LinkedIn is a highly powerful tool, when you know how to use it and how it can benefit your brand. LinkedIn is the largest professional social network online and every professional and business owner regardless of industry or type of business should have a professional and company LinkedIn profile. LinkedIn provides an opportunity to build relationships with potential customers, clients, partners and peers. It allows you to tap into a powerful audience that you can engage, interact with and influence. It can be used as part of your sales, marketing and recruitment strategy. Here are our top tips on how to use LinkedIn to establish personal and company brand credibility.

Enhance your connectability through a complete LinkedIn profile.  A complete profile enhances both your personal and company brand credibility. You should fill out your profile  like it’s your CV or executive bio – include past positions and companies, education, affiliates, skills, activities etc. Also reach out to your network and ask for recommendations and join groups relevant to your business as well as groups where your potential customers might be. If you are a business owner and your individual profile stands out, it will encourage people to check out your website or look at your company LinkedIn page also – so your individual profile page is highly important.

Incorporate LinkedIn with other online marketing strategies. For example, promote your blog through LinkedIn using an application called Blog link by Type Pad. This way, visitors to your profile can read your blogs directly and in turn this could drive traffic to your site. You can also include a link to your profile as part of an email signature. The added benefit here is people can see your credentials directly. Don’t forget to mention your LinkedIn profile on your website also and provide the option for visitors to share information via LinkedIn directly.

Commit to regular and relevant status updates. Use the status bar frequently so you can share useful information and engage with your network. Strive to be visible and valuable during business hours when many people are actually on LinkedIn. Your status updates should add value to your target markets and be updated two to three times daily. You might want to attach articles via LinkedIn, announce an interesting conference, recommend a book or website that you find interesting etc.

Use applications and other tools to get the most out LinkedIn. Our favorite applications are: BlogLink, Company Buzz, WordPress and the LinkedIn Today function. A combination of these tools works brilliantly, for not only profiling, but also keeping on top of the latest news and industry trends.

Improve your Google ranking and enhance your search engine results. LinkedIn allows you to make your profile information available for search engines to index. Since LinkedIn profiles receive a high PageRank in Google, this is a good way to influence what people see when they search for you or your company. To do this, when you create a public profile select “Full View.” Also, instead of using the default URL, customize your public profile’s URL to be your actual name. In addition to your name, you can also promote your blog or website to search engines like Google.

In summary, LinkedIn can significantly raise your personal and brand credibility resulting in new business. LinkedIn is becoming a key reference tool to check the credentials of individuals and companies and therefore it must be high on your marketing agenda along with your website and other online initiatives.  Like any initiative, you need to invest time and effort into it for you to see the benefits. Once you do this, you will see significant business results.  We are testimony to this as we have won new business through our own participation on LinkedIn!

The age old question in today’s digital world is ”to tweet or not to tweet”?

Social media is definitely all the rage. You might be a sceptic of it and really hope that it goes away, however the reality is,  it isn’t going anywhere; it is here to stay. If you are not doing social media, it is only a matter of time before you will need to get your head around it and start embracing it for your business. It won’t be long before your competitors are using social media, if they aren’t already, and then you will really be left behind.

We have the ‘social media’ conversation all the time with our clients. To be honest, Manning & Co., for a marketing company,  were late adopters of some social media platforms such as Twitter. I personally, was a sceptic of Twitter, until I was forced to sign-up when I presented a webinar on Strategic Marketing through the Australian Business Women’s Network.  Since, then I have never looked back.   When I started using Twitter, I realised how you can interact with Twitter in a number of different ways to get the most out of it personally and professionally.

Despite what Social Media scpetics like to believe, social media is not just about letting people know that you are going down the road for a coffee or about to go to dinner with friends! Social media is primarily about engaging – giving something to your networks such as useful tips, information, useful websites etc. Genuine engagement through social media is what will drive your business forward.

You really need to get active with some key social media platforms to see the value that it can deliver  your business. Social media platofrms have a multitude of different applications. For example, Twitter, can be used for not just following your favourite celebrity, but you can follow various news sites, industry associations and councils, companies that may be your clients etc. During last year’s Federal Election, I received more up-to-date information via Twitter on the poll results rather than any other news site.  Following you client organisations, is another practical way to use twitter – find out what they are doing, what research reports they have released, what services they promote etc.

So where do I start? Here are our top tips for introducing a social media strategy for your business:

• Start with  the key social media platforms – Twitter, Linked In, Face Book and You Tube. Master these and then, you can expand on this. There are 466 social media platforms out there!
• Sign-up and make your profiles for your business now, even if you don’t use them straight away. As more businesses and people get involved with social media, it will be harder to find appropriate account names that are related to your business name (just is the case now with domain names). There is no harm in setting up a profile on any of these platforms that we have mentioned; it is free and very easy to do.
• Before you start actively using various social media platforms for your business, explore and see where you can get value from these applications for your business.
• Remember social media is not about ‘pushing’ your product or service. People see through this very quickly. Social media is about engagement, sharing and dialogue with your networks. Sure every once and a while announce that you have a 50% off everything sale starting tomorrow; however don’t make social media just about advertising for your business.

