LinkedIn: Building your personal & company brand

So I'm a lukewarm LinkedIn user. I understand it's value (mostly) and have started using it as my online CV for my more recent work. So I was really interested to hear what Jeff Willinger had to say at the Ungeeked conference on improving your personal brand starting with LinkedIn.

First off, the professional headline. This is where people can see what you are good at. It's a place to tell the viewer what you do and not who you work for. They can see that in your employment section that is usually immediately following your headline on your profile.

I have it wrong. The first thing on my headline is where I'm currently working. I have a discussion at my table what I should call myself. It now says Social media & community specialist but I'm not sure if that sounds too protentious? How the heck do I tell people what I do? (side note: I'd love your imput on this as I want a quick way to let people know what I do in the best way possible). Moving on...

The second most important is the summary and specialties. Specialties is actually what is looked at when people search for people to work and connect with. This needs to really say what you do in a words that your potential clients or employers will look for. Mine needs work. Oh LinkedIn profile. How I've failed you. This will take a bit longer to craft.

Jeff then has used applications to add a box on twitter, his reading list, and trip it. Interesting. I actually signed up to tripit ages ago but never thought to connect to my LinkedIn to allow my professional connections to be able to contact me when I'm near them. Added. He also has slideshare on there which is an area that I want to use now that I'm speaking more. This way my contacts can still be able to experience a talk I've done if they can't be there.

On my LinkedIn, I also have events added to show where I'm speaking or what I'm going to so I can meet with other contacts (which I can honestly say I've not used as well as I could) and have my blog posts there as well so I can share what I'm writing about.

Jeff left us with these points about LinkedIn:

• Take time


• Be remarkable


• Be helpful


• Be supportive


• Be resourseful


• Do NOT sell


• Have fun

This was great for me in terms of utilizing LinkedIn as an individual. This is great for me in terms of figuring out how best to use this tool.

I've also been exploring LinkedIn as a company. One of the areas that I have as part of our strategy is showing our expertise not only as a company but as individuals. Linked in is perfect for this. We have a company page that lists all employees and on the front page of our site, I've now added a link to our LinkedIn page as well as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. On our meet the team page? We link to everyone's individual profiles.

This didn't necessarily come easy. "But people can contact us. I'll be spammed." I explained that people outside of our organization want to know who works behind the scenes. In order for our members to gain trust, they need to know that there are experts working for them. Allow access to LinkedIn will help them with this, and to be honest? If anyone wanted to find your LinkedIn, they can. It's called Google.

But an explanation isn't enough. So I created a document that explained how to change your LinkedIn settings to make it more private if they wished (you can see it here). I also knew that a number of our team weren't on twitter. But if they connected our work account in a certain way, I could add #in to the twitter posts that were about our blog and it would be posted in their status. This will help us spread the word about what we are doing to their network and help them show what they are working on.

Last thing I want to leave with you came from Jeff. He says thank you to everyone who joins him on LinkedIn. I like that. So thank you for reading.

PS Any other LinkedIn tips? I'd love to hear them so please leave them below!

Mark Bowden on Communicating Authenticity at Ungeeked Toronto

Starting day 2 at ungeeked and I have a splitting headache. Yep. Jetlag has given me something to remind me that I am in a different continent.

First up is Mark Bowden, CEO of Truth Plane & Author of Winning Body Language. A power dynamo, he hit the front of the room showing how he is actually appealing to our reptilian brain and indictating he is a friend:

• Open palms: no tools no weapons


• Open stomach: shows we can trust

So the discussion on natural impulse and communication has begun with his talk Communicating
Authenticity – Being Social is The New Body Language

When we first meet people, we categorize them into 4 categories:

• Friend


• Enemy


• Sexual Partner


• Indifferent

So how do we do this online?

It is very important to create something that people understand and relate to. The more certainty we have, our dopamine level increases. So the more it increases, the more the brain wants to go there. On the otherhand, the more you don't understand something, you often resort to the negative and your dopamine levels decrease. In relation to that is the idea of framewalk. If you get a suspicious parcel, it won't be opened but if you got it at Christmas, then you would because of the framework. So if people belong and understand the structure and framework of your site/ business, the more they'll come back and engage.

Basically we're looking for stuff that will make us live longer - the things that make us feel good from the people and places where we belong. Mark said "We don't need logic for survival, we need friends who will feed us." We have the instinct that if people look like your tribe and hold your beliefs, they will be more likely to help you. You want to have your status raised so if you ask questions and for the opinions of your followers or staff, you raise their status and they will be more likely to come back and engage.

What's interesting is, the inverse to that, we can threaten

• autonamy


• status


• relatedness


• fairness

When we do this, people will retreat. If you are unfair to your followers, clients, customers, they're out of there. This applies especially with social media when there is a lack of consistancy. We can relate it back to food. Company means to "eat bread together." Companies are simple - it's a dining table. If you take more bread than me, it's unfair and I'm out of this company. Or if unconsistant, you can't be trusted or relied upon as you may dissapear with my food so you lose that follower.

Our decisions are based on our values, beliefs, rituals and customs. So if you are looking to create rewards and recognition, they need to be correct for that group based on those. If you value something, you will work for it.

The last thing I took from this talk is that we're way more the same then we're different. You may not authentically join your customers or followers in all of their beliefs, but if you respect those values, beliefs and customs they hold, you can still have that connection. We are human after all. Humans all have feelings - and you have feelings about your feelings. We can all understand that.

My thoughts on The Social Network

This January, I was in San Francisco and attended the Crunchies, the start-up world's equivalent to the Oscars. If you didn't have your elevator pitch down for your new revolutionary business or if you weren't someone who could fund it, you weren't worth talking to. It was like being in a genius version of Hollywood. And when Mark Zuckerberg walked into the room, he was mobbed.

I was curious then to see the Social Network. Aaron Sorkin was right – it’s not about Facebook but it is very much about the dos and don'ts of start-ups which Facebook was. What struck me as I left the theatre was that without Eduardo, there wouldn’t have been Facebook. I’ve met a lot of entrepreneurs working on new ideas and what makes or breaks them is money. It’s not enough to just have a good idea anymore and I may argue that it may never have been. Weekends in the UK are raft with barcamps and hack days and events such as Seedcamp or Launch 48 where entrepreneurs try to work on that next big idea hoping to get just enough money or kudos or contacts to get started.

And when this does happen, you can expect that, like the Social Network portrayed, someone who suggested changing the brand colours or gave advice over coffee one day will expect a piece of it. They’ll say they were one of the founders thinking that providing a name for something equates beginning your day waking up with your phone in your hand and ending it falling asleep while still typing. That takes love and dedication and probably a small dose of crazy. And money.

That’s the world of Mark Zuckerberg. And though he was one of the lucky ones to get funds to start up, he could have easily not been. He could have been one of the many brilliant entrepreneurs who go from event to event hoping to get their break. Maybe there is the next Zuckerberg already in our midst but without a trusty friend to invest, his Facebook will stay in his head and we’ll be stuck with the next Harvard Connect instead.

Pre-talk to screening of Psycho for Care International

via AudioBoo

Live film soundtrack by Minima at Tate Britain

via AudioBoo