From the desk (and BlackBerry) of Keith Parnell

I just ran across a nice article by Lewis Howes written for Social Media Examiner. Lewis talks about his top 5 ways he recommends using LinkedIn to market your business.

1. Use LinkedIn Groups & Receive Tons of New Leads Daily. …creating a LinkedIn group gives you the ability to generate an amazing number of leads from high-end decision makers.
2. Ask Questions & Build Your Credibility. …using LinkedIn Answers because it’s a great way to get the answers you need from some of the top experts in the world.
3. Create Powerful Events. Hosting an event is a great way to build your business (see events under the ‘More…’ news in the LinkedIn navigation bar). LinkedIn has an events platform that allows you to target thousands of professionals for free.
4. Run an Advanced Search in Your Target Market. Simply click on “advanced” on the top right side of your home page next to the search box. This will take you to a clean page where you can input anything you need to find the exact lead you are seeking. You can search by industry, keywords, company and title, to mention a few.
5. Send Personal Messages. Once you find leads, you want to send them personalized messages. The best way to drop any walls—and give yourself the best chance of making a sale—is to connect with someone on as many personal levels as possible.

What other ways have you found successful for marketing your business on LinkedIn?

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On Twitter? Follow me at @parnellk63.

Listening to Steamroller by James Taylor.

Yep, I have to say that I like it. Check out the new Outlook Social Connector and LinkedIn plugin for Microsoft Outlook.

Download the Outlook Social Connector here for Outlook 2007 and 2003 (required pre-install).
Download the LinkedIn plugin here for Outlook 2010, 2007, and 2003.

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On Twitter? Follow me at @parnellk63.

Listening to Life Less Ordinary by Carbon Leaf.

I get people all the time tell me it’s hard to get up with me when they need. Well, it’s really not that hard. Today’s communications methods make it really easy. I’m on Twitter. I’m on Facebook. I’m on my blog. I’m on JASEzone. I’m on foursquare. I’m on LinkedIn. A lot! Between my PC in the office, my notebook in the coffee cafes, and my BlackBerry around the world, I would estimate I have online access at least 18 hours everyday.

I live in these social communications as a part of my business life and personal life. These are my network of choice.

But ultimately, there is one single way to ensure I return your personal message. In my world, my home base is my blog. Hit me up here on the contact webform and I’ll shoot you a message back everytime.

Google Docs supports the backend of this contact webform so I have traceability. I have history. I have a way to prioritize communication. And I have a way to control the staying power of the message you took the time to send me. I have a way to manage my time.

You can email me directly if I’ve given you my email address.
You can call me on the BlackBerry if I’ve given you my phone number.
You can text message me if I’ve given you the number.
You can DM me on Twitter if we are connected friends.
You can inbox message me on Facebook if we are friends.
You can send a message on LinkedIn if we are a connection.

But none of these methods guarantee a return message. I receive too many spammer type messages this way with no way to manage them efficiently. Example - I receive ~150 Twitter DM’s each day, ~25 Facebook inbox messages each day, ~250 emails each day, and ~35 text messages each day. I cannot manage all of them and still be productive.

That’s okay though. There is one single way to ensure I return your personal message. In my world, my home base is my blog. Hit me up here on the contact webform and I’ll shoot you a message back everytime.

Where are you available?

What about you? What’s your preference on initializing a new one-on-one communication channel?

Photo credit: hegarty_david

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On Twitter? Follow me at @parnellk63.

Listening to The Sun Is Shining by Third Day.

Below is the slidedeck from my presentation to the Williamsburg Internet Marketing group yesterday. We had a great couple of hours discussing blogging for business on many different levels.

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On Twitter? Follow me at @parnellk63.

Listening to Caldonia by Albert Collins.

Pingdom, a service that monitors the uptime and performance of websites and servers on the Internet, recently published the results of a study they performed analyzing men vs. women and their use of social media.

Overwhelmingly, women outrank men. Does any of this data surprise you?

