By Dan Nye, CEO of LinkedIn

 

• There are over 145,000 CEOs on LinkedIn
• Executives from all 500 of the Fortune 500 companies are on LinkedIn
• CEO’s on LinkedIn have an average of 28 connections

 

What are CEOs getting from LinkedIn? More effective hires, more efficient sales, and better use

of their networks. Why? Because LinkedIn makes it easier to manage relationships. You can check out prospective partners, find experts, close sales, identify potential employees, contact media, and research competitors—and spend less time doing it. You control who sees your connections, your questions, your experience. Here are seven tasks LinkedIn helps you do better:

 

1.)    Help your team - You have a great network already, but it’s your network. LinkedIn puts your network to work for your whole team, when you and your team members connect with each other. Suppose one of your salespeople is calling on a new prospect. She searches for the company on LinkedIn and sees that one of your connections knows the VP of purchasing. She can leverage the trust of that connection to build her relationship with the customer. Net result: You accelerate your business.

2.)    Vet the demands for your time - Someone wants to meet with you to pitch a service. A group wants you to speak at an event. Is that person or group relevant to your needs? Legitimate? A good contact for you? LinkedIn makes it easy to check them out before committing. A quick search reveals anyone you know in common, gives you a capsule impression, and helps you allocate that valuable time.

3.)    Hire smarter - Looking for new talent? The best people aren’t looking; they’re already employed. So your best hires come from referrals—from people you and your employees trust. With LinkedIn you can leverage your employees’ networks to find more talent. After all, great people know other great people.

4.)    Check references with one click - The best time to check out potential hires is before you meet them. Do it afterwards and the tendency is to use references to validate the decision process. Validate the pool of applicants instead, before they jump in—with one click on a LinkedIn profile. Case in point: LinkedIn ran 23 blind reference checks on me, just by searching for people who had worked at my previous companies. By the way, reference checking also comes in handy when you’re considering an acquisition.

5.)    Find and reach experts fast - LinkedIn is a rich directory of experts that you can tap into when you’re looking for a critical skill set or need to perform market research. By using the advanced search page you can find a specialist on almost every topic, industry or company. LinkedIn’s inMail messaging system allows you to reach out to them directly.

6.)    Gather competitive intelligence - Contacting former employees of a company is a great way to conduct competitive research. Perform an advanced search for company name and uncheck the “Current Companies Only” box to find people who used to work at a company. This is also a good way of recruiting employees with experience at particular companies.

7.)    Gain insight - Use LinkedIn Questions to take solicit input and gain perspective from your connections or from the broader LinkedIn community. Learn how others approach new markets, revamp processes, and resolve problems. Find funding. Question industry experts. Draw on the collective knowledge of your trusted connections—and their connections.

 

Make your network work harder on LinkedIn, where networking isn’t just about who you know.

Tapping into who your connections know gives you greater access to talent, greater reach into your industry—and greater trust in the results.

 

The above article was written by Dan Nye, CEO of LinkedIn.com, it can be found on page 38 of the “Help” section or Click here to Download PDF.

Michael Stelzner put together an informative white paper called the Social Media Marketing Industry Report. In his reporting he surveyed nearly 900 marketers for their insights into Social Media. This white paper offers some great statistics on how marketers are using social media. A set back to the data is 70% of the people taking the survey were small business owners (2-100 employees) and I think this has a great impact the results. In my opinion, most of the information in the report is what we would expect to see, but it is really great that someone took the step to formulate it for us.

Below are a few Highlights from the report:

• The top benefit of social media marketing: The number-one advantage is generating exposure for the business, indicated 81% of all marketers, followed by increasing traffic and building new business partnerships.
• The top social media tools: Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn and Facebook were the top four social media tools used by marketers, in that order.
• The number-one benefit of social media marketing is gaining the all-important eyeball. A significant 81% of all marketers indicated that their social media efforts have generated exposure for their businesses. Improving traffic and growing lists was the second major benefit, followed by building new partnerships.
• Nearly all marketers spending 6+ hours a week on social media marketing found exceptionally positive results.
• Sole proprietors were more likely than others to see reductions in marketing costs when using social media marketing.
• Improved search engine rankings were most prevalent among those who’ve been using social media for years, with nearly 80% reporting a rise (and most reporting a strong improvement).
• We asked marketers which social media tools they most want to learn more about. Social bookmarking sites slightly edged out Twitter for the number-one slot.

Top three questions marketers want answered: I have provided a quick and simple answer to the top three questions. I’d love to hear you comments and insights on these questions as well.

