Facebook Takes a Swing at LinkedIn
Jan 19th
Facebook is creeping into every nook and cranny of our personal online experiences so it’s no surprise they’re taking a crack at the professional market. My friend Brad Lovett has been looking at this issue and offers this insightful guest post:
Looks like Facebook is taking a whack at LinkedIn. Let’s take a look at the opportunities for networkers and social media marketers with this new business networking innovation called BranchOut.
Linked-In has stood alone as a professional and business social networking site. With 90 million business-minded members, it’s a no-nonsense place, where you generally won’t read about what someone had for breakfast, or little Jimmy’s sniffles. This is a world of professional profiles, resumes and career-related discussions, as well as 600,000 groups for virtually every industry.
Facebook for business?
With the launch of BranchOut, Facebook is giving LinkedIn a punch in the chops. BranchOut is an app that piggybacks on Facebook’s existing structure, just like Farmville and other independent add-ons. But BranchOut is no kiddie game — it’s all business. You can install the app, create a professional profile, and start “building your empire” without affecting your normal everyday Facebook page (though it will post content on your wall).
Everyone’s favorite thing to do is create yet another social media profile, right? BranchOut soothes the pain. If you have a LinkedIn profile, you don’t have to create a new one for BranchOut. One click allows you to import your LinkedIn profile. No muss, no fuss, no tweaking. Of course you can edit your profile once you have imported it from LinkedIn. Your Facebook profile headshot will appear, but you can easily replace that.
Once you’ve signed up, BranchOut gathers the workplace data from user Facebook pages. You’ll be able to invite friends to BranchOut, and write a quick blurb to endorse or recommend them, as well as ask for endorsements from your friends. It’s a little easier to get someone to write one line for you than a longer LinkedIn recommendation … plus those one-liners are great to place on a job-seeking or business website. There’s also a function which allows searching for job postings (free for 30 days).
A company search allows you to find connections who work at a specific company. Like LinkedIn, BranchOut will illustrate how many extended connections you have, but will also award virtual ribbons based on your number of connections. Kind of like being the mayor of your Rolodex I guess.
Feedback from early adopters
As you might imagine, this innovation has caused quite a stir among recruiting professionals eager to get a bead on 600 million sales leads!
To get a more practical view, I asked a couple of friends to take a dry run of BranchOut and tell me what they thought. My invitation led to an interesting conversation on my Facebook wall between Chris Theisen, Director of Digital Communications at Hare Auto Group in Indianapolis, and Jennifer Baty, who is a Wealth Management Analyst and Financial Planning/ Investment Manager in transition.
Chris remarked that many people don’t like the fact that BranchOut posts to users walls, though he personally doesn’t mind it. Chris uses his personal Facebook page primarily for family, friends and fun stuff, but he does have business contacts on Facebook.
Jennifer prefers to keep the line drawn between her personal and professional life and doesn’t think much of the service: “That professional line is blurred online these days. Granted, a lot of my friends are in some sort of marketing but people do business with people they like.”
“I like reading about the trials and victories of my friend’s job search, their rants and vents about their co-workers, or their “Woot! I just got a raise.” Anything else that’s industry-specific or too corporate, I really could care less. If I want to read those kinds of updates, I put on my career hat and head over to LinkedIn or Twitter.”
Fake posts?
John Bottom, a frequent contributor to the {grow} community also posted his feedback, noting that the site automatically posts information about you — as if the information was written by you. “It’s bloody annoying when social media networks automatically post information ‘as if’ it is coming from you,” John wrote. “Can you imagine a company doing this in real life?”
Well this is real life, albeit a strange one. BranchOut is nowhere near ready for a serious challenge to the entrenched LinkedIn, but keep an eye on it. You can’t automatically dismiss any new network attached to the Facebook juggernaut.
Brad Lovett has had a long career in radio and television, and now is immersed in the wonderful world of social media. Brad is a graduate of Mark’s social media marketing class and is actively seeking opportunities to put his integrated social and traditional media knowledge to work. Read Brad’s blog and follow him on Twitter!
A lesson from LinkedIn: Crowdsourcing your education
Oct 28th
Check this LinkedIn screen capture out. Isn’t that cool? Makes me think … maybe there is some value to this social networking stuff after all. : )
Creating a content marketing plan — without any content
Jul 6th
When somebody talks about “content marketing,” they’re really talking about “content engineering” — scientifically optimizing documents such as blogs, case studies and white papers to create search engine results and sales leads.
This can be an extremely complicated, time-consuming and expensive proposition! So I started thinking about this in the context of my friends and small business customers who simply can’t afford that kind of effort. It led to this idea: micro-content, or marketing content when you don’t have time to produce content!
Let’s examine ideas about micro-content that even a time-starved business owner should be able to master in 15 minutes a day …
Preparation
Like any marketing initiative, you must have a firm idea of your strategy, selling points and target audience. Spend time thinking through a set of keywords that represent your business and your customer needs. You’ll need to weave these keywords into your micro-content.
LinkedIn forums
If you’re like most people, you have a profile on LinkedIn and haven’t done much with it. This platform is a goldmine of opportunity to create micro-content!
There are about 600,000 groups on LinkedIn covering every imaginable business interest. You’re sure to find one with like-minded people who might be interested in you. If you are in a very specialized field, consider starting your own special interest group. Make sure you use relevant keywords in the title of the group so people can find you.
Look for some Q&A sessions within relevant groups and get involved. Simply answering questions is providing meaningful content that can attract attention to you and your website. I’ve personally made some fantastic connections and acquired my two most profitable customers just by answering questions in LinkedIn Group Forums.
