5 simple things you can do on LinkedIn to boost your career

If social networks were people then LinkedIn would be the grey-suited accountant sitting at the corner of a party too shy to talk to people. Twitter, of course would be the hipster chick and Facebook would be the jock in the cloakroom talking about his recent conquests.

I recently saw a message posted on Facebook that read “Daughter, if you want to be successful in life, ignore the jock and spend time with the nerds in the class”; and it got me thinking: how often are we ignoring LinkedIn as a powerful tool to further our careers.

LinkedIn isn’t pretty to say the least. At first glance it’s cluttered and confusing and very little actually makes sense. It takes a little navigating and a lot of patience to find what you need, but once you gain the hang of it you’ll realise how incredibly powerful it really is.

There’s the obvious use of keeping LinkedIn as an online résumé, and then there are the few people who use it to find clients (it’s incredibly handy as a tool for business development). It’s also used by many head-hunters and recruiters looking for someone just like you.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a business owner looking for clients, a sales manager looking for business leads or an employee looking for better prospects… at the end of the day it’s not what you know — it’s who you know. And LinkedIn can provide you with the ability to find the who-you-knows.

Here are five ways you can change your LinkedIn experience to make you more attractive to people and increase your ability to attract amazing business and job opportunities.

1. Keep your profile up to date

Your profile is the way people will see you. While it’s important to keep your profile professional, it wouldn’t hurt to add a small bit about yourself and your hobbies. Show people you’re a well-rounded individual.

Use a professional tag-line, but make sure it’s descriptive. “Operations Manager” doesn’t mean much, but “Team Developer and Operations Manager in eCommerce” says a lot more.

Use a professional photograph on your profile. It doesn’t have to be stoic, but it’s not the place to show yourself at a drunken party or shooting a gemsbok on a game farm.

2. Be sparing on your connections

LinkedIn is not the place for you to connect with every Tom, Dick and Harry. It’s the place where you connect with people you personally know, trust and can recommend. If you don’t know the guy and really can’t recommend him, then it’s probably better not to connect with him (unless you’re strategically wanting to connect for a business venture/job move).

3. Recommend others

If you’ve managed your connections properly, take the time out to recommend other people by writing short testimonials. Remember that this is where honesty counts. Your reputation is as much on the line here as theirs. If you cannot honestly recommend the person, then don’t. In fact, remove them as a connection.

4. Ask for recommendations

There’s nothing wrong with asking past clients, colleagues and bosses (who you’re on friendly terms with of course!) to write a recommendation for you on LinkedIn. It gives people a great insight into who you are and how you’ve worked with people in the past.

The good news is that LinkedIn gives you the opportunity to accept or reject a recommendation, so if you’re not happy with a recommendation, you can just delete it.

5. Get involved

LinkedIn is as much about networking as any other business community, club or organisation. Use the LinkedIn group search to find groups you’re interested in, start discussions, ask questions, answer questions. Show that you know what you’re talking about within your community and become the expert in your field. Soon people will be offering you incredible jobs.

Whether you’re looking for a new job, a promotion, more sales or clients – LinkedIn is a powerful tool that cannot be ignored.

Article first published on memeburn.

Who owns your social media account and community when you resign?

There have been a number of court cases that have taken place recently concerning the ownership of social media accounts and associated contacts and content. This is a very contentious issue and is not always easily resolved. The question of ownership can be quite tricky especially if the owner of a social media account grew their community and developed content at the expense of their employer.

I was contacted by a young lady recently who faces a dilemma. She was employed by a recruitment company and during her tenure, created a LinkedIn account and connected with thousands of individuals, creating a substantial database in the process.

She left the company, taking her LinkedIn account with her. Unbeknownst to her, the company in question had access to her LinkedIn user id and password, and without her permission, accessed her LinkedIn account. Her personal details were removed and her password was changed. The lady in question is, as you would quite expect, extremely upset. She planned to use the LinkedIn profile and contacts she had created to continue doing was she is good at, recruitment; however she has been robbed of much-needed information and her livelihood.

The question which goes begging is, “Who did the contact information created during her employment at the recruitment belong to in the first place?” Was her employer within their rights to claim the information she had created during her employment, or does this information belong to her?

Here is an excerpt from an article on Forbes on the issue, titled “Who Owns Your LinkedIn Contacts?”:

The idea that an employer might someday claim that my contacts belonged to them was more than a little unsettling. Now, a court in England has issued an order that requires an employee who resigned to start his own consulting business to turn over all of his LinkedIn contacts to his former employer – along with receipts and contracts proving that none of them became clients of his new firm.

