Tag: Social Media

Categories
LinkedIn

Ridiculous LinkedIn Invite Messages

teddy Burriss - Foolish LinkedIn Invite messages

I will keep adding to this list as I discover other ridiculous LinkedIn Invite notes:
(I did not correct the Grammar and spelling issues.)
(Share the text you have gotten and if it is ridiculous enough I’ll add to this list & attribute you.)

  • Hey Teddy Burriss, I like your profile. Let’s connect!
  • Teddy and Obi-Wan Kenobi walk into a bar…
  • Noticed that we’ve got some mutual connections, so I thought it’d make perfect sense for us to connect! Up to you though🙂
  • I’m always looking to grow my network and thought it’d be great to connect if you’re open to it?
  • It would be a pleasure to connect with an expert from Care Services Industry. (I’m not in the Care Services Industry)
  • I’m focusing on growing my network with fellow Michigan alumni. (I’m a MD Terp)
  • I came across your profile while searching for Speech Therapists who have experience working with pediatric patients in the North East Chicago area. (Im not a speech therapist or in the North East Chicago area)
  • I’m always looking to grow my network of professionals in the Tech Industry and I see that we have some mutual connections as well. (we have 1 shared connection and I am not in the Tech Industry)
  • Do you currently use any packaging materials when you ship out your product? (I am not a shipper)
  • Hi Teddy, I wanted to connect with you because we are both working with real estate investment in California. (I am not in the real estate industry, let alone in California.)
  • Hey, I’d like to connect if you have a “digital” problem we might help resolve. (So you will connect only if I become a client?)
  • After a quick scan of your profile, it seems you may be the type of person I would introduce myself to at a networking event! (yet you never replied to my message back to you)
  • Hey Teddy – this is shot in the dark.
  • Hey Teddy, let’s connect! Have a quick question for you.
  • Hi Teddy, I noticed we’re both in NYC and know some of the same people. (I’m in NC)
  • On Behalf of IPSOS, We are inviting professional like you to join in the paid Online Surveys on topic of Stationary/Office related purchase you will earn rewards every time you participate in survey maximum up to $300. Share your number you are interested. (really?)
  • I really wanted to connect. As such, I’ve decided not to send you the generic LinkedIn invite! I look forward to making your acquaintance. (and nothing more)
  • Hi Teddy, I just seen you from LinkedIn suggestion and thought that it would be worth to connect.
  • Your profile took my interest, it’s really impressive.
  • “You look like a friend of mine, but he is no longer with us. I feel familiar with you. I hope we can have a good communication”
Categories
LinkedIn Social Media

Don’t be this social media user

Purchased Deposit Photos

Don’t become that social media user who:

  • everyone wonders, “could he be one of those Kenyan or Russian Bots or just a Fake Account.
  • their network thinks they are only trying to sell their latest widget.
  • only spouts political or religious stuff online.
  • strives to foster fear and animosity in their network.
  • only looks to ‘pick a fight’ in every comment.
  • gets all excited when they hijack a conversation.
  • only shares pics of drop-dead gorgeous, sexy, lean, slick, shimmering scantily clad cars or multimillion-dollar estates.
  • drops stuff into social media hourly, but never joins into the conversations.
  • has a stuck selfie trigger finger.
  • seeks opportunities to criticize, condemn and complain about anything all the time.
  • sends out friend requests and connection requests to every Tom, Dick, and Harry in the Milkyway.
  • the moment they discover you disagree with them in any way they remove you as a Friend or Connection.
  • has never updated their social media profiles in the past 30 years. (hehe)
  • still has their college yearbook picture as their profile pic.
  • shares everything from Publisher Clearing House Ginsu knives, stories of the lost Satchsquatch, the best practices of cutting glass, etc, etc, but never anything about themselves or their family/community.
  • shares everything across all social media platforms at once.
  • feels the nasty/disgusting language they use on social media is ok, even though they would never say it in real life.
  • says, I don’t care about people on social media. They are not real to me.
  • does not verify what they post, especially when it seems like it could be fake.

This is just a shortlist of the types of social media users we should strive not to be.
If you want to create value using social media, enjoy using social media, be trusted, respected and even liked for your use of social media, be better than all this above.

Consider how you are using social media. Remember, it all has to be TRUHE

  • Transparent
  • Relevant
  • Useful
  • Honest
  • Engaging, exciting, educational, entertaining

And, it can’t be all about you.

/Teddy

Categories
LinkedIn

Do the work and LinkedIn will work for you

TLB Original image

Last week I wrote the article It’s a Journey, not a race. I hope you had a chance to read it.

As with any journey, you have to keep moving, otherwise, you’ll get nowhere.

I hear people say; “this LinkedIn thing does not work.” Usually, this is because they have not done any work using LinkedIn. You can’t just have a LinkedIn Profile and a LinkedIn Network. You have to work with them.

