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

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!

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.

I have recently noticed several book authors new to Twitter who have been using their book covers as their Twitter profile photo.

Here is why I think this is not the optimum strategy for a book author:

First, people connect to people. It’s hard to have a relationship with a book cover.

Second, when the next book comes out and the Twitter profile photo is changed, there is no consistency for your followers.

Third, many book covers (and many company logos) lose their clear recognition factor in that small photo size.

In my opinion, the best strategy is to use a good headshot (no sunglasses or caps blocking your eyes and preferably with a smile) as your Twitter profile photo.

Then upload the photo of your book cover as the image in your Twitter account background. (For an example of this technique with an ebook image in the background, see my Twitter profile at http://twitter.com/ZimblerMiller )

You can even tile the photo (have the image repeat itself) if you want. Or, if you have several books, you can create (or have someone create for you) a montage of your book covers to use as the background image on your Twitter account.

This strategy gives you the best of both worlds:

You make it easier for people to form a connection with you by including your photo and you also share your book cover(s).

© 2010 Miller Mosaic, LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) and her business partner Yael K. Miller (@MillerMosaicLLC on Twitter) are committed to taking the mystery out of social media so that individuals and companies can utilize the power of social media to attract more business. See their Quick Start Social Media Track.

After sampling the New Twitter, will we active Twitter participants clamor for the return of Classic Twitter?

It’s probably too early to answer this question, although below are some of my thoughts:

Full disclosure: I just got the option to try New Twitter, so I haven’t spent much time appreciating the additional information.

But I have spent some time trying to find the old elements that I liked.

Yes, I know, there’s probably an owner’s manual somewhere with instructions, but I like to test things out the way I suspect most people do: clicking on the various buttons, etc. WITHOUT first reading the instructions.

One thing I do know – when the day comes that ONLY the New Twitter is available, I’ll have to revise my company’s free report found at www.millermosaicpowerof3.com

That said, right now those of us who have the option for New Twitter can also switch back to Classic Twitter.

Some of my first impressions:

• New Twitter can be overwhelming for new people. There’s so much to look at on a single web page. Plus for new people it will be even less clear what the advantage is of all that additional information.

• I don’t like the Direct Messages format. First, I couldn’t find the info at all. (Click MESSAGES on the top nav bar of your Twitter account to the right of PROFILE.) Second, both the sent DMs and the received DMs appear in the same column. (Oh, dear, I actually had to think about what I was sending and receiving.)

• I DO like the complete URL link showing in my profile. But now I’m left with another dilemma – does this mean the newest profile link I’m using – http://unhub.com/phylliszimblermiller in order to share more links than just one – is too confusing so people won’t click on it?

And if you have any first impressions, comments, yeahs or nays re New Twitter, please leave these below!

© 2010 Miller Mosaic, LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) and her business partner Yael K. Miller (@MillerMosaicLLC on Twitter) are committed to taking the mystery out of social media so that individuals and companies can utilize the power of social media to attract more business. See their Quick Start Social Media Track.

Social Media is really good at getting your identity out there. Simply existing does some of this, engaging in activities does a lot more. Either way, this “Digital Footprint” is what people will see when your paths cross (and visa versa in most cases).

In our LinkedIn book entitled “Rock The World with your Online Presence”, Lori Ruff and I focus on Digital Footprint as well as super-optimizing LinkedIn Profiles, LinkedIn Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and visibility.

We go through your LinkedIn Identity, section by section, optimizing each component and each LinkedIn setting for maximum effect.

Focusing on LinkedIn, there are 2 main elements to the Digital Footprint. This carries forward into Google, Bing and elsewhere of course.

Your picture is the first. In LinkedIn this should be a headshot just of you. A white background is best. The stiff professional shot you see in newspapers works for some, for others it is a polo, for some it is a Concert T. Still, it has to be a picture.

I once used this picture from the cover of our Rock The World book as my LinkedIn picture. Then, one day it was just gone. LinkedIn had pulled it.

The second part of your Digital Footprint is your LinkedIn Headline. It’s the centerpiece to your Digital Footprint actually. Show up in a list, send a note, participate in a discussion, they all display THIS INFORMATION as well as your picture.

Here is an excerpt from the Rock The World with your Online Presence, a 188 page LinkedIn Profile and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Guide for LinkedIn and Google.

To get the whole scoop and to get really cranking in business as a result of LinkedIn, check out the Rock The World books. “Rock The World 1″ on LinkedIn Profiles and SEO is only $19.95 and its available at Amazon.com. Learn about the next book in the series, Rock The World with Social Media, (Rock The World 2), The Ultimate Social Media Guide for LinkedIn Users.