That clarifies one legal issue in the UK at least: the contacts on your LinkedIn profile are more likely to belong to your employer than they are to you if those contacts are customers, employees, or vendors you did business with in your job.

This clearly indicates that the ownership of LinkedIn contacts do not necessarily favour the employee when they leave their employer and it is something they must seriously consider if they are planning to move.

If you are in any way involved in social marketing, you may want to pay particular attention to this excerpt from the same article:

Marketing employees who manage corporate social media sites and accounts during their employment may find that their social media accounts are especially vulnerable according to employment attorney Donna Ballman. Ms. Ballman wrote recently that employers may have a claim regardless of what documents you signed.

“If you were hired to be the company blogger, to create a Twitter account and tweet for the company, to develop the corporate media presence, the work you did while you were employed and those social media accounts you got for the company likely belong to the employer. An exception is probably LinkedIn. They don’t allow profiles for companies – only individuals. Your LinkedIn profile is probably yours, even if the company told you to create it while on the job. Just don’t run afoul of your nonsolicitation or noncompete agreement,” she says.

In another case, the court ruled in the employee’s favour when a former employer sued the employer when they went out on their own:

Just a year ago, in another case involving a head hunter who went out on her own only to be sued by her former employer (who happened to be her uncle) for approaching candidates and clients who were her LinkedIn contacts — and also part of his database. The Eastern District Court of New York state took the opposite stance from the UK court, ruling in Sasqua Group, Inc. v. Courtney that the availability of information in social media invalidated the company’s argument that the information was a trade secret. (It also proves that if you hire a relative, make sure that you get them to sign the standard noncompete agreements.)

If you have a significant online presence, have thousands of followers and connections and deemed a social media influencer, and happen to be planning on moving to a new employer, it is advisable to have a very close look at the legal issues that may crop up. It is best to understand your rights before you sign the resignation form.

Depending on the circumstances the situation could go either way if it goes to court. Judgement may vary depending on local laws too.

Article first published on memeburn.

Getting it right: 5 things to tick off your social media checklist for 2013

As 2012 fades into our rearview mirrors, it is time to reflect on the past year to identify what we did right (and wrong) and changes we need to make in 2013 to derive more value out of our social media efforts. I have listed a number of behaviours below which I have noted on a number of platforms which people should either do more of or stop immediately. By doing so, it will make these environments better for all.

Broadcast vs conversation

Twitter was developed specifically to support online social interaction. This implies bi-directional dialogue between many or multiple entities. Twitter is NOT an advertising billboard and people who use it to constantly broadcast advertising material should desist from doing so immediately. In order to maintain the integrity of this environment, this type of behaviour should result in Twitter accounts being closed down or blocked. I am not saying that broadcasting should stop but there has to be a healthy balance between broadcasts, retweets and conversation.

Keeping things current

I have followed links from person’s LinkedIn and Twitter profiles to “dated” blogs and websites. It is difficult to build online credibility when a person visits your blog and your last article was published three months ago. I am not saying that you need to publish daily but attempt to publish regularly. This needs to be applied to all the platforms you participate on.

Appropriate content

If anyone wants to be blocked and deleted from my LinkedIn groups, post a job advert or promote yourself, your company, your products or your services on a discussion forum. Keep your updates relevant to the platform and the subject in question. If the LinkedIn group is titled “Executive Leadership” the discussion should revolve around “Executive Leadership”.

Keep the right company

As with all social interaction, like-minded people tend to hang out together. It stands to reason to apply the same principle on the digital platforms you are participating on. Make it very clear on your Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ profiles, LinkedIn groups and blog your “online commitment” to your connections, followers, friends, etc. and ensure that your content supports it.

Reciprocate appropriately and regularly

For those of you that publish content on a regular basis and want to extend your reach to a wider audience through social media influencers and brand advocates, reciprocation is very important. As you develop online relationships, it is possible to reach out to individuals every now and then (not too often, mind you) to ask them to retweet, share or promote a blog post, tweet, LinkedIn update or LinkedIn group discussion. If they agree to do this, please ensure that you do the same for them when they ask you.

If the person has a bigger online presence or influence, it is a good idea to promote their content way more than they did for you. If you have your eye on a particular social media influencer or celebrity who MAY support you, you may have to court them for some time before they notice you.

To summarise

To maximise the return on you 2013 social media efforts, focus on keeping the right company, ensure your profile reflects your commitment to your audience, make sure your content is relevant and appropriate and work hard in identifying the right supporters and reciprocate when they help you promoting your content.

Article fisrt published on memeburn.

