In prepping for Version 3.0 of Rock The World with your Online Presence, our hit LinkedIn Profile and SEO book, we had to make a little extra room. Since our book was released, right after the LinkedIn design change in late 2009, the LinkedIn Company Profile feature came on board and we had to dive into it of course. In the Rock The World book we refer to these instructional videos as “Timeless Updates”.

In this video, we (Mike O’Neil and Lori Ruff, The LinkedIn Rockstars), explain the limits regarding LinkedIn Company profiles. Lori even provides some extra tips that only VIEWERS of the video get to learn.

TO SEE THE EXTRA TIP – watch the video!

Limit #1 – The key LinkedIn limit regarding company profiles is the space allowed for the Company Description. It is 1,500 characters and carriage returns count as 2 here. Use a word processor and copy/paste the text. ♦ Special characters ♦ are not a bad idea either. Short paragraphs, some bullets. Think of it how you would think of a LinkedIn Profile Summary in many ways.

Limit #2 – Specialties are tags that you can add to increase your appeal to individuals and search engines. You get up to 20 keywords or key PHRASES. Watch the video for the secret tip on getting the most out of Specialty tags.

There are other limits that you are not likely to run into (# of products or services listed). If they become significant, we will feature a post on those as well.

See related post on LinkedIn Limits

Click below to see the Integrated Alliances Company Page, follow if you like.

Does this help?

This video itself is a LinkedIn Success story. Through LinkedIn inviting, LinkedIn Thank You Messages (ala Gary Vaynerchuk’s book “The Thank You Economy“) and a little insight, Splash Media founder Paul Slack and Integrated Alliances Founder Mike O’Neil struck up a relationship that led to a meeting and to this video interview.

In the interview with former CNN anchor Renay San Miguel, Mike O’Neil discuses corporate adoption of LInkedIn and the capabilities that the LinkedIn API will bring to users in 2011.

Splash Media provides turnkey social media solutions for small and medium sized businesses who can’t quite afford to bring on a full-tome Social Media specialist. Integrated Alliances provides corporate LinkedIn training solutions, primarily for sales teams at technology firms. The IA executive team of Mike O’Neil & Lori Ruff are also dynamic keynote speakers on Social Media.

This is what comes from 1) being authentic 2) writing custom invitations 3) being referred and 4) sending Thank You messages.  This is the actual string.  IT IS BEST READ FROM THE BOTTOM UP.

Hi Mike,

Thanks for linking to me. I look forward to learning from you.

Thought it would be fun to share my first album and first concert with you:

First album: (7th grade) Deep Purple: Machine Head. My friend had an older brother who had it and I had to have it. (I am not counting the Bobby Sherman album that I cut out of the back of a Cheerios box

First concert: Aerosmith and Golden Earring – also 7th grade.

John

On 04/12/11 1:03 AM, Mike O’Neil wrote:
——————–
Thank you for the invitation to connect on LinkedIn. Your profile comments are very inspiring to me. I watch Almost Famous nearly every month.

We ROCK at LinkedIn. As “The LinkedIn Rockstars”, we speak, train and write real books on LinkedIn and Social Media at an expert level all over the world.

Rock? I played the Fillmore in San Francisco Nov 2010, sharing the stage with members of the Allman Brothers, Paul McCartney’s Band and even Aerosmith, but that’s a different story…

♫ So, why does this matter? ♫

We take this Rock n Roll side and funnel the energy into our LinkedIn Corporate Sales Training Programs, refined over 5 years and 400+ LinkedIn training sessions.

Getting to Top on LinkedIn (29,900+ connections) taught me things that I share with our clients – mostly tech companies with sales teams.

We wrote “Rock The World with your Online Presence”, the world’s #1 rockin’ LinkedIn business book. It’s a near bible for LinkedIn Profile Optimization and related SEO, the 188 pgs packed with classic rock song references.

http://RockTheWorldBook.com

Interested in talking further? If so, simply REPLY back. Myself, or someone from our team, will listen, understand, share some insights and help you take the next steps LinkedIn and business development.

