Posts Tagged “LinkedIn”

Over the last few months I’ve seen a significant decrease in LinkedIn connection requests and a corresponding increase in Facebook friends.  It seems that Generation X is waking up to Facebook and may start nibbling on LinkedIn’s user base.  While these two sites serve very different purposes, they are still fighting for my online attention.

Here are some of ways I believe LinkedIn can update their site to become a more integrated part of my online life:

1. Make it easier to “friend” someone – I don’t know how many times I’ve had to go fishing through Outlook for  an email address to friend I know really well like my sister-in-law.

2. Better integration with other sites – Lifestreaming is coming to a laptop near you (See FriendFeed, Socialthing, etc) .  LinkedIn could take a lesson from Plaxo on how to connect with people’s lives.  It would be nice if I could easily import my blog posts, photos and other content into my LinkedIn profile.

3. Standardize status updates – Their 98 character status update is pretty short for people familiar with Facebook and Twitter.  It is also challenge to use a third party site like Hellotxt or PingFM to push your oversharing to LinkedIn.

4. Encourage greater use of their API – Much of the success of sites like Twitter can be attributed to the third-party applications that use the API to pull and add value to live data.

5. Better RSS feeds -It is nice to have LinkedIn feeds at all.  I can, however, imagine an infinite number of permutations for RSS feeds by company, region and education.

LinkedIn will continue to be a key part of the social media ecosystem.  I just wish it were more connected.  That is the point ofsocial media after after all?

…your mother dresses you funny.

That was a common insult when I was about 8 years old.  These days I take solace in the fact that I did find a loving wife years ago and my mother doesn’t dress me anymore.  The middle part of that statement, however, hits a little closer to home.  When I started this inane trek, I figured someone would find me on these site.  I do have some “real” friends after all (238 on LinkedIn, 104 on Twitter and 61on Facebook to be exact). So what is the deal?  Despite a recent outpouring of moral support, over the last two weeks I’ve had fewer than 5 friend requests from places beyond these core three sites and most were in the form of invitations (thank yous to Dan Shugrue and Chuck Burt for the help).

So how can you help Sir Slice overcome the sour quacking forces of evil?  There are three ways:

1.  Keep those suggestions coming.  Feel free to post them to my blog as comments, message me on one of the sites or resort to boring old email.  I am flexible (even though one former disgruntled PR manager once said I couldn’t manage my way out of a wet paper bag).

2. Add me as a friend.  I’m getting lonely and joining dating sites would certainly cause some marital strife.  Ideally, I’d like to see more friends from sites other than FB, Twitter or LinkedIn.

3. Make a donation to my Firstgiving online fundraising page.  I am raising money for the Brackett School PTO, the official charity of the Slice Family.  This money supports cultural enrichment programs for middle class kids in Arlington.  Basically, because of prop 2 1/2 these schools have no money to teach kids about things like Jazz, poetry and opera.  I’ve committed to $1 for each site I sign up for with a goal of 100. I plan to beat that number with all the recent incoming suggestions.  If this is entertaining, whip out that Visa card and drop in $10 or $20. Its pretty easy and its tax deductible.

I have a bunch of new sites to highlight but they’ll have wait until tomorrow.

Thanks again and be my friend, please…

It has been over two years since I last searched for a PR agency in Boston and a lot has changed since then. With all the new social media channels exploding we needed to find an organization with proven Web 2.0 chops to support Firstgiving (an online community that connects people with the causes important to them).

Before I started building my Web 2.0 PR agency short list, I put together a plan for outreach:

1. They must possess tangible Web 2.0 experience. This is more than understanding how to optimize a press release for organic search. This means current clients in the Web 2.0 space with funny sounding names and real success stories.

2. They need to be active in multiple online communities. How many Twitter followers do they have? How many Facebook Friends or LinkedIn Links do they have? How active are they in these communities?

3. How connected are they with me? I have over 200 Linked contacts in Boston so I wanted to find someone with mutual friends for vetting purposes.

4. Talk with my CMO friends for recommendations.

5. Remove “old school” firms I have worked with in the past or I know their “reputation”.

My process started with some simple research by Googling things like “Web 2.0 PR in Boston”. After that I reached out to each of them through a social media channel. Bonus points for quick replies through site to set-up initial calls.

So, who made the short list? Stay tuned…

It is hard to ignore LinkedIn and its 10 million-plus users. It seems like a day doesn’t pass without an old college classmate, former coworker or late night business school study group partner reconnecting via LinkedIn.

http://www.linkedin.com/static?key=press_releases_041107

What I like about LinkedIn:

1. Easy access to vCards for the most important nodes of my professional network. I can forget about Outlook Contacts when I have a virtual repository that is always up-to-date. (What happened to Plaxo?)
2. “Who has viewed your profile” – Despite the uncertainty of who exactly viewed my profile, I am always curious about why the random person from random company is “checking me out”. Many times it is the precursor to an invitation from that long lost friend or colleague.
3. “People you may know” – I marvel at the their power to predict people who I already may know. They range from a roommate of my Marketing Analyst to a candidate I interviewed six months ago. In the end, I can see how the more nodes in the network make it a more powerful tool. This is also a creative way to get me to link with additional people.

LinkedIn proves social media can work in the B2B world. If history repeats itself, we’ll see many more innovative sites like LinkedIn that capture the attention of millions of career-oriented B2B types.

Any site that you like?