With over 28 million unique monthly visitors, LinkedIn is the most business-focused social media platform for professionals. The LinkedIn statistics are incredible:

• LinkedIn has the highest user engagement. Did you know that only 1 percent of LinkedIn users drive 26 percent of the site’s traffic? This means that the active community on LinkedIn is extremely involved and open to networking with professionals like you!
• LinkedIn users want your solicitation. In real life, we hate the idea of cold calls and solicitors. However, LinkedIn users overwhelmingly state that they welcome business proposals online.
• Your profile is viewed by people you don’t know. On social networking sites like Facebook, your friends and family are your main audience. On LinkedIn, however, coworkers only account for 25 percent of views. The other 75 percent is comprised of other professionals in the industry, recruiters, networkers, and much more!

Since LinkedIn fosters an atmosphere conducive for networking, professionals and brands should optimize their profiles for business-to-business conversions.

With an audience of 200 million users, LinkedIn is the social platform for brands to impress fellow businessmen.

How to Harness the Power of LinkedIn

The key to harnessing the power of LinkedIn is growing your visibility. Whether it’s your personal page or company page, visibility is what creates opportunities for networking. By optimizing certain elements of your LinkedIn presence, you’ll increase visibility while clearing the funnel for B2B conversions.

1. Go Visual

To keep up with the social media trends spearheaded by Facebook and Pinterest, LinkedIn has decided to become more visual. Like Facebook, it’s possible to incorporate a banner image for your company’s LinkedIn page as well as incorporate video.

Practice basic branding techniques by using your logo wherever possible and keeping the tone consistent with your brand.

2. Optimize the “About” Section

Most companies simply copy and paste the “About Us” section from their website onto their LinkedIn profile. However, this strategy is a mistake for those seeking to network on LinkedIn.

While the “About Us” on your site might be targeted towards a general audience, this section on your LinkedIn profile is aimed at the B2B market.

3. Use LinkedIn Polls

Asking thought provoking questions about trending news in your industry distinguishes your brand as a thought-leader in the industry. Not only do you engage your current followers, you’re increasing your reach as the polls spreads across connections immediately.

If you’re a member of any groups on LinkedIn, begin discussions based on the results of the poll. This tactic is focused on widening reach and establishing thought-leadership.

4. Share Links

Many brands like to share accomplishments, new products, and press releases on their social media sites. However, consider using LinkedIn as a platform for blog posts and articles that aren’t necessarily written by you.

In other words, make your brand a hotspot for industry news, valuable information, and knowledge in your field. By positioning your brand as a source of information, you attract leaders and businesses in your niche that could later turn into B2B conversions.

5. Feature Your Employees

Again, featuring employees takes advantage of the visual element. People want to see the faces that are behind your brand.

Showcasing employees makes your brand more personable and allows visitors to check out their pages as well. Remember, potential B2B customers might be more likely to connect with the profile of an employee than the business itself.

6. Use the Careers Listing

Posting job openings on the company’s LinkedIn profile might seem unrelated to B2B conversions, but it helps increase visibility. Furthermore, keeping the careers listings updated lets visitors know that the page is regularly managed.

7. Create a Group

While most professionals and brands join groups for exposure, why not create your own? This truly establishes you as a thought-leader and as the group grows, so does your authority.

Instead of making the group self-promotional, add value to the discussion by focusing the group on industry news, best practices, new ideas, obstacles, and similar topics of interest.

The Advantage of Networking on LinkedIn

Networking on LinkedIn provides an advantage that other social media sites can’t match: its users are open to conducting business with you online. Aside from networking, LinkedIn users are also more likely to spend online. The average salary for LinkedIn users is $87,000, which towers above the average for other social networking platforms.

Because LinkedIn users are prepped and more likely to positively respond to your marketing efforts, the ROI is potentially greater and worth the investment.

Also remember that the analytics function on LinkedIn offers a unique feature specifically for businesses. Aside from the basics of monitoring traffic and various insights, you can compare your company’s performance to its competition.