Getting back to the age old question, “to tweet or to not to tweet”, there is still a strong perception that twitter is for celebrities and individuals rather than for businesses. Why would I want to use Twitter for my business? We tell our clients, to get on Twitter and become familiar with it so you can see how you can apply its use for your business. You really need to start ‘tweeting’ to see the value it can bring your business.

I challenge you – start tweeting; join the social media band wagon and see results in your business in the future.

Innovative design plays an influential role in creating brand experiences that are compelling, memorable and authentic. Good design can help a brand stand out in the market place. In a digital era, design is becoming increasingly  intertwined with brand strategy and brand communications.  Design can enhance a strategy and ensure the right outcomes of a re-brand are achieved.

Design is a subjective area of marketing and brand stategy and good design means different things to different people.

Embracing modern design – design that intersects online and offline environments to create brand experiences that stand out for customers – is something that cutting edge, innovative and marketing leading brands are actively doing.

One example is PWC – aka PriceWaterhouse Coopers (www.pwc.com.au). Recently the company launched a new brand identity that featured shortening their name to PWC and a logo that was designed predominately for the online environment. Their logo is dynamic and comes to life online. It is multi-dimensional with many layers. Online, the logo is interactive and used to support a number of key messages. It further supports the companies brand values. PWC have lead the way in this area compared to their competitors.

Other great examples of brands who have used design to stand-out and achieve their brand communication objectives include:

• Sucrogen – www.sucrogen.com.au
• Taubmans – www.taubmans.com.au

Not many companies are there yet in terms of seeing the potential of design that caters for both the online and offline environment. The companies that have taken the leap are  market leaders in their fields, innovative and not afraid to embrace the digital era.

Gemma

Tomorrow, Tuesday March 8, is the centenary of International Women’s Day. It is an important day to stop and reflect on the achievements of women, who unfortunately, are still considered a minority group in many countries.

There is much to celebrate about women and the valuable contribution they make to society and business.  

Women have come a long way in terms of equal rights however it is sad that there are still major inequalities that exist in society. Unequal pay and an alarming under representation of women in senior leadership and board roles are merely two examples.

There is more that can be done to support women in business and in leadership roles. Firstly, it is important that women support one another. Secondly, there should be a stance taken to committ to increasing the number of women in senior executive roles. There also needs to be a review of child care and flexible working conditions to accomodate for working mothers and to prevent a further talent drain to Australia’s workforce at a time when the nation can not afford to have a lower labour force participation rate.

Manning & Co promotes flexibility and work/life balance. Many of our consultants are return to work mothers and they bring significant expertise and a high level of efficiency to their work.

To all the women involved with Manning & Co, we celebrate you and your achievements and the value you to bring to the company. Thank you.  To the women who surround me and inspire me, thank you.

Gemma

As I sit here and type this, we are well and truly into the final hours of this year (2010) and this decade. Quite monumental really and a perfect time to reflect on the last 12 months from a number of perspectives – trends and movements in the marketing profession, the consulting industry and business confidence.

Marketing was definitely back on the  business agenda for many companies  in 2010. A reflection of  growing business confidence and a willingness by companies to invest in future growth.

Social media and online marketing was a top focus for many companies  in 2010 as business comes to more widely acknowledge the importance of their online presence for not business growth anymore but actual business survival.  The number of people and businesses using Twitter as part of their social media marketing platform grew significantly during 2010 – another indicator of the changing online landscape.

We have found that businesses continue to grapple, however, with how to apply social media platforms such as Twitter to their business. While they know they need to get on board with it, they simply don’t know how and need help to incorporate social media into their business and marketing planning. We think this will continue in 2011.

Branding and revised market positioning was also a popular theme in 2010. We saw many companies being proactive and deciding to re-evaluate where they are positioned in the market place and work out where they want to be and what they need to stand-for in order to support their positioning. Having a branding strategy is no longer something that is considered something only necessary for large companies. The SME market is now at the point of realising that they too need a clear, concise and appropriate branding strategy as a key business driver.

From a consulting perspective, we have seen our business grow significantly in 2010 as the need for marketing expertise increases. It appears that companies, despite growing business confidence, are not yet to a point of recruiting full time in-house marketers and so they look to involve marketing consultants, contractors or part-time staff instead.

We have signed up new SME customers this year as well as international, large corporates – an indication of a universal need for affordable marketing expertise and assistance.  From developing a brand strategy for The Synergy Group, to continuing our thought leadership work with Newport Consulting, to helping Parrot – an international telecommunications company launch a new product in Australia – our work has been diverse, exciting and rewarding.

Part of our growth has been to set-up operations in Hong Kong which will be our base for Asia Pacific, and to add aditional capability to our business so we are best positioned to provide real integrated, end-to-end marketing solutions across Asia Pacific and the Trans Tasman. This is part of our focus for 2011. We also plan to launch a new service – Marketing Source. We will share more information on this soon.

2010 has been a great year for Manning & Co and we are excited about the future for the marketing profession and what has to offer companies in a dynamic and forever changing business environment.

Happy New Year from the Manning & Co team.