Posts tagged LinkedIn
What social media can learn from the Dutch
Apr 27th
The Dutch social networking market continues to grow strongly as sites like Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin extend their respective footprints in the market – but the global players are still battling for number one.
Having over 600 million active users across the globe won’t sway Dutch loyalty in the digital space it seems.
According to comScore, the social networking market in the Netherlands is really quite unique and full of interesting storylines…
Mike Read, senior vice president and managing director of comScore Europe, said, “It is one of the few markets remaining where a local social networking player (Hyves) continues to lead over Facebook.”
Although, that lead is becoming increasingly tenuous. Another interesting facet to the Dutch market is that the Netherlands has the highest internet penetration worldwide for two of the other key global social networking sites, Twitter and Linkedin.
“The Netherlands is in many ways a nexus of global social networking behaviour,” said Read.
But despite the overall maturity of the internet market in the Netherlands, the social networking category continues to advance, growing 18% to 11.5 million visitors in March 2011 (representing 96% of the online population).
Hyves continues to hold the top position among social networking sites in the market with more than 7.6 million visitors in March, but Facebook is quickly gaining ground, surging 76% in the past year to nearly 6.6 million visitors.
Twitter.com and Linkedin.com rank third and fourth, respectively, with more than 3 million visitors and each growing approximately 70% in the past year.
Lastly, more than one in four Dutch internet users visits social media sites during the course of the month. While the top ten countries in Linkedin penetration are either English-speaking or in Western Europe, the top countries for Twitter touch virtually every corner of the globe.
LinkedIn playing catch up in the background
Oct 20th
Professional business networking site LinkedIn may not always make the headlines, but the site continues to prove its value.
LinkedIn users can now customise their profiles with five new profile sections: publications, languages, skills, certifications, and patents. If you just click on “Add Sections” on you “Edit Profile” page, you can see the whole list of available options.
LinkedIn’s Aaron Bronzan said, “If you are an author, academic professional, or a researcher, your body of publications helps define you as a professional. With the Publications section, you can add your published work to your profile.”
Professionals with language fluency can also indicate their expertise with the Languages section.
With patents, users can show patents that they have been granted, as well as those that are pending.
Also, last week, LinkedIn opened up LinkedIn Labs, which spotlights other LinkedIn features and tools that haven’t been released to the public.
With the launch, Linked shared NewIn 2.0, a real-time view of people joining LinkedIn, which utilises Google Earth, and ChromeIn, which lets you view LinkedIn network updates from Chrome.
Why businesses should not ignore the power of touch-screen web surfing
Jul 6th
Two thirds of UK businesses have no idea how their websites function on touch-screen devices such as the iPad and iPhone, according to a new LinkedIn poll.
Commissioned by user experience specialists Foresite, the poll reveals that of the 103 UK company directors who answered the survey, fewer than a third (32%) had tested if or how their websites worked on the devices.
Not only is it important to see how a company’s website appears and how the brand is represented, but businesses must know what ads on their site look like and make sure they are functioning.
With more than 3 million people across the globe holding onto an iPad already and with more than 1 million iPhone 4’s sold in the first few weeks, touch-screen devices are a market that is rapidly expanding and anyone who is online must keep up.
Last week, I was the lucky winner of a three month unlimited ‘buy one get one free’ pass to a particular brand of cinema complex. I immediately looked that cinema chain up on my iPad, which was on the coffee table (I didn’t want to walk to the study to get my laptop of course).
I typed in the cinema’s name and the website immediately popped up. A good start, but then I could not click on anything or navigate around the site. Instead of going to see a movie on Sunday (and spend a a couple of tenners at the candy bar) I didn’t know what was on so I decided to stay home and watch the Long Way Down on DVD.
I’ve had similar experiences with supermarket brands and banks – this is not good news for online business. Read the rest of this entry »
Everything marketers need to know about the social media landscape
Mar 12th
Are you tired of wondering what this ‘social media’ thing is all about?
Do you want to know how it can help you?
Well wonder no more! Created for CMO.com by client 97th Floor, a new chart promises to guide you through the choppy and unsure waters of social networks and how to create social media strategy!
Yes that is reading like an infomercial on purpose – because frankly, there’s no excuse any more to avoid using social media.
The Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, won Cannes’ Media Person of the Year this week, Twitter launched an ad platform and MySpace announced a major site overhaul. So there’s never been a better time to understand social media and how it can work for you (and your client).
The CMO’s guide to the social landscape, takes all the major social media sites in the US and analyzes their capabilities in four sectors: customer communication, brand exposure, driving traffic to your site, and SEOs.
For the full social media ‘cheat sheet’ click here
More businesses are finally turning to social media
Mar 2nd
Improving the digital effort for ‘business’ brands means turning to social media to hear directly from customers.