Rock on!

Mike O’Neil
The LinkedIn Rockstar

You might also check out my partner Lori Ruff, The LinkedIn Diva, at http://LinkedIn.com/in/LoriRuff . She rocks too!

On April 11, 2011 8:00 PM, John King wrote:
——————–
Hi Mike,

Bill Clanton suggested I link to you.

You had me at “Almost Famous and Office Space”

Reading your profile is actually entertaining – especially for a music lover who spent every spare nickel on albums and concerts as a kid.

John King

We (Mike O’Neil & Lori Ruff) are The LinkedIn Rockstars and we are visiting the Pacific Northwest to deliver a 2-day LinkedIn Retreat in Langley, WA (April 21-22). It is a highly intimate affair aimed at marketing and sales professionals, those tasked with bringing business in the door. The program is hosted by the Langley Center for New Media and Russell Sparkman, Director.

Customers vs. Employers

It is interesting how these very skills map to the job search – finding customers and finding jobs, customers finding you and employers finding you.

While we primarily train corporate sales teams at technology firms to use LinkedIn, many of the skills are highly transferable – to small business AND for career-related activities.

Giving Back

Upon meeting Paul Anderson on LinkedIn (a LinkedIn success story), Mike got the idea to help the local job seeker community and the global job seeker community. Paul liked the idea and this is what we came up with. Hope you like it too!

Regular registration for the 2-day retreat is $548. For most job seekers, this is simply not an option. But there are costs to cover and we maintain a small class size to maximize learning. What is one to do with so many people to help?

The Idea

Have a contest to gather up the best job seeker LinkedIn tips and award a scholarship, worth $548, to the winner. It can’t be just any contest though.

See the Seattle Times Article for the “full story” and extra LinkedIn tips from Mike O’Neil.

In an age of widely circulated Tip Sheets, we are seeking new, original ideas. The most creative LINKEDIN-related solutions will be weighted the highest.

So, if you are in the greater Seattle area and would like a chance to win the Job Seeker scholarship to the 2-day Retreat, listen up! This individual MUST report back to the rest of the job seeker community by posting comments on this blog.

We (Mike O’Neil & Lori Ruff) will judge and we like ORIGINAL IDEAS and, as rockstars who love shiny objects, award STYLE POINTS. We will highlight other great ideas as well. To be considered, include the term #RockTheWorld in the post somewhere – hint, good tip on Style Points!

Help out your fellow job seekers by contributing YOUR ideas, comment on each other’s comments, and may the best ideas win (for all)!

There is a lot of debate over complexity and time management in Social Media, especially as users adopt multiple platforms. It’s natural, like playing multiple instruments or multiple sports.

So, which of the big 3, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter is the most COMPLEX for the average daily user and WHY?

Frankly, we find the combination of LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter is where the biggest complexity lies, especially with messaging, but that just something to kick it off with.

This is an excerpt from our Rock The World with your Online Presence book, co-authored by Mike O’Neil & Lori Ruff.

Most things in the Social Media world have limits and LinkedIn is no different, some limits are really important to take into account. Only 3,000 invitations? 300 characters to invite someone to join your network? I didn’t know that!

With few exceptions, everything LinkedIn-related has limits. Being curious and used to maxing things out, we set out to do just that with LinkedIn, especially LinkedIn profiles. LinkedIn’s limits, like the 3,000 Invitation limit or the 50 Group limit, really matter and you MUST plan accordingly or you can “be stuck in the desert with no food or water”.

In some cases it is really important to know about the limits. Some of them have “irreversible consequences”, e.g. deleting email accounts. At the same time, there are areas without limits, e.g. the number of jobs or schools. For example, the Summary section has 2,000 characters; how many should you use? Prince has the answer: “1999” of course!