By using this information, you can adjust your strategy to be competitive in the LinkedIn B2B marketplace

Source Ignitesocialmedia

A video blog is simply an online video documenting something that you want to communicate. It can be used to highlight the following…

• An interview of the commercial director and/or employees giving information about the company.
• A tour of business’ offices/plant/farm/lab explaining how things work.
• Somebody reporting and offering opinions on contemporary news.
• Reviews of a product, or demonstrations of company products.
• Something funny, wacky and shareable.

So, what’s the point of blogging? Here are five ways a video blog can boost your brand.

1. Video blogs humanize your company and give your consumers a face to relate to your business. That means that your corporate identity is more approachable—and a more approachable business usually leads to more sales and results in increased consumer trust and brand awareness.

2. Video makes potentially boring content interesting. People are lazy; many choose to watch a video over reading a post just because it’s easier to do. By communicating with your target audience through speech and image rather than text, you are making it easier for them to engage with you.

3. Video blogging gives you the opportunity to engage and interact with your audience. Social media is a great tool for businesses to use to constantly remind consumers of your presence and get feedback from your clients.

4. A video blog demonstrates that your company is web-savvy. If the content is engaging and interesting you will always have people watching it. Remember, if you do it right, consumers will share it and promote your brand for you!

5. Video blogs show that your business is keeping up with technology. With the-ever improving internet connections, more people are watching videos online, whenever they want, and from wherever they want, such as their smartphones. Video blogging lets you stay in touch with technology and create something that is accessible to your audience whenever and wherever they want.

Remember: Your content does not have to center around your brand. It can be about anything you think is interesting or you think others will find interesting.
Still not sold on the fact that video blogging is great for your brand? The following stats may change your mind:

• comScore report that in the US, 182 million internet users watched online video content for an average of 23.2 hours per viewer during just one month. That number is predicted to continue rising.
• Marketers used video 81% more they used to and 52% of marketers report to using video with email marketing programs.
• SEOMoz found that posts that contain videos are three times more likely to attract in-linking domains than a plain text post.
• KISSmetric’s blog reported that folks who have viewed a product video are 64% to 85% more likely to purchase the product after watching.

Source MyDailyFix

It’s not a tag line. It’s not a logo.

Branding is just another name for creating a perception.

When marketers ask, “How do we want to brand this product?” what they’re really asking is how they want their audience to think about that product once it comes to market.

A brand is a promise. It’s an expectation of an experience.

The company and tag line and logo and brand colors only exist to call that experience to mind.

Brands can meet that expectation, exceed that expectation … or in the worst cases, fall short of that expectation.

(By the way, the word product can easily be swapped for service, or blog, or newsletter, or any number of things marketers promote. The underlying concepts remain the same.)

Volvo’s name is synonymous with safety, which makes it the quintessential consumer example.

Cisco’s “Human Network” stands out among business-to-business brands.

Cisco makes products that make it possible for people to be connected, no matter how far apart they may be, geographically. ~ Forbes

The Red Cross is a bellwether among nonprofits, with a brand that literally means help is on the way in times of crisis.

The very essence of brands doesn’t lie within your brand colors or site design, even though those are important.

The essence of a brand lies within its meaning. And words have meaning. Words matter.

Volvo’s meaning wasn’t derived from its logo, or even its product design, but by the constant stream of product reviews that published the data on crash tests year-in and year-out.

The brand was built, over time, by third-party validation communicated through third-party content. What other people said about Volvo created the meaning of that brand. The advertising Volvo did just reinforced that meaning.

The rise of user-generated content

Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt, is now famous for having said,

Every two days now we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2003.

As marketers, we try to convince customers and prospects to generate content about our brands. In other words, to talk about us. To create a Volvo-like experience where the meaning of our brand comes from how others perceive us.

How do we inspire people to generate content? To talk about us on Facebook and Twitter, to increase our audience?

Increasingly, we inspire our customers with brand experiences and by publishing our own content.

The uninitiated customer is no more inclined to mention a brand than talk to the shy person tucked quietly in the corner at a cocktail party. If we want our customers to engage us, or our products and services, we have to contribute to the conversation.