6 top tips for using digital to foster extreme collaboration in your workplace

You might recall reading about Atos, a major European tech player, whose CEO Thierry Breton rolled out an 18 month plan to ban internal email. It sounded slightly mad, but it’s working — in part because it forces people to work more closely together and explore less static forms of communication.

Here’s the thing, Breton could come to be seen as a leading figure for a new way of organising employees and projects. Forget employee of the month, we’re entering the era of team of the month and, if you do it right, it’ll never be the same team twice.

The reason turning off email has worked so well for Atos is because we live in a time where there technologies that make email look like a slow lumbering dinosaur. Think about how much time you spend emailing your friends versus how much you spend interacting with them on social networks, or instant messaging services. Why should work be any different.

According to tech research company Gartner, applying this logic to the workplace could help foster a culture of what it calls “extreme collaboration”.

Doing so, it says, can “dramatically innovate the way people behave, communicate, work together and maintain relationships — often across wide organizational and geographic boundaries”. That’s what makes this form of collaboration so extreme. It shatters internal company boundaries that would have once been impenetrable.

The research comp

1. Foster the use of virtual, web-based collaboration spaces in people’s daily jobs One way to spur novel forms of collaboration is to select an activity currently handled through traditional methods, such face-to-face meetings or email, and encourage it to take place in a virtual, likely web-based, collaboration space instead.

These environments are easily accessed and almost always available. Virtual environments used to host such spaces can range from process collaboration environments to social networks or on-premises collaborative and social media tools.

2. Exploit the value of near-real-time communication addiction Let’s face it, we’re addicted to our devices and the communication tools on them: instant messaging, social networking and texting. Gartner reckons that businesses should embrace and encourage such behaviour.

Establishing real-time communication habits in the workplace enables a freer flow of information and more proactive notifications, so that people can respond more quickly to unexpected events.

More formal communication channels that run up and down the organisational hierarchy, or through defined email and need-to-know distribution lists can result in significant delays and frequently don’t convey the intended message clearly enough. Real-time communication can help smash through the hierarchy of a business, which is frequently the cause of the delays.

3. Use crowdsourcing and popular social media tools to foster communities and collaboration One good way to kick-start the mind-set for extreme collaboration is to host a “tweet jam” to trigger a dynamic community to brainstorm on a problem. This involves simply setting a time and topic, and encouraging people to participate and get working.

Unlike a conversation in a meeting room, everything is captured so there’s a clear record of what was discussed, who contributed ideas, and which participants excelled at facilitating discussions and problem-solving.

Crowdsourcing is also proving to be very effective for bringing together people — who often didn’t previously know each other — to tackle shared problems.

4. Reward collaboration Traditional management styles are ineffective, largely because they discourage collaboration by rewarding individual efforts to deliver specific, one-time outcomes, rather than rewarding collaboration and team efforts.

You should instead reward collaborative behaviour that contributes to resolving complex problems, in addition to rewarding individual who’ve delivered the good.

Design performance evaluations and incentives to foster teamwork and reward exceptional collaborators. The use of collaboration technologies also makes it easier to track collaborative behaviour and see how successful it’s been.

5. Use social network analysis to measure collaborative behaviour Another way to measure and reward collaborative behaviour is to track how people interact. Social network analysis (SNA) can help you monitor people’s social network influence.

You have to foster a culture of openness, trust and mutual respect and SNA is a technique to help identify strong social networks where a foundation of trust and respect exist.

Once such networks are identified, you should try to leverage these relationships by asking these groups of people to pool their collective strengths to address some critical challenges. Other social, mobile and cloud technologies will also provide new ways to track how and where people have collaborated and to measure what happened.

6. Plan group events to kick-start real-time communication and collaboration A few simple steps can help force people out of their “comfort zones” to experiment with new ways of collaborating and interacting, including:

■Designating mobile-video attendees at meetings. Mobile video tools allow people to attend meetings via their mobile devices. This use of mobile video is a dramatic breakthrough compared with videoconferencing, which requires dedicated facilities. Although perhaps not appropriate for larger groups or longer, sustained participation, mobile video is particularly effective for bringing key experts into the conversation when needed.

■Use game play to spur new forms of collaboration and creative interaction. Gamification is a great way to spur engagement in collective problem solving. Experimenting with game-based techniques can shake things up and get people working together in new ways.

■Consider turning off email for a defined time period. Email is the dominant means of business communication, but it’s a poor collaborative tool — and an overused “crutch” that keeps people from using more collective and interactive approaches to solving problems.

To break the habit, organisations should try turning off email for a defined interval of time, ensuring that alternatives are in place and easy to use. Such experiments will force people to use social networks and real-time communication in ways they haven’t before.

Article first published on memeburn