Alberta Business Marketing

LinkedIn is one of the industry leading social networks and online communities in use today across multiple businesses and industries. LinkedIn’s focus on business-to-business networking and facilitating the sharing of ideas and strategies has won the trust of business professionals globally. Not unlike many of their counterparts, LinkedIn does have privacy challenges according to many CEO level executives. Many organizations are now reviewing their policies related to LinkedIn and how information propagates through this business social network.

More and more business professionals are turning to LinkedIn because of its overall effectiveness in the marketplace. However, many are unaware of the apparent risks to corporate contacts when setting up their LinkedIn accounts. There are many settings that are on automatically allowing for browsing of contacts and also leaving a trace of who visited another profile. Many organizations as part of their social media acceptable use policy are now requiring specific changes to LinkedIn privacy settings be made ensuring business contacts and information are kept confidential.

LinkedIn is build on a community and like many other online networks; they embrace the sharing of information and contacts. How do businesses balance the foundations of LinkedIn with the compliance and confidentiality measures of business today?

Read my white paper on the two required LinkedIn security settings.

Tags: business networking, business social network, Business/Finance, CEO, collaboration, Community websites, linkedin, LinkedIn Ltd, online communities, online networks, Online social networking, Social information processing, social media, social media acceptable use policy, social networks, Technology/Internet, web 2.0, World Wide Web
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Over the past week I have spent many hours deeply engaged with local and industry communities.  At the beginning of the week I started off at the HTG Peer Group annual summit in Dallas, TX.  HTG is a community that I was deeply involved with during my days as a Calgary Computer Support Specialist.  HTG is made up of like-minded IT firms and brings them together in large groups, small groups and special interest groups built on the sharing of best practices and getting involved in the health of each member’s business.

At HTG Summit, I had an opportunity to speak about “online marketing” to a small group of HTG Marketing Professionals on Monday.  Marketing your business and ensuring you have a strategy to keep your business pipeline full is just one of the critical success elements for all business.  Doesn’t matter if you are a tech company, selling real estate or selling hot dogs on the street corner – marketing is a must.  Great marketing is the heartbeat of any business.  What I shared with these HTG professionals is the importance of online marketing when it is balanced with all other aspects of your business marketing, you have look at your overall strategy and how the web fits into your marketing.  You can read my review of the first couple of days with HTG by visiting “The VarGuy site“.

When I returned to Calgary on Tuesday, Ulistic jumped into education mode and brought together a number of great business people for a day of LinkedIn training at our monthly LinkedIn Workshop.  This week we had an experience with a national industry peer group and also a local community of business professionals right in our own backyard.

How do communities work with your business?

Are you the type to engage with community or walk away from those you see as competitors?

I heard something from one of my friends and mentors, Dr. Leslie Roberts from Calgary small business training firm GoForth Institute about competition in our world today during my small business podcast.  Plus, I also just need to turn to what Erik and Lyf are doing in Minneapolis with their Techpulse Minneapolis event.  In MSP, Erik and Lyf come together, competitors in the same industry and they also bring their own customers and share….very powerful.  A great community of professionals led by two leaders in industry.

Here is my advice…don’t hide in the corner, sucking your thumb…get out and engage with others in your community.

Tags: Business Success, Business/Finance, Calgary, Calgary Computer Support Specialist, collaboration, Community websites, dallas, GoForth Institute, htg peer group, Human Interest, Leslie Roberts, linkedin, LinkedIn Ltd, Minneapolis, Online social networking, Real Estate, Social information processing, social media, Texas, the HTG Peer Group annual, web 2.0, web fits, World Wide Web
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When was the last time you reviewed your company listing on LinkedIn?  Based on what we discovered during our Calgary Social Media Workshop on Thursday April 15…you may want to check more often now knowing what we found out.

First, a little knowledge about how LinkedIn provides your business with the ability to promote your business easily.  LinkedIn provides businesses of all shapes and sizes the ability to create a detailed profile which can be used to bring your employees together under one company umbrella, showcase your corporate blog and provide basic business information such as number of employees, industry, and many more options.

During our Calgary Social Media Course at the Blackfoot Inn we found some serious vulnerabilities and issues around who can access and make changes to your company information on LinkedIn.  During our workshop one of our students was able to make changes to their company information without any approval other than an email address, verification email and a simple re-logon to LinkedIn.  This was an alarming discovery and could be a major issue when it comes to what is being said online about your business.

Does this concern you?  Our students in the Social Media Workshop became very concerned about this potential flaw to their company information.  What is stopping an employee from making any changes they want, perhaps something which questions the firms creditability in the public.  Sure LinkedIn records who made changes however they potential reputation management flaw does leave some business owners a little concerned.

