soho-life.com

I get quite a number of invitations these days from people I don’t really know.  I don’t mind connecting with them however I do ask first where they found me and why they want to connect?  Obviously they haven’t read my profile before sending the invitation otherwise they would know that’s a requirement for me to connect.

Why do I do this?  Well, I want to feel there’s some kind of personal connection first.  I also don’t want to be counted as a number as I know that many, particularly LIONS, are prone to do.  Quality not quantity is something I’m seeking in the way of connections - will there be a mutual benefit for us both to connect?

If I know and recognise the name as someone I’ve chatted with before I will accept and then I’ll give them suggestions on how to do an invitation and send them here to my blog to check out the LinkedIn category.  But if I don’t recognise their name I wait for their response and often those responses can be funny or even indignant.  Some don’t respond at all.

Why would a response be indignant?  They seem to expect that because we had a minor connection via an email about 3 or 4 months ago I would remember who they are.  Perhaps they don’t get much email but I get 2-300 on a daily basis because of the nature of my business and also the groups I belong to online.  Why would I remember someone who might have answered a question at LinkedIn or responded to a forum message?  It would be different if we actually did business together in some way but usually it’s one of the former.

So, if you’re new to LinkedIn I encourage you to look at personalising your invitations (you can click on edit and change the text of what’s being sent) and make sure you read through the profile of the person you wish to invite first.   You can get penalised by LinkedIn if you get too many “I Don’t Knows” against your name.

Oh, and if you have copied someone else’s email that says something about ‘please do not mark IDK’ then I suggest you don’t do that.  It’s almost as bad as a blanket invite being sent.  If you can copy and paste someone else’s message, you are also capable of writing your own personal message.

Tags: LinkedIn by Kathie Thomas
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The next edition of the carnival! Thank you to everyone who has participated. If you would like to host an edition, please do let me know - I don’t get many people putting their hands up. Simple process, simply copy and paste all the entries that have been submitted, check them for formatting and publish them - I even help you by giving you the full list so you don’t have to do them individually.

For our visitors and readers, please do visit those posts that interest you and leave comments for their authors - all authors love to know they have readers!

We have a long list this month - so good to see!

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Brad Trnavsky presents Leadership Vs. Management - Sales Management 2.0 posted at Sales Management 2.0 - Featured Blog Posts, saying, “A short article about leadership and management and a brief introduction to the book 360 Degree Leadership by John Maxwell.”

Lorraine Pirihi presents Who’s managing in your business? posted at The Productivity Post.

Kathie Thomas presents What makes a website truly global? posted at soho-life.com.

Edith presents Six PR Tips from Startup Bootcamp San Francsico 2008 posted at San Francisco Bay Area Small Business Community That Connects You With Entrepreneurs Around You.

Prashant K Shukla presents Role of Meta Title Tag in SEO | My Smart SEO posted at Prashant K Shukla, saying, “Meta tags are the blocks which contain information about the contents of your web page and they exist into the head area of your web page. They are basically meant to communicate with the search engine. The Meta Keywords Tag and Meta Description Tag also need to be taken care of and optimized equally in addition to that of Meta Title Tag to secure a place at the top of the search engines and in convincing a search engine that your site’s contents are more relevant than that of your competitor’s.”

Prashant K Shukla presents Site Indexing - Great Eight Tips | My Smart SEO posted at Prashant K Shukla, saying, “Site Indexing - The most effective SEO technique is to index the pages of new website. There are lot of important issues, one should take care. We are providing a simple guide steps to help you in this regard.”

Prashant K Shukla presents Search Engines or Web Directories | My Smart SEO posted at Prashant K Shukla, saying, “Submitting your site to major search engines and good rank directories help increasing the traffic and good placement in SERP.”

Heather Johnson presents Convincing a Recruiter to Use Web 2.0: Guest Post by Heather Johnson posted at Human Race Horses: Racing to HR 2.0.

Anya Portnik presents ATSCo (Association of Technology Staffing Companies) Members Conference, June 5th 2008 posted at Gavin Ingham.

Mark Montgomery presents College Applications: They Can Make You Sick posted at Great College Advice, saying, “The college application process can be stressful–so stressful that i can make kids physically ill. To say nothing of the parents!!”

Mark Montgomery presents How Good are Advanced Placement (AP) Courses? Are They Worth Taking? posted at Great College Advice.

Prashant K Shukla presents SEO and Meta Tags | My Smart SEO posted at Prashant K Shukla, saying, “SEO and Meta Tags - Meta Tags play significant role in SEO and if we take utmost care in building these tags, result would be the perfect optimization of our website.”