—–

Rock The World with LinkedIn Radio Show

From Page 48 in the book – The 70′s Rock Band KISS says “Shout it out loud!”

Your LinkedIn Headline is where you want to focus your greatest attention, especially on a “per-character basis.” You need to leap off the page with your “wordsmithing.”

If the song coming across your radio doesn’t catch you in the first few chords, you might just go on to the next station. The same thing holds true for LinkedIn. The Headline is of particular importance, as it shows up in search results. A good one will attract people to look at your full profile.

The Headline is the first area encountered by a viewer, even before they see your Summary. It is brief (only 120 characters); an ever so important blurb that states what you do and what you are looking for. This is a VERY important area to nail down and take advantage of.

Why is the headline so important? Beyond your name, current company and current job title, it is the text that others see when you show up in search results. If your headline looks interesting, they may click through to your Profile to see more. If they do not find it appealing, it is off to the next person. Use as many of the 120 characters as possible.

TIP – If you type too many characters in any form field, LinkedIn will reject the change, indicate how many you are allowed, and tell you how many you have total. This is a nifty feature that keeps you from having to guess how much to trim.

Here are some examples of “short” headlines:

– President, Strategic Systems LLC
- Business coach helping Entrepreneurs
- Sr. Sales Manager, MCI
- Branch Manager, Phoenix, Cbeyond
- Executive Recruiter specializing in IT

Now, here are some more advanced headlines. Notice the difference:

– Public Speaker, Entrepreneur and Author of “The Total Idiot’s Guide to Yahoo”
- CEO, CommonCraft Ventures LLC, investing in green energy concerns
- Sr. Development Manager, INFO for The Go, developers of mobile applications for the Oil and Gas Industry
- V.P. Sales, Sprint, covering West Coast Operations
- Chief Operating Officer (COO), Managed Hosting PLC, managed data center solutions for streaming media

Some might get even more advanced. Here are real headlines from real experts (found by searching on the LinkedIn keyword “expert”):

– Key Expert Work Injury and Rehabilitation at EU China Social Security Reform Co-operation Project
- EDI/B2B Process Expert, Business Development, Product Management and Wireless Mobile Computing Professional
- On-Air Talent, Lifestyle and Trend Expert, Author, Guest Speaker, Stylist
- SharePoint SME, Workflow Architect at John Wiley and Sons

Here is Mike O’Neil’s headline:

LinkedIn Trainer | Social Media Authority, Speaker, Author | Evangelist, Entertainer ♫ The LinkedIn Rockstar ♫ 29,000+

Here is Lori Ruff’s Headline:

The LinkedIn DIVA, Social Networking Master | Social Media Speaker, Trainer, Author | TopLinked.com | #9 LinkedIn Woman

More on the Importance of your LinkedIn headline

Lori Ruff and I have been a part of CouchSurfing.org now for almost a year. In the last 6 months we have ramped up to the point where we had three individual Couchsurfing visitors at ONE time this week.

Couchsurfing.org has a process to certify individuals in the program and it costs a nominal amount to get setup in the system. Check it out!

If you’ve seen the movies “The Big Chill” or “The Breakfast Club”, you know how strangers are not strangers for very long when couped-up with one another. Such is the case here.

You never know who you might have request to “crash at your pad” or where you might stay. Here’s who we’ve met: a Guatemalan diplomat, a German filmmaker, a family from Poland, a National Geographic scale photographer, global travelers, an IT manager, those in town for the Widespread Panic concert, those considering a move to Colorado (a good idea).

It is a bit like a Grateful Dead concert where you don’t actually go in to the show – you just explore “The Village” outside for hours and hours, meeting people every few yards. Lori Ruff and I did just that in 2009. It is a highlight of the concert year for both of us. You meet the darndest people and some you would just NEVER expect (i.e., a high school football coach).

I felt this was such an interesting and powerful series of experiences that I actually put it on my LinkedIn Profile as a current position – Couchsurfing Host & Guest at IA Social Media. A quick LinkedIn search on the Boolean search term “Couchsurfer OR Couchsurfing” yielded over 800 hits just now!

See Mike O’Neil’s LinkedIn Profile with Couchsurfing listed: http://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeoneil

Want to see the AMAZING work of our German Filmmaker friend Chris Dahm ( @crisdahm ) before he completes his documentary-style footage of Lori and I?

.