Content is currency

Today’s web is an endless 24/7 cycle fed by content and social actions. In this cycle, brands are realizing that content is currency … ~ Bryan Rhoads, global content strategy, Intel

Content is currency — something we trade for our audience’s attention.

That currency becomes more valuable every time it’s shared by someone other than ourselves.

Those shares might be validation. There might be debate. There might be disagreement.

It’s our job to create content worth sharing. How it’s shared isn’t up to us.

If you take a look at this infographic, created by PRWeb, you’ll see an array of content marketing options — each with its own balance of difficulty and value.

Source Copyblogger

The Pew Research Center has released the results of a comprehensive social media survey, conducted over several years to evaluate which demographics were using social media, and on which platforms. Which social networking sites emerged on top?

Of the online adults surveyed at the end of 2012:

• 67% use Facebook
• 20% use LinkedIn
• 16% use Twitter
• 15% use Pinterest
• 13% use Instagram
• 6% use Tumblr

A decent amount of Americans appear to be using social media, but which demographics use social media in greater numbers?

It appears that women use social media 9% more than men do, at a whopping rate of 71%. Other frontrunners with the highest social network activity in their demographic include city dwellers (70%), Hispanics (72%) and adults with a household income below $30,000 annually (72%).

The most pervasive and consistent divider amongst social media users remains, unsurprisingly, their age. 83% of the young adult demographic (18-29 year olds) use social media, which is well over double the activity of online adults over 65 years old (32%).

When it comes to age, social media usage has regularly been divided on a sliding scale, with consistently less social networking activity as age increases. This has been the case since the survey began back in 2005. However, there have been several interesting age changes to note…

• Although 18-29 year olds have always maintained the highest percentage of social media usage, their activity dropped for the first recorded time in December 2012, from 92% to 83%, bringing them lower than their numbers over two years prior.
• The only age range that increased its social networking usage in December 2012 was 30-49 year olds, who increased from 73% to 77% of users.

This could indicate an increasing trend of middle-aged social media users, a number which may continue to expand as the younger generation ages.

Aside from obvious division of age, there are still certain social media sites that attract specific demographics much more heavily than others. You may be able to better target your specific markets by keeping the demographic tendencies of each platform in mind:

• Pinterest: Significantly more rural residents, women, Caucasians, people with some level of college education and individuals with a middle to higher income
• Twitter: Significantly more slanted towards the 18-29 demographic, African-Americans and urban residents
• Instagram: Greater use amongst African-Americans and Hispanics, urban users, 18-29 year olds, and women
• Facebook: There’s less demographic distinction on Facebook, since it’s already so ubiquitous. However, there are 10% more women than men, and like most networking sites, it is heavily used by the youngest adult age group.

Source: Pew Research Center

When it comes to social media the engagement of the search engine has behind the success and have the tricky process to maximize the engagement. There are fourteen different methods are available that will help to boost up the website visibility of your post on the social media as well as consider the overall virality on Facebook application for building the strong relationship between the followers.