Amanda Moore presents 6 Things That Will Make Me Leave Your Blog posted at VagabondetteVA, saying, “If your blog isn’t reader friendly, they won’t stick around - and they won’t come back.”

Matt DiChiara presents Lone Male Roommate Examines Prior Judgments posted at MyNewPlace Blog, saying, “thanks and have a good weekend!”

Isabella Mori presents quickie: what’s a friend? posted at change therapy, saying, “this is an article inspired by the practice in social media to call people “friends” when they are not as close as one would normally think a friend to be. in the comments you will also notice a reference to the use of “friend” in LinkedIn.”

Mark Montgomery presents School?s Out! Top 10 Summertime Tips for College Admission posted at Great College Advice, saying, “Savvy parents–and students–know that summertime is a great time to stay ahead of the curve with the college admissions process. These tips will help you keep life sane and fun–and increase chances for admission.”

Michael. presents Beauty and the Beast: How Attractiveness Affects Your Life posted at A Law Student and Young Lawyer Blog - Law Vibe.

Business or LinkedIn related

Susan Tatum presents What technology buyers don’t want to see on your website posted at TechnoBuzz.

Karl Goldfield presents Training Part 1: Lead Generation - Talented Prospectors | The Sales Coach, The Sales Blog posted at Karl Goldfield.

Erek Ostrowski presents Leadership for Unprecedented Results posted at Verve Coaching, saying, “As leaders, our job is to provide an environment that challenges people with opportunities to be productive and capable, so that they succeed in their jobs and produce results.”

Susan Tatum presents You Have Multiple “Homepages”. Time to Fix Them All. posted at TechnoBuzz.

Karl Goldfield presents Training Part 1: Gaining Commitment - The forgotten objective | The Sales Coach, The Sales Blog posted at Karl Goldfield.

Stefan Töpfer presents THE SMALL BUSINESS BLOG » Blog Archive » Small Business Lists – Start-Up on a Shoestring posted at The Small Business Blog, saying, “A selection of business ideas that can be started with almost zero capital”

John Oh presents Influencer Marketing: Enterprise Model posted at Marketing Joint, saying, “Influencer Marketing: Enterprise Model What exactly is Influencer Marketing? And, why is Influencer Marketing so important? In this post, I’m going to lay out some viewpoints and “answers” using a couple charts I slapped together to illustrate a few key concepts.”

Colleen M. Johnson presents Blogger Brainstorming posted at cmjoffice.com Blog, saying, “Got blogger block? Ten tips for blog writing.”

Amanda Moore presents How My Passion is Changing My Life posted at VagabondetteVA, saying, “In a follow-up to a Dosh Dosh post about how having a passion for your business can make it more successful.”

Ed Rivis presents Million Dollar Marketing Secrets. posted at Ed Rivis.

Susan Tatum presents What Web Analytics Can Tell You about Traffic Sources posted at TechnoBuzz.

Kathleen Gage presents Street Smarts Marketing & Promotions: Get the most out of your blogging efforts! FREE report tells you how posted at Street Smarts Marketing & Promotions, saying, “What used to be viewed by many as a passing fad has now become a necessary aspect of doing business on the Internet. Blogging has become a necessary aspect of any solid online marketing strategy. However, even though millions of people are blogging, the majority don’t know how to optimize their blogging efforts. Although some people view blogging as a novelty or a “someday I’ll get around to it” smart entrepreneurs understand they have to get into the game of blogging sooner than later. When done correctly, blogging can have an incredible impact on your market position.”

Patrick Schwerdtfeger presents Effective Blogging Process posted at Tactical Execution, saying, “Most people blog ineffecitively. This post offers readers a specific process to follow each time they write a new post.”

Webmaster_1 presents 5 Reasons Why Blogging Is Beneficial posted at The Entrepreneurs Online Magazine, saying, “An article on why blogging is beneficial to any internet marketer”

Amanda Moore presents 106 Organizations That Are Changing the World - Are you helping? posted at VagabondetteVA.

Susan Tatum presents Technology Marketing Fundamentals. Your Best Competitive Advantage. posted at TechnoBuzz.

John W. Furst presents Aweber – A Marketing Lesson And Smart Pricing posted at E-Biz Booster Blog, saying, “Are you freaking out? One of the popular Email Marketing Tools provider — AWeber — has new features and new prices. What’s in it for you?”

Elizabeth Harrin presents SmartDraw 2008: planning the garden posted at A Girl’s Guide to Managing Projects, saying, “I’m a LinkedIn project manager blogger.”

Paula Gregorowicz presents Why Web Standards Matter posted at Paula G. Web Design.