(1) What are the best tactics to use?
(A) Key tactics to successfully market yourself, product or company through the use of social media platforms.
- Branding
- Messaging
- Sharing
- Networking
- Promote
For more information take a look at 7 Social Media Tools to Successfully Market your Business

(2) How to do I measure the effectiveness of social media?
(A) The answer on how to measure the effectiveness of your social media really depends on your outcome, but a few quick simple ways to measure are listed below.
- Increased web traffic
- Increased followers
- Better search engine ranking
- WOM – Word of Mouth –How much chatter have you created?
- Email subscribers

(3) Where do I start?
(A) Check out the “Where to Begin”section in 7 Social Media Tools to Successfully Market your Business

I’d love to hear your comments on what you thought about the report and your key insights to the answers above. Have an amazing day!

As you may already know I had the extraordinary opportunity of having Kara and her 8 year old daughter Avery Houchins come and live with me for a brief time. It was an inspiring time for all of us. Not only was Avery one of the inspirations for my passion, my children’s book, but we also discovered her passion, song writing.

 

Avery worked very hard at completing this song, but overall it came so naturally to her it amazed both her mom and I. If you listen to the lyrics they are very mature for her age and can be translated into any situation. She wrote the song for her beloved father Matt, it’s called FIND YOU.

 

FIND YOU

Written and performed by Avery Houchins

 

I was riding home with the stereo on low

I was all alone without you to hold

I went to my room trying not to think about you

 

but it was so hard, it was so hard

I had to find you

I had to find you yeah

and hopefully you are trying to find me too yeah yeah yeah

 

I was riding home with the stereo on low

I was all alone without you to hold

My mind was so stuck to you

 

but it was so hard, it was so hard

I had to find you

I had to find you yeah

and hopefully you are trying to find me too yeah yeah yeah

 

I cant help the way I feel inside

It was so hard makes me wanna run and hide

I tried to get you out of my head

 

but it was so hard, it was so hard

I had to find you

I got to find you

And hopefully you are trying to find me too yeah, yeah, yeah

 

I was riding home with the stereo on low

I was all alone without you to hold

you were running through my head

while I was laying in bed

 

but it was so hard, it was so hard

I had to find you

I got to find you

And hopefully you are trying to find me too yeah, yeah, yeah

Copyright ©2008 Avery Houchins

 

With the help of some amazing friends, Thomas Mair, Mark Tra and Colleen Day we were able to finish the song and add some music to it and share it with you today. Colleen’s passion is music and her main goal is to help kids with creating their music by making individualized songs or tracks for them. She also offers informal vocal exercises for children in a fun, encouraging atmosphere.

 

I strongly urge all of you to help a child find their passion. Discover their natural abilities and help them to blossom. Our children are our future leaders, song writer and bosses. I think this song says it all.

 

GREATEST LOVE OF ALL

written by Michael Masser and Linda Creed, performed by Whitney Houston.

I believe that children are our future
Teach them well and let them lead the way
Show them all the beauty they possess inside
Give them a sense of pride to make it easier
Let the children’s laughter remind us how we used to be

Everybody’s searching for a hero
People need someone to look up to…

Be that someone they can look up to. Be the hero they need. Show them the beauty of the world and inspire them to find their passion.

My Outcome: To globally inspire and contribute to the children of the world by promoting and raise money for organizations specializing in the education of children and teaching children how to have a successful and fulfilled life.

My Story: I was writing a book for adults on the valuable life lessons I have experienced in my life. Lessons that I wished I had known as a child. What came to be is a beautiful book for parent and children to read together. A book for all ages.

My Gift: (Click Here) to read the entire book. (Click on “bookstore”, then on the image of the book. A page will pop up and you can flip the pages using the top right hand corner.) Order a copy and 50% of the proceeds will go to support King Chavez Public Schools!

My Dream: My dream is to create a new version of the book to help raise money for Schools and Non-profits in San Diego County. I would like to print 100,000 books where schools and non-profits can utilize to raise funds, keeping 100% of the proceeds! In order to do this I need sponsors for the book. Sponsors who are looking to reach this highly targeted demographic and have their brand uniquely incorporated into the book. Together we can raise in essence $2 million dollars for San Diego County, spread an empowering message to children and help businesses reach their audience in a unique and different way!

Make it an outstanding day!

Holly Reville

Feel free to also connect with me on

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/hollyreville

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/hollyreville

Copyright ©2009 Holly Reville