How To Create an Attractive LinkedIn Profile by Using Video

Many people want to make their LinkedIn Profile stand out.

A good way to do that is using video. Although LinkedIn doesn’t give you the choice to upload your own video to your Profile, there is a work around.

How? By using Google Presentations.

These are the steps to take:

1 ) Make a SHORT video
2 ) Upload it to YouTube
3 ) Go to Google Docs (you might need to create a new account like a Gmail account)
4 ) Choose “Create New” and then “Presentation”
5 ) Choose “Insert” and then “Video”
6 ) Search for the video you just uploaded to YouTube, click on it and press the “Select Video” button
7 ) Log in in LinkedIn and choose “Profile/Edit Profile”
8 ) Scroll down till you see Applications (left hand side) and Press “Add Application”
9 ) Choose “Google Presentation”
10) Select the presentation you have just made

A word of caution regarding the content: always use videos (or slideshows or documents) to share tips and help people. Don’t put any marketing material on your Profile. Get people to like you first by sharing and helping.

This also applies to job seekers. Share in your video some tips regarding your expertise. This will give insights to potential employers on how valuable you can be for them. And it also shows how proactive and creative you are since almost nobody uses video in their LinkedIn Profiles.

To your success !

Jan

Jan Vermeiren is the founder of Networking Coach and author of “How to REALLY use LinkedIn” (in Dutch: “Hoe LinkedIn nu ECHT gebruiken“). Click on the links of the books to get a free light version.

Track The Response To Your Tweets and Status Updates in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Plaxo and other Social Media

Status updates and Tweets are a perfect medium to share tips, experiences and useful information with other people from our networks.

Since these updates and Tweets are limited in length, most of us have to refer to a blog post or article on a website and use a tool to shorten these URL’s.

Tools like Bitly (also integrated in Tweetdeck, one of the best tools to deal with Twitter) and TinyURL are used a lot (for more examples see this blog post about URL Shorteners).

While these tools are very handy to save some space, they don’t show you how many people have clicked on them. Of course you can use Google Analytics or another web analytics tool when you point at your own websites.

So I was very happy to recently have discovered another tool that does this. It is called Tr.im. And it is free!

If you are interested in knowing how many people are following your advice and click on the URL’s in your Tweets and status updates, use this tool.

To your success !

Jan

PS: this is just one of the tools that you can use. If you are interested in more tools, read my book How to REALLY use LinkedIn (of in het Nederlands: Hoe LinkedIn nu ECHT gebruiken). Download your FREE light version first to be sure you will be happy with your purchase.

9 Tips To Make New Year’s Receptions and Events a Success

This time of the year people go to many New Year’s receptions.

Many times we hear people complaining that they are never home because of these events and that it doesn’t bring any results either.

These are a few tips to pay attention to:

1) Prepare yourself

• Ask yourself the question: “Why am I going there? Who do I want to meet?” Use LinkedIn and Google or Google Alerts to look up the people who are going to attend. Another conclusion might be that you better go to another event or switch with a colleague.
• If it is mandatory that you are present, but you don’t really want to be there, look for ways how it might still be interesting to you. You might have to go looking into details, but that’s better than not doing it. If you have the attitude of “I don’t want to be here”, people will sense that and avoid talking to you, making it even harder for you.
• Go together with someone else to get through the “20 minute acclimatisation period” and feel more at ease. Also agree UP FRONT to not stay the whole time together. Tell each other what would be an interesting person for you to talk to (a specific name or function/profile) and look for ways how you can introduce each other.

2) At the event

• Have a host(ess) attitude: look for ways how to help other people. You can do this by introducing them to other people, by listening to them and by offering them a drink or snack. Remark: you can easily do this without being the host(ess) yourself. The benefit is that you will feel more at ease and that other people will appreciate you more.
• Be prepared to answer the question “And what do you do?”, but be the first to ask someone else this question. Why? Because you create goodwill with the other person and will discover which examples and stories about yourself (and the organisation you work for) will appeal the most to the other person.
• DON’T SELL! Remember that the power of networking is in the second degree. You need to be able to tell people what you do so they can talk about you to their network. People won’t do that when you sell to them.
• Ask someone who is in sales or is a business owner: “How can I recognize a good prospect for you?“. Ask others: “How can I recognize someone who might be interesting for you?”. Then help them to paint a clear picture for you. If you haven’t done this before, do it and see what the reactions of other people are.

3) After the event

• If you have met someone with whom you want to continue the business relationship, make sure you follow up. The ROA (Return of your Attendance) is in what you do afterward. To make sure you actually do this, make some time in your agenda BEFORE you go to an event.
• But what do I talk/write about? What many people don’t think of is that the follow up starts DURING the conversation. That’s where you find out what you have in common or how you can help someone else. And then it becomes easy to follow up.

Have fun (and success) at your next networking events !

Jan

PS: these are tips from the networking book “Let’s Connect!” and from the CD “Let’s Connect at an event” (in Dutch: netwerk boek “Let’s Connect!” and “Let’s Connect op een evenement“). Download your free light versions!