Make sure your LinkedIn profile is complete and helpful so people can learn about you. In the “specialties” section of your profile, list your keywords!
This is the ultimate site for making connections through micro-content. In this separate post, I’ve provided some helpful ideas on building a targeted audience through Twitter. It makes no sense to work on micro-content on Twitter if you have nobody listening! Here is a suggested micro-content regimen if you’re just starting to tweet.
1) Create a habit of sharing — When you read something that interests you, share it on Twitter. It takes but a moment.
2) Leverage your network — If you’ve surrounded yourself with interesting people, they’re providing great content. When you find something great, re-tweet it! You don;t have to generate everything yourself.
3) Try following the “3 x 3 x 3 rule” — If you’re new and trying to figure what to do, tweet three times a day, at three different times of the day, on three different subjects: a) interesting non-work-related information you saw, heard or read; b) news related to your business, market or industry (use keywords), and c) your opinion on an item in the news or something funny. Pass on links and snip your URL’s!
Remember that micro-content is still supposed to do the job of big content — drive people to action on your website. Of course you need to include your website in your profile and use your keywords in your bio.
Comments
Commenting on relevant blog posts, videos, and Facebook pages is a quick and easy way to deliver micro-content that links to your website. Here are some examples:
- A small business owner I know commented on a magazine’s Facebook site and was invited to send her product to the editor for coverage.
- Adding your comment to relevant YouTube viral videos can create impressions with thousands of people who are interested in a related topic.
- My comment on a popular blog post contained a link to my website which is still receiving hits nine months after I posted the comment. That’s not unusual since posts on popular topics can have a long “shelf life.”
- Comments on my blog have resulted in new business partnerships, guest blogs, and freelance assignments for my readers.
I find that comments can carry even more impact when they’re “micro.” People will read a few sentences, but probably scan a few paragraphs.
Re-purposing micro-content
There are so many great benefits to blogging but this is usually the place time-starved marketers stumble. Think about re-purposing your micro-content on your website as a blog, even if it only happens once a month:
- Cut and paste answers you’ve already provided on LinkedIn and blog comments as new, unique posts.
- Start a blog post with, “I found this interesting article on Twitter …” and share the great content on one of your tweets.
- Share a relevant article, video or blog post from a trade publication and simply write a few sentences commenting on it.
In summary …
These are just a few of the ways you can effectively network on the social web with a “sprinkle” of content instead of a flood. Obviously there are hundred of other ideas I’m sure you can share with the community but this is at least a start that a small business owner can work on 15 minutes a day.
LinkedIn: A goldmine of business opportunity
Feb 3rd
This is the third and final (for now) personal case study on how the social web delivers unexpected business benefits. This story features LinkedIn, a powerhouse generator of business connections.
Making connections
I’ve made some of my best business contacts through LinkedIn Group Q&A forums. One example is my relationship with Dr. Ben Hanna, now VP of Dex Interactive. In a casual response to one of my answers in a forum, he mentioned that he was documenting his company’s progress on social media marketing month by month. I thought this was fascinating and asked if I could feature him on {grow}. This led to a number of articles which remain some of the most popular posts I’ve done. Ben and I have continued to support each other on various web-related projects.
Human Resources 2.0
Second example of a business benefit: One of my customers was looking to hire a new technician with highly specialized skills. I suggested doing an advanced search on LinkedIn using the zip code (to narrow the location) and keywords indicating the skill set. He followed my advice, identified three viable candidates and he just hired one of them. I helped my customer with an important personnel issue in one 60-second phone call!
New customers
Another example led to a direct business opportunity. An account executive from GIS Planning read some of my answers on a LinkedIn Group Forum and became curious enough to click my icon, which took her to my website … which took her to my Twitter account … and my blog. Of course I had not connected to her directly at this point but that was about to change.
After a couple of months, she called me up out of the blue: “Mr. Schaefer, I’ve been reading your comments on LinkedIn, Twitter and your blog and I’m convinced you are the voice of marketing we need for or company. Can you take on a new account?”
Well, THAT was a nice surprise!
This led to subsequent phone calls with her executive leadership and it resulted in a business partnership with GIS Planning, an amazing company that produces software for economic development institutions. It pulled me into a whole new industry and allowed me to learn from some wonderful marketing pros. And, it has helped my bottom line, which is what this is all about, right?
So let’s see how this real-world experience relates to my formula for creating business benefits on the social web:
Connections + Meaningful content + Authentic helpfulness = Business benefits
- By being active on LinkedIn forums, I was building important new business connections. In the GIS case, I didn’t even realize it.
- The content Ben Hanna provided spurred dialogue and cooperation between us. Meaningful content in the form of LinkedIn Group answers provided enough value for GIS to take action to learn more about me. Meaningful content comes in many forms!
- When I was participating in the forums, I was genuinely offering help with no intent that I would get anything out of it. Similarly, I enjoy supporting Ben’s projects becuase I always learn something and I truly believe in his vision.
I believe this formula represents the core value of the social web — providing an opportunity to use your life’s blessings to connect to others in a meaningful way. We are living in a historic moment. We are the first generation to have access to free, instantaneous, global communication. If you use this gift well, the benefits can be astounding.
Don’t you agree?
This is the third installment of the unexpected benefits of the social web. You might enjoy these other articles:
Part 1: How to become a CMO in 10 tweets or less
Part 2: On Twitter, even casual connections can lead to business benefits
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