Think of different ways to express yourself and your message then effectively use the space LinkedIn affords you. Fill it up, ‘Take it to the Limit” (The Eagles 1976).

The LinkedIn Counter

In many cases, LinkedIn will be really helpful and tell you when you go “One Toke Over The Line (Brewer and Shipley 1971) by counting the characters for you. It is even turns red when you cross “0” so you really can’t miss it. This counter tool is showing up more and more and it’s a great development.

For example, if you paste text into your summary text box, click on “Save” and get an error message, it will tell you that have used 2,050 characters and you are only allowed 2,000. It won’t let you save it until you comply with the limits. The following numbers indicate the maximum number of characters allowed in each field type.

LinkedIn Profile Limits

Number of Profiles you can have: legally one, technically there is no limit

Picture: 4 MB file upload that results in an 80 x 80 pixel picture

First Name – 20 char.
Last Name – 40 char.
Former/Maiden Name – 40 char.

Headline – 120 char.
Website Custom Tag – 36 char.
Status field – 140 char.
Public Profile URL – 46 char.

Summary – 2,000 char.
Specialties – 500 char.

Number of Companies – unlimited
Company Name – 100 char.
Company Display Name – 100 char.
Position (Job) Title – 100 char.
Position Description – 2,000 char.

Number of Educational Institutions – unlimited
Education/Degree – 100 char.
Education/Fields of study – 100 char.
Education/Activities and Societies – 500 char.
Education/Additional Notes – 1,000 char.

Number of recommendations – unlimited
Number of characters in a recommendation – more than you should ever use!

Interests – 1,000 char.
Groups and Associations – 1,000 char.
Honors and Awards – 1,000 char.

Contact Settings – 1,000+ char. (if you go over in this field, it simply will not save your changes. The most we have seen is 1,495 char., but the total is less than 2,000 char.)

Other Important LinkedIn Limits (for all users)

Total Number of Direct Tier 1 Connections you can have – 30,000 total
Invitations that you can send to others – 3,000 lifetime
Invitations you can accept – no limits
Number of people you can send a message to at once – 50 people Tier 1’s
Number of LinkedIn Groups you can join – 50 Groups (plus 50 more subgroups)
Number of Status updates per day – no limits

LinkedIn offers up 3 Website links in your LinkedIn profile. Mike O’Neil, The LinkedIn Rockstar, explain that while users might be tempted to use them for a Blog or for Twitter, this is NOT, however, where they should be used. LinkedIn has special support for Blogs (through Applications) and special support for Twitter.

Facebook is one link you might consider adding and it begs a question. Should it be a link to your Facebook Profile or your Facebook Page? If you don’t have a Facebook Page, then that’s an easy one to answer – your Facebook Profile.

My partner Lori Ruff and I are trying a new idea for handling URL’s, especially Social Media URL’s, and it is in use on our LinkedIn profiles. We are using a site that houses ALL of our URL’s, www.itsmyURLs.com, so people can access to all 15 or so of our Social Media links in a nice easy to select format. Here are 3 examples – combined and individual.

See the LinkedIn Rockstar Team Link Page

See Mike O’Neil’s Link Page

See Lori Ruff’s Link Page

LinkedIn is easy, Social Media is hard!

We say that over and over and it becomes quite apparent in our LinkedIn sales trainings. We get asked to explain social media even in LinkedIn class. It’s now part of the curriculum.

Is this your life now?

Communications are coming in from ever direction

Is it a Message, an Invite, a Request, a Recommendation, a Request FOR a Recommendation, an Update, a Post, a Comment, a Reply, a List?

The terminology is a mess!

Are you a Friend, a Fan, a Connection, a 1, a 2, a 3, a Follower, a “Followee”, a Subscriber, a Liker, a “Likee”, WHEW!!

Here are a few helpful techniques that I personally use to get by until a technical solution emerges:

LinkedIn

I have my LinkedIn communications settings set so that few communications come to me as individual emails. I only receive messages from the 4 groups I manage. I am on LinkedIn all the time, even on the iPhone. Still, if you check in daily, this communication technique is a good one.