Raymond presents How To Make Money From Balance Transfer Credit Cards posted at Money Blue Book.

Raymond presents How To Get Your Free FICO Credit Score posted at Money Blue Book.

Raymond presents Best Business Credit Card For Your Small Business posted at Money Blue Book.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of linkedin bloggers using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags: linkedin bloggers, blog carnival.

Tags: Blog Carnival, LinkedIn by Kathie Thomas
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LinkedIn is a marvellous way to grow your online business network and get to know people from all over the world. But there are also very quick ways to annoy people as well. And one of those ways is right at the beginning of the process - inviting others to connect with you.

LinkedIn encourages you on your homepage to connect with others you know but they don’t really give you much information on the ‘how-to’ process in doing this. So I want to save you some angst and help improve things for you.

When you put in someone’s email address and name and click on that button to invite them, what happens? Well, if you’ve not actually explored what the invitation says (and many don’t in the early stages) you might be surprised to find that this is all it is:

Kathie,

I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.

-Steve

Nothing else. Now, when I receive that invitation it doesn’t tell me much. I can go to that person’s profile because it is linked to the invitation but if I don’t know that person, or don’t remember them, it’s not going to tell me why they want to connect. And even if I do know them, I still don’t know the reason. Having received one of these invitations proves to me very quickly that the sender hasn’t read my profile.

I do have a request on my profile that I don’t accept ‘canned’ or ‘blanket’ invitations (of which the above is definitely an example) and prefer to receive an introduction and reason for connecting. I don’t want to become just another number to people.

It’s amazing but one of two things happen when I reply to a blanket invitation, asking them the reason for their interest:

1. They ignore me and don’t respond. Their loss - they have a limited supply of invitations and have just wasted one because they didn’t want to really get to know me.

2. They come back with this amazing story of having heard about me from somewhere, or seen me at a conference, or via a forum, or perhaps they’d just been learning about the VA industry and wanted to know more. How am I supposed to read all that in the invitation they had just sent? I always accept after receiving further info - I just like to know what the interest is so that the networking process can truly begin.

So, if you’re new to LinkedIn, or just been in the habit of sending out heaps of invitations but haven’t personalised them, I encourage you to take the time to explore the process further. Building relationships are always worth spending time on.

Oh, and one other suggestion. If you see a really well-worded invitation that comes your way, don’t copy and paste it and start using it for your own - I’ve seen that happen a lot too. Once makes it special, twice makes you wonder, three times makes you realise that some people just don’t have any originality of their own!

Tags: LinkedIn by Kathie Thomas
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It was slightly delayed as the Blog Carnival database was down over the weekend but it’s now back up and so is our latest carnival.

http://www.paulagwebdesign.com/blog/2008/05/05/linkedin-bloggers-may-5-2008-carnival-edition/   Please do visit each post, leave comments and make yourself known to each other!

Submit your blog article to the next edition of linkedin bloggers using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

The next edition will be hosted by SOHO-Life.com on June 2nd. If you would like to host a future edition, please do make yourself known at the Blog Carnival!

Tags: Blog Carnival, LinkedIn by Kathie Thomas
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The week of 24th March marked a number of milestones for me. 14 years in business, I reached the 1,000 mark in LinkedIn connections (thanks Mike) and had published my 300th post on my VA blog.

Those of you who read my VA blog will know I had a week of giveaways for new subscribers to the blog and it produced a whole lot of interest and fun.

What have I learnt in those 14 years? Lots - like don’t hold back on an idea but surge forward with it and action it if you believe in it. I did and ended up pioneering a new industry in my country even though I didn’t know that’s what I was doing at the time. Hindsight is such a great thing, isn’t it?

Networking is another valuable thing I’ve learnt. You never know who is going to be able to lead you to whom or where so it’s important to treat everyone as you would like to be treated yourself. You never know when you might need those contacts. I’ve been able to introduce my daughters to some interesting people for their own life plans as a result of being in the right place at the right time - so leaving the office and actually going out and meeting people is a good idea.

Be prepared to learn new skills and don’t knock back opportunities. Much of what I do today for clients is as a result of saying ‘yes’ when a client asked me to explore something on their behalf. Otherwise I’d still be doing just typing and data entry and nothing else.

Finally, have fun. If you’re not enjoying what you’re doing on a daily basis, then perhaps you need to reassess what’s happening in your life. If it’s for the short-term and you have a definite goal in mind, then that’s fine. But if it’s long-term and you have no goals, then something is adrift - time to find out what and why.

Tags: Author's Thoughts, LinkedIn by Kathie Thomas
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