Another issue I hear from some people; “I don’t have time to use LinkedIn.” Again, LinkedIn will not work if you treat it as a ’sideline tool’ that you never get around to using.

Put one foot in front of the other, over and over and over again, this is how we successfully move through a journey. 

Consistently using LinkedIn, especially within other relevant business processes, is how you’ll get LinkedIn to work for you.

In order to do this using LinkedIn, you need to know what tasks you should consider doing. 

Look at this partial list of tasks:

  1. Edit your LinkedIn Profile (example my LinkedIn Profile)
  2. Send out new LinkedIn Invites (example from a 2nd/3rd level connection’s LinkedIn Profile)
  3. Accept new LinkedIn Invites
  4. Ask a LinkedIn Connection for an introduction to another (from LinkedIn Search)
  5. Withdraw old invites
  6. Send an initial message to new connections from their LinkedIn Profile (example my LinkedIn Profile)
  7. Search for relevant/interesting content (basic content search)
  8. Like, comment or share relevant content (from newsfeed)
  9. Post an article/video you found that may be relevant to your network (from newsfeed)
  10. Visit LinkedIn Groups or via Group Search (basic Group search)
  11. Research relevant LinkedIn Company Pages
  12. Research LinkedIn Members (search) (basic member search)
  13. Review latest Saved Search results (right side of Search Window)
  14. Respond to comments on your posts (from Notifications)
  15. Send out a few happy birthday/career anniversary/new job messages (from Notifications)
  16. Request a LinkedIn Recommendation (my recommend link)
  17. Write a LinkedIn Recommendation (my recommend link)
  18. Review who viewed your LinkedIn Profile
  19. Review LinkedIn Connection recommendations from LinkedIn
  20. Read followed #Hashtags
  21. Catch up on LinkedIn Messages
  22. Review/update your LinkedIn Company Page (my company page)
  23. Research new people in roles/industries/regions (search) (basic member search)
  24. Write a LinkedIn Article
  25. Check your LinkedIn Contact information (example my link)
  26. Review the LinkedIn Settings and Privacy (at least twice a year)
  27. Peruse the search results you showed up in and why
  28. Call a LinkedIn connection and invite them to a conversation (example my contact information)
  29. Email a LinkedIn connection and share an idea or invite them to a conversation (example my contact information)
  30. Review your list of Influencers, Followed Companies, Groups and Schools (my Interest Section)
  31. Review your LinkedIn Connections for people you should engage with

These tasks are just a few of those you could do to support your Purpose & Goal(s) using LinkedIn as a business tool.

Remember, if what you are about to do does not support building your brand, building your relevant network and/or building your professional reputation, don’t do it. 

There are plenty of actions you could take to achieve these steps. Consider what you should do each day. They don’t all have to happen today. (Journey)

One idea I used to recommend is to schedule these tasks across the week or month. I don’t do this so much anymore because there are so many unique tasks you could consider and we all have different purposes and goals of using LinkedIn. You can find that 2018 article here – Schedule time on LinkedIn

What I recommend is getting familiar with all of the different tasks you could do within LinkedIn. Then ask yourself every day, what needs to be done? Should I work on my Presence, Network or Reputation?

If you don’t commit to doing the work, LinkedIn won’t work for you.

Let me know if you need my help for yourself and/or your business development team.
Teddy

Categories
LinkedIn Social Networking

Flight or Fight on LinkedIn

Purchased Deposit Photos

Many of us have had it done to us in one way or another.

We post an article, video, image, our ideas or perspectives into a LinkedIn Post and someone jumps into our conversation with a negative, sometimes hateful comment.

When this happens we generally have one of two reactions.

The first reaction is ‘Flight’.

This reaction is where we publicly ignore the negative/hateful comments on our posts.

Dale Carnegie taught me to ‘Never Criticize, Condemn or Complain’. I believe Dale would have approved of my regular flight reaction to negative and hateful comments on social media.

To me, flight means I will never publicly respond to these comments in any way.

Sometimes I’ll delete the comment if it’s truly a hateful, disrespectful and/or irrelevant response to my post or another comment in the thread, so others in the conversation do not fuel the negative/hateful debate.

Sometimes if the responder is someone I have felt some level of trust/respect for in the past, I’ll send them a LinkedIn message and ask them to ‘please be careful when responding to my posts on LinkedIn.’ I’ll only do this twice before I block/report and un-connect from the repeat offender. I have only had to do this twice in the past 11 years. 

Even though periodically I share a post that another LinkedIn Member may disagree with, the majority of my posts on LinkedIn do not solicit negative/hateful responses. I attribute this to the professionalism of my LinkedIn Network, thank you.

My flight reaction is only in regards to comments that are hateful, disrespectful and/or ugly in nature. I won’t walk away from a comment from a LinkedIn Member that disagrees with me. This is an opportunity for creative collaboration. Sometimes I’ll show creative curiosity and ask an open-ended question in a constructive way.

The second reaction to negative/hateful comments is ‘Fight’.