I disconnect from people that over-communicate and are NOT in any way strategic. They are not notified. I have deleted 2,500 people form my network to stay under 30,000 so I really know this one. When “removing connection” the only information LinkedIn gives you is their First Name and Last Name.

Facebook

As with LinkedIn, I disconnect from people that over-communicate and are NOT in any way strategic. I “unlike” Pages that over-communicate as well. They are not notified. I’ve deleted 1,500 Friends and at least 500 Pages to stay under the 5,000 limit.

Did you know that Page “Likes” count against the 5,000 Friend limit? Yep. If you “fill up” like I did, the first place to start shedding is Pages!

Avoid the massive picture Tags. They seem like a scams, waste your time and fill your InBox needlessly. “Untag” yourself in them. This is especially big around the holidays.

Twitter

Use tools like Hootsuite or TweetDeck to organize yourself, schedule your Tweets, views conversations (nice!), view select Tweets based on Who, keywords, hashtags and several others. I hope that these quick ideas help you get Social Media communications under control a little bit better. They help me and I am still swamped much of the time. Still, my life is a little more extreme in this area so don’t let it scare YOU rom getting involved with Social Media.

Rock on!

Facebook is really hard for Business to Business (B2B) professionals, aka LinkedIn users, to grasp. It just isn’t second nature for business people, who tend to be a bit older than their Facebook counterparts.  I liken it to the “PacMan generation” vs the “Mario Brothers generation”.  As one who grew up with squealing modems (300 bps then 1200bps), it seems foreign to me as well. I profess I am a fan of PacMan, Galaga, Asteroids and even PONG.

“Growing up LinkedIn” in the Social Media era makes it even harder. Us “Pacmen” and “Ms. Pacmen” are database minded, we recall bulletin boards, character-based systems. People are records in a database that we search on to engage others for business. That idea is turned entirely upside down with Facebook – 180 degrees.

The differences become  so apparent when we teach LinkedIn-oriented people to use 1) Facebook or 2) the Pair of LinkedIn AND Facebook or 3) the triple play – LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

The first big things that they must deal with is the Facebook Profile vs. the Facebook Page. I have even heard other Social Media experts slip up in their speaking, and it really throws audiences for a loop.  Profiles are for People and Pages are for business entities and business activities.

This Post will focus more on Profiles. The next will focus more on Facebook Pages.

Here is the simple, straight, abbreviated scoop:

Facebook Profiles are different than LinkedIn Profiles, although they are both share the “1 to 1″ principle. Every person on Facebook MUST have a Profile. It is your identity. A profile is like a Social security Number (SSN), there is one per person.

While it is possible to have more than one it is a violation and one does not want to be in violation of Facebook rules. Good luck getting end user support to clear up problems, nor the problems of the “other” 500,000,000 users.

ONLY PEOPLE HAVE PROFILES. Freeway Ford dos not have a profile with First Name = Freeway and Last Name = Ford (nor any variant). Businesses have PAGES and I will cover that in another Blog Post.  Do NOT use a Profile for a business, unless you don’t care if all your work is simply gone someday.

The LinkedIn profile is fully searchable, both within LinkedIn and via Google. Repeat – The LinkedIn profile is fully searchable, both within LinkedIn and via Google.

The Facebook profile CANNOT BE SEARCHED for content in any similar way. No need repeating. It just isn’t for that, it was designed by a college student for other college students. LinkedIn was designed by business people for business people. In fact, the investors in Facebook are all ON LINKEDIN and were early adopters of LinkedIn.

See related story on The Social Network Movie

Facebook was started by Mark Zuckerberg in college, as we see in the hit movie “The Social Network”. In fact, Facebook was originally called “The Facebook”, which in turn was based on a student photo book used in Residence Halls at Harvard. Original users of Facebook were required to have an @Harvard.EDU email address to even participate.