Here is what LinkedIn says about who can edit a company profile.

Can I control who edits my Company Profile?
Any member who has a confirmed a valid company email address can edit your Company Profile. Company Profiles are user content driven.

Thanks to Frank Allen for his comments from our social media course.  Frank provides valuable insight to his clients, his Calgary Weight-loss programs help many Calgarians battle this challenge.

“Stuart and the Ulistic team provided me unbelievable value. People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Evident right from the onset, Stuart is a true Go Giver indeed and is always there to be of service. Further to this though he almost always exceeds expectations. Best service provider of the decade in my books.”

Tags: Blackfoot Inn, Business/Finance, collaboration, Community websites, linkedin, LinkedIn Ltd, LinkedIn Open Networker, Online social networking, Social information processing, social media, Social Media Ventures Inc, web 2.0, World Wide Web
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Over the course of the past week I have receive many requests for LinkedIn Recommendations.  Almost like the dam has burst on LinkedIn and everyone got the same idea and same time – I am going to spam my contact list with requests for endorsements.

I totally understand the importance of building a quality list of endorsements on LinkedIn however some people are taking this wonderful service to the extreme.  How so?  Just ask yourself this one question, have I ever received a request for a recommendation from someone I don’t know?

Well, I get them all the time.  Many of my peers and colleagues in the Calgary small business community and through the Small Business Computer Support world have requested recommendations or endorsements and for many of them since we have a working relationship, it isn’t a problem.

Here is where the problem lies.  When you get a recommendation request from someone you really don’t know or maybe it is from someone you know however your working relationship doesn’t expand past, seeing them across the room at your Chamber of Commerce social event.  What do you do?  Do  you or don’t you offer your good name as an endorsement of their product and service?  Have you experienced what they have to offer?  If not, how can you endorse a product or service without experiencing it for yourself?  If you do endorse it without experiencing it, then you are really no different from many of those fakes on commercials who tell us every 10 minutes on TV how great a product is through TV commercials.

This is where I have to put the brakes on and say NO.  I cannot lend my name to something I have no experience with at all.  It is simple business.

Sorry for those who have sent me requests in the past and I haven’t responded, it is not personal, well maybe it is…business is personal these days and my endorsements have to go with those whose work I have experienced first hand.  Once again simple business smarts.  Like something say it, dislike something say it…no knowledge, keep your hands tied behind your back and away from your keyboard.

• In short, if you and I have worked together – No problem
• If we belong to the same network club and you have went beyond the call of duty and did something to enrich the group – No problem
• If you just show up – Well, Houston this is where the problem lies.

Here is a great article on why Jeremy Owyang doesn’t do LinkedIn Recommendations.

Tags: Calgary, collaboration, linkedin, LinkedIn Ltd, Online social networking, social media, web 2.0, World Wide Web
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Have you considered Google Docs for your small business? You may want to revisit Google’s online cloud strategy if did in the past and just didn’t like what you saw.  Google announced on Monday via their blog some great new enhancements coming soon to their cloud-based document and spreadsheet programs.  Here are some of the highlights from their blog which you can read in depth at http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/next-generation-of-google-docs.html.  You can find examples and a pretty cool video (see below as well) on how Google Docs work.

New document and spreadsheet features
We’ve responded to many of your requests for features you’re used to in desktop software. In documents, we’ve added a margin ruler, better numbering and bullets and easier image placement options. And in spreadsheets, you’ll now find a formula editing bar, cell auto-complete, drag-and-drop columns and other features not possible with older browser technologies.

Stuart’s note – still no page break though…disappointing

Higher fidelity document import
We’ve made big improvements to our document upload feature so moving files from your computer to the cloud is easier now. Imported documents retain their original structure more accurately, so you can hit the ground running editing in the browser without having to fix formatting like bullets and text alignment.

Speed and responsiveness
New browser technologies like faster JavaScript processing have made it possible for us to speed up Google Docs significantly. Even very large spreadsheets are fast to work with in your browser now. Applications that run this fast feel like desktop applications but have the unique advantages of being in the cloud.

Faster collaboration
We’ve extended Google Docs’ collaboration capabilities too, with support for up to 50 people working together at once, and in documents, you can now see other people’s edits as they happen character-by-character. And now you can also collaborate on flow charts, diagrams and other schematics in real time with a new editor for drawings on Google Docs.

Tags: Ajax, Blogger, browser technologies, Business IT, collaboration, Computing, desktop applications, desktop software, Editor, google, Google Docs, Google Inc., JavaScript, online cloud strategy, Online spreadsheets, Spreadsheet, Technology/Internet, web 2.0, Web applications, web development, World Wide Web
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