• Twitter and Facebook have almost the same male-female ratio; Twitter with 59% female users and Facebook with 57%.
• The most female-dominated site? Bebo (66% female users), closely followed by MySpace and Classmates.com (64%).
• The average ratio of all 19 sites was 47% male, 53% female.

RSS and Facebook readers: click here to view and enter comments.

On Twitter? Follow me at @parnellk63.

Listening to For the Good Times by Al Green.

Do you encourage your clients to communicate with you over Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed or LinkedIn? Or do you bounce back to the old reliable email?

I think it’s smart that we make ourselves available through almost any social network. Our clients know how they can reach our sales team, our support staff, and me. But we do encourage the traceability and the power (unlimited threading, attachments, etc.) of email.

What about you? What percentage of your client communication is over email?

RSS and Facebook readers: click here to view and enter comments.

On Twitter? Follow me at @parnellk63.

Listening to Puttin’ on the Ritz by Ella Fitzgerald.

photo credit: thundersquee.com

I’ve been working through several major topics the last few months with the goal of publishing them as eBooks on the web. A couple of the topics, including personal and corporate branding strategies, inbound marketing techniques, yes’s and no’s of blogging, and social media business strategies that work, have emerged at the forefront and should be published soon.

With the publication dates drawing near, I’m finding myself at another crossroads, or will be soon. Should I publish the eBooks as free downloads? I’m talking totally free - as in, don’t even collect email addresses prior to download.

I’m thinking in my minds eye that I should, if for no other reason than to increase the posibilities of viral distribution via email, Twitter, Facebook, blogs, LinkedIn, etc.

But being of a marketing frame of mind, I’m also hearing from the other shoulder that I should think lead generation and at least collect contact info at the time of download.

What do you think? Would a contact info gate before the eBook download prevent you from stepping further?

Research from the field:

• David Meerman Scott seems to say no to collecting info in this post and this post.
• Ann Handley lays out both points of view nicely in this post.
• Susan Gunelius agrees with removing the registration gate in this post.

Did any of these change your mind?

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The team put this chart together to depict where JASE’s efforts and energies are focused on social media marketing.

Click here to get more info on Social Media 2.0 and how JASE can help you.

In this age of sprouting social media, social networks and easy-to-use social communities, are we really practicing what we preach? Do we use social media to communicate and even more importantly to interact with our customers?

We should. Now, more than ever before, we have the tools to increase bi-directional and multi-threaded interaction with our closest and also the most distant customers. We should be thinking of new ways everyday via social media to let our customers know they can rely on us to deliver on our brand promise to them.

Did you happen to see the amazing speaker lineup for September’s New Media Conventions event? Wow!

Get your tickets now. Don’t wait.

• Keynote: Keith Parnell from JASE Group Marketing & Advertising and NeedLocalHelp.com
• Session #1: The Role of Public Relations in Social Media, Michelle Rogerson from Reina Communications
• Session #2: Successfully Monetizing Your Blog, Julie Maloney from Momspective
• Session #3: How to Benefit from the Power of Google, Kurt Noer from Customer Magnetism
• Session #4: Successful Social Media Marketing Campaign, 14 Characters at a Time, Renee Alexander Hamilton, Operation Smile

New Media Conventions

Agenda

Sometimes I surprise myself at how much of a geek I am. :)  Funny video.

Social Media Blues by Scott Rogers

Did you happen to see the amazing speaker lineup for September’s New Media Conventions event? Wow!

Get your tickets now. Don’t wait.

• Keynote: Keith Parnell from JASE Group Marketing & Advertising
• Session #1: The Role of Public Relations in Social Media, Michelle Rogerson from Reina Communications
• Session #2: Successfully Monetizing Your Blog, Julie Maloney from Momspective
• Session #3: How to Benefit from the Power of Google, Kurt Noer from Customer Magnetism
• Session #4: Successful Social Media Marketing Campaign, 14 Characters at a Time, Renee Alexander Hamilton, Operation Smile

New Media Conventions

Agenda