Soon one school wasn’t enough, even one country wasn’t enough, the .EDU email requirement was lifted and so the story goes. In fact the movie indicates that it was the infamous Shawn Parker, Founder of Napster and Plaxo, that took Facebook international and suggested the name be simplified to simply “Facebook”.

In came the investors, there were some shake-ups and it is now a great movie, one that The LinkedIn Rockstars, Mike O’Neil and Lori Ruff, watch over and over. We learn something new each time.

Why?

The Social Network is about ENTREPRENEURSHIP. The company is a social networking company, but it could be Apple or Microsoft or Google or one of any number of other companies.

Watch the movie from THAT perspective and it opens entirely new parts of your brain. It’s not ABOUT Facebook, but rather the CREATION of company that became Facebook.

Related post – Why business people have so much trouble with Facebook

Warning

…there will be a little bit o’ rock & roll here like all things Rock The World^TM.

Technology professionals have it both good and bad on LinkedIn. For the good, there are all those great people that can provide the opening to the next client, the next job, the next friend. LinkedIn is loaded with peers and clients for technology people. Lots of great music out there, you could say.

The bad part of LinkedIn for technology professionals is that everyone and his uncle is out there on LinkedIn and it is harder than ever to STAND OUT. How many people need a T1 nowadays? One call can get you 20 bids! It’s a tough business.

An irresistible tip right from me – “Fit In and Stand Out”. If you must wear a tie, make it a Jerry Garcia tie and a colored shirt. Make sense? Read on…

LinkedIn Recommendations Set You Apart

For the bad, there are so many people just like us out there that it’s easy for us to get lost in the shuffle. There are so many bands that all sound the same.  The LinkedIn Profile and specifically, the LinkedIn Recommendation can help a LOT. It can help show the Rockstar that you are in your line of work.

You don’t have to be a LinkedIn Rockstar to understand the importance of LinkedIn Recommendations. Chris Brogan (@ChrisBrogan) did an excellent write-up in a recent Blog Post.  See the post. Some of our readers have reached out asking for my to jump in on the conversation, specifically since the topic has great application to my fellow technology professionals, whom I now train to use LinkedIn. Why?

First of all, a recommendation shows that you were there, it is proof that you DO the things that you SAY you do. It is a way to “Back it up” as Kid Rock might say. A good book is like a good album isn’t it. Songs are chapters.

We were in the studio cuttin’ a record, oops I mean writing a LinkedIn book, and it came out pretty good.  Rock The World with your Online Presence is 188 pages devoted entirely to LinkedIn Profile development and SEO optimization. Over the last year, readers have contacted me and suggested that I share some of the material and the LinkedIn Recommendations part was suggested. I couldn’t resist the request, so here is the single best LinkedIn Recommendation tip we talk about in the book.

This tip is particularly well suited to technology professionals with whom I most closely relate, but it really works for just about everyone. One should speak from what one knows and you can see that 250 LinkedIn Recommendations (from real customers, co-workers and partners) can show you a nice array of what this looks like in action. Notice that they are spread out so that they paint a broad, yet detailed picture.

I suggest that most business professionals have 10-20 LinkedIn recommendations from customers, partners, co-workers and maybe even investors. This is your 3rd PARTY VISUAL PROOF. Spread them out.

My Best Recommendation advice…

…for technology professionals: Ask others to describe projects you worked on together and say some nice things about the result of your contribution. Ask them to use numbers where it makes sense.  It paints a picture of what it is like to work with you in business. LinkedIn is about business after all.

The LinkedIn Rockstar

A recommendation that is not specific has deflated value. Should it say: “I really like their music” or: “Once I heard that 7-minute guitar solo on Free Bird, I had to go to the show, get the album, join the fan club, play it for all my friends”. You decide!