This occurs when we publicly attack those who comment with negative and/or hateful words. The energy put into a fight reaction on LinkedIn can range from simple yet equally negative words to a long drawn response of negative words in an effort to show those in the conversation how wrong, ridiculous, ignorant and/or uneducated the responder feels the original commenter is.

There are a few problems with responding to negative/hateful comments in this manner.

First of all pay attention to what George Bernard Shaw said; “Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.”  

I was always taught, “Don’t stoop to their level, you’re better than that.” Additionally, I repeat what Dale Carnegie taught me, “Never Criticize, Condemn or Complain.”

It may ‘feel good’ for a moment as you hit that Post button shouting, “Take that!”, however, this feeling is short lived and offers no value to those in the conversation.

Secondly, when you get into a ‘war of words’ with these negative/hateful commenters, you’ll kill off any worthwhile engagement on that post. Most business professionals will swipe up and away from all posts that have arguments going on in the thread. We don’t want to be found in these conversations, regardless of which side of the argument others would perceive we land on.

Another problem with the tit-for-tat response to negative/hateful comments is our network will begin to perceive that we are not much different than the commenter with the original negative/hateful words. 

I strive to live by this edict; “Never do, say or engage in any way you don’t want to be seen, heard or perceived of in life.” @TLBurriss

Also, I do not believe I am responsible to ‘call someone out publicly’ for their negative/hateful words, especially on social media. I don’t believe we can change how others feel and/or act through the words we use in a social media comment or reply. If I want to influence someone in a meaningful way I know the best way to achieve this is through a face to face or at least ear-ear conversation. Unfortunately, social media arguments are more likely to explode, not resolve because all they see are the words. Positive influence occurs through tone and body language.

The purpose of sharing all content/engagement on LinkedIn should be to encourage meaningful conversation that presents you as an authority relevant to what you shared and/or engaged on.

The ultimate goal of sharing/engaging on LinkedIn is to become trusted, respected and even liked in order for your target audience to want to engage with you in business conversations.

The moment we allow and/or encourage (via response) negative/hateful debate on our posts and comments, we are in fact destroying any business value behind those posts and comments and in many cases, negatively impacting our professional and/or personal reputation.

Choose Flight, not Fight.

What are your thoughts?

Teddy 

Categories
LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Should I subscribe to LinkedIn Sales Navigator

TLB Original image
Watch the YouTube Video that answers this question, or read below:

Here is my written response to this question:

The quick answer is this:

If you are serious prospector who needs an application to do focused searches and track prospecting activities, you should consider LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

A Serious Prospector uses LinkedIn Search tools multiple times every week and wishes there were just a few more filters available and features available.

Hitting the Commercial Use Limit too early in the month is not a reason to use Sales Navigator. You could use Business Premium to overcome that limitation.

If you think you need Sales Navigator, I recommend committing to a two month evaluation of the application, subscribing month to month rather than for an annual plan. You’ll get the first month for free if you do a 30 day eval. Give yourself two months to validate your needs and that you will consistently use the application.

Then become highly familiar with the application.

Here are a few features you will want to experiment with to get the greatest value from LinkedIn Sales Navigator:

  1. Saved Accounts – If your prospecting focuses on businesses, save accounts and then focus on the people in the businesses you are tracking.
  2. Saved Leads – Research the people in accounts who are relevant to your prospecting. Save the ones you want to pay attention to in Sales Navigator.
  3. Build structured Tags – Do this up front. Having a tagging philosophy helps you manage your prospecting activities easier.
  4. Experiment with Sales Navigator navigation. It is somewhat different than LinkedIn and you will need to switch back and forth between the two. There are also cool functions hidden behind windows and the various three dot menus (…)
  5. Experiment with Sales Navigator Filters and the integration of Boolean Strings in appropriate filters. Building powerful search strings is one key value of LinkedIn Sales Navigator
  6. Experiment with Saved Searches in Sales Navigator and LinkedIn. You can have up to 3 saved searches in each interface. Create unique saved searches across both platforms. Use the search results.
  7. Experiment with Sales Navigator and LinkedIn messaging. They are currently still stand alone systems. Messages sent via SN do not show up in LI, and visa versa.
  8. Experiment with the Mobile Apps. You’ll want to be able to efficiently use these apps. Learn what you can and should do using them and what you should not use them for because of compressed functionality.
  9. Build the use of Sales Navigator into your sales processes. You should be using Sales Navigator and LinkedIn within all of your sales processes, including calling and emailing targets, prospects and/or clients.
  10. Pay Attention to your Social Selling Index. Yes, it’s primarily a sales tool to get you to subscribe to Sales Navigator, however your SSI Score and other LinkedIn KPIs are a good measure of your activities.

If you want to discuss the benefits of using Sales Navigator as a prospecting tool and how I could help your sales team create success using these tools, grab a slot on my calendar and let’s talk about your goals.

Teddy