Archive for March, 2012
Share Cool Groups with Your Connections
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Some LinkedIn groups are so good (a.k.a. “cool”) you want to share them with some or all of your connections. You can do this in a number of ways, but the simplest way is to use the LinkedIn Share group option.
Select the group you want to share. Then click on the Share group option, which you will find toward the top of the page on the right hand side.
When you open this dialogue box this is what you will see (of course the group you selected will replace the Social Media for SMB Group heading).
As you can quickly see this screen allows you to post an update, which is valuable, but not our focus. It also provides a check box, which will allow you to post the name of the group you want to share to other groups, again not our current focus.
The last check box gives you the option of sending an invitation to one or more (up to 50) of your connections. Check that box and this is what you’ll see.
Type the first letter of the name of the people you want to send the invitation to and LinkedIn will supply a list of the contacts whose name begins with that letter. Add then to your send list.
Then do one more thing – personalize the message. You don’t have to write a long letter, in fact, a short one is better, but personalizing the message speaks volumes to people about how important they are and how important your message is to you.
Now you can share the groups you like and find useful with the people you think can benefit most from your discoveries!
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Sampling and Panel Recruitment Do You Care?
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Apparently many people do care about how panel recruitment affects sample development and with good reason.
Results from a poll posted on LinkedIn demonstrate that this is a serious issue. The question posed was:
“When you select a sample provider, how much importance do you place on their panel recruitment process?” Is it:
While the results derived are from a sample of convenience and hardly scientific, they are nevertheless instructional. So what did the 98 people who took time to participate tell us?
If you are a panel provider and you didn’t already know that recruitment practices play a deciding factor, it surely would be obvious now, with nearly seven out of ten (71%) prospective buyers voting “very and extremely” important.
Women are more likely to view recruitment as very or extremely important (72%) than men (64%) are. Differences by age were interesting. There was a very small portion of the sample (5%) in the 30-36 age group and they accounted for only 2% one of participants who voted “extremely important.” The 45+ age cohort, which was the largest age group in the sample, also had the highest proportion of votes in the extremely important and very important categories (68%). Perhaps it’s true that with age comes wisdom!
What can we learn from examining the results of this poll? I think the message is straightforward; overall this simple polling question seems to have hit a nerve. We believe that sample development is one of the cornerstones of good research.
Market research is not an academic exercise. Real business decisions are made, or at least influenced, by the results of the research we conduct – how can you make a good business decision if the sample is faulty? Simply put, you can’t.
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The Secret to Being Retweeted
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Most of us would like to expand our sphere of influence or at least be noticed. If you have a Twitter account one of the ways you increase your sphere of influence is to have a growing number of followers. However, a more immediate way to have your voice heard by a new and sometimes large group of people who have tuned into Twitter is the RT. That is, your voice is heard by new people when someone sends your tweet to their followers or retweets (RT) your tweet.
When this happens the new group of Twitter readers are exposed to you and your message. The hope is they will become interested enough in you to follow you – thereby increasing your sphere of influence. If this is one of your objectives allow me to suggest a tried an true approach that is also easy to do.
Enter the “Quote.”
The use of a quote as a micro-blog post is very effective. It seems nearly everyone loves a good quote and when they read one they like to share it or in this case RT it. If you find quotes that relate to you and/or your Twitter “theme” than you may grab the attention of new and interesting people.
The quotes you select will suggest something about you and your interests, beliefs, or philosophical point of view. So carefully select the ideas with which you want to be associated.
Here is a quote I like and that I think defines how I see the world:
“It’s amazing how much you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit.” Abraham Lincoln.
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The Pinterest Phenomena
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I think it’s fair to call Pinterest a phenomena given the short time it has taken them to go from start up to tipping point to critical mass. This networking platform has achieved remarkable success and as comScore reports, Pinterest has attracted nearly 12 million unique visitors in the month of January. There are already numerous articles and blog posts about this new network which began in May of 2010, less than 2 years ago – now that’s a phenomena!
What sets Pinterest apart is its visual nature and with approximately 10 million members (and growing) it is not surprising companies want visibility for their brands on this site. Interesting content has gone viral more then once on Pinterest – what company would not want that to happen to them?
No other networking site has focused purely on the visual, which is a perfect fit for a company’s logo-brand building campaign. Pinterest has already gained the interest of and some very aggressive practices from well know brands. Companies are trying hard to use Pinterest as a venue to expose users to brand messages using the uniquely visual approach.
However, Pinterest is facing some issues. The interface is not as robust as some would like it especially regarding links to other sites like Twitter. Perhaps more importantly Pinterest must resolve the legal issue concerning pinning someone’s work without permission. It seems they need to be more like Facebook in this respect, though I’m guessing they would prefer to be less like Facebook in most respects. If Pinterest cannot resolve these issues quickly the growth they are experiencing now may not last.
While only time will tell if this “phenomena” has staying power, it certain is off to a very good start!
Currently membership is by invitation only, if you have not been able get invited contact me and I will happily set you up.
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