Describe Project Results

LinkedIn Recommendations cater especially well to projects and that is where technology professionals can benefit especially well. An example:

“Franklin and I worked on a 20-city telecom roll-out. He helped us design it and was with us all the way through the turn-up including the ribbon cutting ceremony. This project was a success because of Franklin. I suggest you reach out to him!”

The advice of friends

Sales professionals everywhere know the power of testimonials. For those in sales roles, we suggest you check out our partner Townsend Wardlaw’s wisdom on the subject - Top 10 ways to Use LinkedIn for Sales Success. Townsend rocks the sales world but he’s into a bit more modern music than the “analog-driven” vinyl-recorded LinkedIn Rockstars.

About me and why I can write this particular focus

I spent 20 years in technology sales and started training on LinkedIn over 4 years ago, showing others how to become accomplished with LinkedIn by following our LinkedIn Business Methodology.

I lived the technology sales life: I carried a monthly sales quota, went to President’s Club, worked in a cube at a branch office, worked at Corporate HQ, home-officed, VPN’d in, got LAID OFF (more than once). I did it all.

Networking for me was Twisted Pair, DS3, Servers. Now my networking is all LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, WordPress, Meetups and everything that goes with it.  You might call what I do now Layer 8 networking.

It seems events are a central part of Social Media, which has its roots in Social Networking. We are talking about the PHYSICAL, in-person interaction between individuals, particularly at live events.

As such, the major Social Media platforms either have direct support for events or they are used to support the promotion of events and even activities AT events.

In this multi-part series, we examine some techniques for maximizing exposure for your event on Social Media. We highlight our just-completed 2010 8th Annual Integrated Alliances’ Denver Holiday Party (Nov 30, 2010) as the real world example; because real world is better than theory.

The series will cover some strategies, techniques and explore some simple, yet amazingly powerful extras along the ways – Super Tips.

We will explore all of the major platforms (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Meetup.com, YouTube and Blogs) and what they offer to help you promote and manage events and to manage invaluable follow-up after events.

PART I

First, you must use care and consider scope. What actions happen first is VERY important as you spread the word and try to avoid making mistakes, some of which cannot be corrected.

On the scope side, this series is not designed to teach event planning, although these cutting edge practices from the front lines will be of a lot of interest to event planners and even to event attendees.

We start with this information given – date, time, location, cost, descriptive text, pictures, links. See the event information for the real world case study – the 2010 8th Annual Integrated Alliances’ Denver Holiday Party.

Super Tip #1 - Promote the event using an easy to remember, nice looking Domain Name (URL). There are many reasons for this. You will want to forward but NOT mask the domain if your target is using a payment button such as Paypal.

1. The vanity URL looks good in text and in print. You can’t click on a flier (i.e., www.DenverHolidayParty.com).
2. The vanity URL replaces ugly URL strings with something attractive that reinforces your brand and makes it easy for people to remember (i.e., www.DenverHolidayParty.com).
3. It gives you the flexibility to redirect it to any place you like (e.g. Landing Page, Primary Registration Site, Backup Registration Site, Event Closed Screen, Post-event site).

In our case, we used 2 such domains – DenverHolidayParty.com and SocialNetParty.com. In fact, after the event, each is now redirected to the pictures on Metromix, taken by photographer Howie Grapek. Metromix is a division of Colorado’s #1 TV channel 9News.

Super Tip #2 - If you want others to promote your event, make it easy for them. Create a simple 1 page flier and host it on the web, like on your web site or blog site. You can update it as the events shapes up and interested parties can always get the latest version to download. It works with tip #1 as well. We still have our promotional flier for the event up at SocialNetEvents.com; check it out.

And then check back for Part II and Part III coming soon! Get more tips and insider real-world strategies for using Social Media to promote and support your events and improve your business outlook.

Related Story

The LinkedIn Rockstars, Mike O’Neil & Lori Ruff, recently recorded a 60-minute Webinar entitled Event Networking with Social Media. Learn to find events, work events properly and follow up after events using Social Media like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Blogs.  The recording is available for free playback.