• Facebook (1,600,000,000+ users per month) – A place to connect with friends, family and those you never wanted to be friends with in the first place. View people’s photos of their kids, dogs, weddings, and vacations, and comment with raging jealously, pride or other feelings you can’t help but share on a public forum. You also can connect with brands in order to see up-and-coming product launches and events, or take part in brand contests and giveaways.
• YouTube (1,000,000,000+ users per month) – Looking for an important piece of news content or a cat chasing a laser pointer? Welcome to YouTube, one of BLASTmedia’s favorite social platforms. Be sure you’re aware of YouTube’s new format change if you’re wanting to become the latest online meme.
• Twitter (200,000,000+ users per month) - Socialize with people you know… and those you don’t. Luckily all social interactions are limited to 140 characters, which keep messages short, sweet and potentially that less awkward. This medium allows you to be connected to all your favorite celebrities, friends and people you know will provide entertaining content due to the inability to keep things to themselves.
• LinkedIn (160,000,000+ users per month) – Connect with colleagues, friends and those in the business with whom you’d like to see yourself one day. This space is about networking for business. If you are looking for a job, this is the place for you. Plaster your awesomeness and accomplishments and get noticed.
• Google+ (135,000,000+ users per month) - Google’s answer to the almighty Facebook. It works directly via Gmail and allows you to post updates, content and add people to your inner ‘circles’.
• Instagram (90,000,000+ users per month) – Post images of your feet, the wing of an airplane, and other stereotypical photos, then mess with the hue to make it look like an art piece. With Instagram, everyone is a professional photographer. Just be sure you’re well aware of Instagram’s terms of service change or that innocent (yet blatant) photo steal from J. Crew will cost you.
• Pinterest (85,500,000+ users per month) – The audience is predominantly women, and boy do they like to browse! Pinterest boasts thousands of photos in home décor, cooking, weddings, cute animals, and other mind-numbing and time-passing imagery. Place your picks on digital ‘pin boards’ for future viewing. There is even a feature to have secret boards in order to plan future events like a wedding before you are engaged, not that anyone would ever do that… right?
• MySpace (70,500,000+ users per month) – In a time long, long ago there was a single social network known as MySpace. At the beginning MySpace was the ‘it’ social medium… but that was back in the (gasp!) 90’s. Alas, thanks to the financial and social backing from the one and only Justin Timberlake, the MySpace resurgence is alive and well.
• Foursquare (10,000,000+ users per month) – Ever wanted someone to know where you are at all times? Creep factor aside, this app is great for finding specials at restaurants and stores, and finding out which meal is best through friend suggestions via custom tips.

Vine is a new mobile app that lets you create and share short looping videos. Think Instagram but with video. Learn how your brand could use Vine, get some tips and tricks and get vining!

Our friend Tom no longer around – Specific Media Group and Justin Timberlake bought MySpace for 35 million dollars in 2011 – we’re no longer looking at a place where you go to hook up new people. Instead, you’re hooking up with music. Think of it as Pinterest for your ears. The new MySpace is completely music-centric, focusing on connecting fans and artists. Fans can “connect” with songs and use those connections to build playlists and radio stations (ala Pandora) and listen to their collected music in the ever present streaming player on the bottom of the site. Musicians can use MySpace to track where their fans are, what they are listening to and how often.

It’s a pretty, fascinating site. But one has to wonder if it will take hold, given the joke status MySpace has taken in since its popularity waned. Once the place for musicians to exist on the Internet, it faltered and sputtered as twitter and Facebook offered new, better and easier ways to connect with fans. Will MySpace be able to regain the audience it previously had and if it does, will it regain the loyalty necessary for a site to survive where others are already thriving

“[W]ith every obstacle comes an opportunity and I see this, as it speaks to somebody like me, as bridging the gap,” Timberlake said. “It’s just bringing the connection that much closer while still making the artist feel comfortable that they can make their art, lock themselves in a room and torture themselves as they do, and still find a way to comfortably connect with their fan base.”

In other words, the artists can connect with their fans without actually connecting with them. Unlike twitter, the new MySpace is all media, no social. You can “like” things by connecting with them, but there’s no interpersonal relationships here, no bantering between fans and musicians, or even between fans. It’s strictly an exercise in building yet another collection of music to listen to. With Spotify, Rdio, Pandora and Last.fm already doing that, what is going to set MySpace apart from the pack?

But apparently the point of MySpace is that it’s not social.

“You’re not going to see something that’s ‘Myspace 3.0.’ This is not another social network that you have to keep up with and maintain. It’s a totally new experience, one that delivers on three things: Design, discovery, and insights for our community that actually empowers them,” says [owner] Tim Vanderhook. “Overall, what you’re going to see is that design matters. We wanted to deliver something that was visually stunning … and we wanted to give tools to the artist community that really help them.”

Will design be enough? Without the lure of interaction, the novelty of a new, prettier MySpace might wear off. There are some instances where intuitive design would be enough to hook users, but when it comes to making connections, people might want more than the superficial. One of the greatest things about music lies in sharing it and talking about it. There’s no room for that here, so it all comes off as scratching the surface of what could be something spectacular. If you want to just collect music and make playlists, Spotify and Rdio do that well enough already. Unless you’re a Pinterest-type person who just likes to curate, the resurgence of MySpace might very well mean nothing to you.

Source Forbes