Businesses are increasingly using social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter in their online marketing strategies to market and advertise their products and services.
The 2009 Social Media Survey Report from Econsultancy and bigmouthmedia showed that 64% of companies surveyed had experimented with social media and 26% are heavily involved.
Just 10% of respondents were not using any type of social media at all, despite finding that social media can improve customer engagement – according to 73% of respondents.
Businesses are finally seeing the benefits arising from what is being dubbed as a ‘new-age’ approach.
Use of social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and blogs are also being incorporated into more and more public relations strategies used by many small businesses to attract new customers.
Israr Sarwar, operations director at internet marketing agency Adrac, said: “The Adrac team realised the potential of social media in the early stages of the concept. Engaging with social target groups during business and product development can allow companies to robustly test and operate new technologies with a constant stream of ideas and feedback.
“Direct response and brand building campaigns have been successfully executed through the use of this subtle approach to advertising that doesn’t intimidate the user, but acts more as an introduction service.”
The popularity of social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook means businesses have an easy way in to get there brands and products out there while engaging with customers and hopefully attracting new ones.
However, it’s not always an easy step for everyone to take so here are some tips from social media experts Mashable:
Step 1: Build a reputation of expertise
If a potential customer comes to your company’s website and sees an active blog with insightful posts on how your company’s product helps customers, reads detailed posts demonstrating your company’s knowledge, and comes across a few case studies, they’re going to be far more inclined to come to you for their needs. Social media provides an outlet for displaying who you and your company are. Talking about your industry in an intelligent way via Twitter and a regularly-updated blog can raise your company’s profile and brand it as a thought leader and expert in its specific business area.
Step 2: Research your customers
Everyone thinks of social media as a communication tool, but not enough people think of it as a research tool. With the ridiculous amount of data produced every day on social networks, blogs, and in conversations, it should be apparent that you can learn tidbits or spot major trends by tracking the social universe. Know what your customers are saying and track industry trends.
Step 3: Ramp up your networking
If you are competing with another company to land a big deal, it always helps to have connections and friendships within the company you’re trying to woo. You should always be networking, because you never know when a contact can become your advocate or even the decision-maker. And that’s where social media can help. There are a lot of things you can do to get started on the networking front. They key, though, is that you have to reach out.
Step 4: Learn from others
In the end, you want to come out sharper, more knowledgeable, and better prepared than your competitors. It doesn’t matter if you have 60 or 600,000 customers, and it does not matter whether or not you sell to general consumers or Fortune 500 companies. Almost everyone is using or tracking social media and it provides you a prime opportunity to make you and your business a leader rather than a follower.
- Seek out blogs and publications in your industry and subscribe via RSS
- Network with relevant experts, including those who may only be partially related
- Follow the insights of business leaders on Twitter
- Connect with those who comment on your own blog
- Make yourself very easy to find on the web – if people search for your name or your business, you should be at the top of Google’s results. Building a blog, using a Twitter, and creating a decent corporate website always helps
- Keep an open mind.
LinkedIn and Twitter go together like peanut butter and chocolate, says Stone
Nov 11th
Business and professional networking site LinkedIn has linked with Twitter in a partnership that will allow the two to cross-file to each other’s services by checking a box on either site.
Allen Blue, a co-founder of Twitter who is its vice president of product strategy, said LinkedIn members would be able to automatically repost recent Twitter messages if they wanted.
When LinkedIn users set their status on LinkedIn, they can now tweet it as well, amplifying it to all of their followers and real-time search services like Twitter Search and Bing. And when users tweet, they can send that message to their LinkedIn connections as well, from any Twitter service or tool.
LinkedIn members can also chose to post certain tweets on their LinkedIn profiles, so an executive can separate tweets about lunch from important product announcements.
Blue added that users will have the option of sending only selected materials to Twitter.
In addition to the obvious advantage of increasing the audience for either tweets or LinkedIn information there were two other advantages to the new system.
Twitter “wants to take advantage of the strong identity in LinkedIn to make those professional tweeters more successful”.
LinkedIn and Twitter said they would roll out the new services “gradually over the next couple of days.”
In an online video with LinkedIn chairman and co-founder Reid Hoffman, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said the partnership was like “bringing peanut butter and the chocolate together to make the perfect combination.”
But more than just creating a virtual Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, the deal hints at Twitter’s future business strategy, especially with more companies discovering how social networking is evolving into an important communications link for employees and customers.
“It is the integration of the business side of the tweets and Twitter with the business ecosystem of LinkedIn that make the two work together,” Hoffman said in the video.
“The business use case of Twitter is turning out to be very important,” Stone said. He also spoke about “putting a little Twitter in everything.”
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