a minute and understand what it was for. But I was wrong. The key isn’t some magical new network. It’s e-mail. Everyone who uses the Internet understands e-mail — even if they don’t necessarily use it that often. It is the closest thing the Web has to common ground. That is why things like Google Buzz and Microsoft’s new Outlook Social Connector are so important. In a few years, social media won’t be some crazy waste of time that only young people understand — it’ll just be another part of e-mail. OK, that’s over simplifying it a little bit — there will still be profiles and apps and all sorts of other higher functions. But the building blocks of social media — connections and updates — will become universal. I think that once those elements are in place, they become a gateway drug of sorts. Once you get the benefit of simply connecting with people and sharing information, you start to see the benefit in all those other tools, as well. The good news for those of use who are already using the technology is that as networks gain participation, they have the potential to become more useful to everyone. You may also see the distinction between networks matter less, even as more niche networks gain popularity — because we’ll be connecting to it all through e-mail. I also think it will bring a change in focus away from understanding tools and on applied business functions — worrying about the marketing part of social-media marketing instead of stressing about the latest tools. What other changes will e-mail integration bring? Any potential problems on the horizon? Anyone not convinced that e-mail will change the way nonusers look at social networks? Image credit, AndyL , via iStock
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Social media puts on a tie