At Integrated Alliances HQ                                With Lori                                        With Mike

See Cris’ Video Diary as he travels the world – WOW!

www.youtube.com/user/crisdahm or  www.crisdahm.com

One last thing before I leave you today…

We just finished up our second Rock The World Social Media book, Rock The World with Social Media. It’s “The Ultimate Social Media Guide for LinkedIn Users”.

Find out more and pre-order at www.RockTheWorld2.com. $21.95 gets you a Signed First Edition copy.

Twitter is my favorite social media platform, and it just got better with the addition of four new features although not all of these new features are created equal:

More info in email notifications of new followers – 5 stars:

The emails announcing new followers now have a great deal more information than before. Besides a more pleasing design layout, you can learn a lot about your new follower without even clicking through to the follower’s bio.

Definitely a 5-star feature for ease-of-use.

Suggestions of who you might want to follow – 4 stars:

On your Twitter account home page you’ll now see the headline “Who to Follow” and I do appreciate having these Twitter users brought to my attention.
The reason for the 4 stars rather than 5 is because I also find this new feature somewhat distracting. If I’ve come on Twitter.com to check something specific, I have to be careful not to go off on a tangent checking out Twitter’s suggestions for me.

Shared followers – 3 stars:

When you go to someone’s profile on Twitter (whether or not you follow that person), over on the right-hand side under “Actions” you’ll see “You Both Follow.”

I give this feature 3 stars because I’m not particularly interested in knowing this about most Twitter users. But there may be times when I’ll find this useful.

Following followers – 2 stars:

And on someone’s profile (whether or not you follow that person) under the follow button you will see “Also followed by” and if you click on the word “others” you get “You follow these followers of [Twitter user]

This gets 2 stars for confusing language. What “Also followed by” really means is that these are the people you follow who are following the Twitter user whose profile you are on. I also don’t see the relevancy of this feature.

Extra tip: If there are people whose every tweet you don’t want to miss, you can get an RSS feed for their tweets at the bottom right-hand side of their profile page.

© 2010 Miller Mosaic, LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) and her business partner Yael K. Miller (@MillerMosaicLLC on Twitter) are committed to taking the mystery out of social media so that individuals and companies can utilize the power of social media to attract more business.

As I have written before, Twitter deceptively appears simple when it is anything but simple. There are written rules – and many unwritten rules – that it is wise to follow in order to reap the most benefits from Twitter.

Thus when I was a little startled by something a client new to Twitter asked, I realized that this would be a good blog post topic.

The client asked why not tweet with links to the client’s older television show appearances?

I replied that there’s a time frame element of sharing tweets on Twitter that needs to be considered.

A tweet with a link to a new article about the client was more than appropriate. But a better way to handle past television show appearances would be to tweet a link to his website page that features these television appearances.

In other words, the television show appearances are not new, so if the client tweeted a link to each old show those tweets could be viewed as offputting on Twitter.

Now before anyone jumps down my throat about tweeting older information, let me clarify what I’m talking about. Appearances (or the videos of the appearances) have a shorter shelf life on Twitter than information, which remains fresh for a longer time.

For example, sometimes when I am followed by an author new to Twitter, I will tweet a reply to that person along the lines of: If you are looking for material on book marketing, see my articles at http://budurl.com/bookmarketarticles

While I wrote these articles some time ago, the information is being offered to people new to Twitter who might need the information now. I am not tweeting links to the blog posts I did two years ago or one year ago or even one month ago.

At the moment my blog is the link in my Twitter profile, and people coming to my blog for the first time can search for specific blog post topics. But I don’t tweet links to these posts now – I tweet links to new posts that I or others have written – new material that is now available for people to read and learn from.

Remember, one of the strongest advantages of Twitter is the ease of tweeting in real time.

I’ll admit that, whenever there’s an earthquake here in Los Angeles, Yael and I immediately tweet about it, as do many others on Twitter who experience the quake. We are using Twitter to announce the news here in LA.)

If you are not sure where to find good information to share on Twitter, subscribe by email notification or RSS feed to several blogs connected to your own areas of interest or expertise. Then on Twitter share links to the posts that you find worthwhile.

In this way you will be considered a valued participant on Twitter and yon won’t need to rely on tweeting links to old material.

And if you want to learn more about how to use Twitter effectively, check out ebook “The Wonderful World of Twitter and How It Can Help Promote Your Brand, Book, Cause or Business”

© 2010 Miller Mosaic, LLC

FYI — You can also download your copy of Phyllis Zimbler Miller’s FREE report “Twitter, Facebook and Your Website: A Beginning Blueprint for Harnessing the Power of 3”