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Social Media is Rife with Experts but Starved of Authorities.

by Cherish Flieder

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

You may have been sent an e-mail with this exact request on more than one occasion by a friend or colleague. If you have dismissed this invitation as just another one of those time wasting, friend collecting sites, then you may be at a considerable disadvantage.

So, if it’s that important, what exactly is LinkedIn you ask . . . and that’s a great question!

LinkedIn, found online at http://www.linkedin.com, is by far the largest and most professional, business-oriented, social media, networking site on the World Wide Web. Although it has only been around since 2002, it has over 25 million participants worldwide and grows at the rate of over 130,000 members each week!

LinkedIn is easy to use and opens the doors of opportunity to develop meaningful relationships with key players of the human race, in a new and effective way. The basic concept of how it works beckons back to the theory of “six degrees of separation.” On LinkedIn it will only show you up to three degrees of separation, but that alone will connect you to millions of professionals once you start linking up with other users. Your network will consist of your connections (1st), your connections’ connections (2nd), and then the connections to which they are connected (3rd). This dynamic function will start to make more sense as you begin see it in action.

It’s a good idea to create and maintain a professional LinkedIn profile page if you want:

• a beneficial way to promote your art brand, products and/or services online
• to meet key players in your areas of expertise
• to discover new business or job opportunities
• to learn about a new industry in which you hope to expand
• to reconnect with colleagues, classmates and clients

5 Things I Love About LinkedIn

• LinkedIn helps me to “stay in touch” and “touch base” with people that are important to me. Often, we get so busy that we never follow up on important connections and we loose out in the long run. LinkedIn is a superior tool for keeping you cognizant of your important connections and gives you an easy way to contact with them when the time is right.

• LinkedIn gives you a visual reference of your network, helping you readily discover commonalities. You can find someone with a skill you desire. You can post jobs or even apply for them online. When you are looking to join or serve with a new company, you can use LinkedIn to conduct preparatory research. LinkedIn makes it easy to discover which connections you have working with that company or who is associated with it, even before you have your first interview.
• LinkedIn is a great way to learn about any industry. You can see what other people are up to, see how they are promoting themselves and view their notable accomplishments.
• LinkedIn manages my database of connections for me. I don’t have to go and look up an e-mail for anyone that is connected to me or even open up my e-mail composer to send out a message. It gives me an instant connection to their e-mail in-box from their profile page.
• LinkedIn makes it simple for each member to keep their own information current for the benefit of the community. This feature helps users quickly access updated job summaries, aspirations, interests, status, website links, and more.

One last thing about social media sites . . . there are so many of them out there. If you are using them for your business you will need to carefully select the ones that help you best maintain professional connections and ultimately keep your brand in front of your clients. Professionally, I use Plaxo, Facebook and Twitter, in addition to LinkedIn. MySpace can be good too, if you approach it with a professional touch. But, if you only choose one, I urge you to go with LinkedIn, as it will give you the most professional online presence and effective online networking available.

10 Tips to Making the Most of Your LinkedIn Profile

> > > > > Wait, there’s more! < < < < <

Get the rest of this article “Leveraging LinkedIn’s Networking Power” including the “10 Tips to Making the Most of Your LinkedIn Profile” when you sign up for my e-zine.

These complementary LinkedIn profile tips and information on how to use them will dynamically shift the way you use LinkedIn. Get ready to turbo-charge your online networking activities and reach out to your industry!

You will also get links to LinkedIn groups for the areas of:

• Art Licensing (Licensees & Licensors)
• Publishing (for Authors & Children’s Book Illustrators)

Also, when you sign up for my “Something to Cherish Souvenirs E-zine” for occasional art and info updates, you can also gain exclusive access to the Cherish COLOR” Trends Toolbar. If you are inspired by colors, you will appreciate having this little tool in your back pocket as you use the internet, giving you access to color trend and color mixing information from all of the leading sites on color.

The Top 77 Mistakes New Bloggers Make

1. Not hosting their own blog
2. Registering a blog name (URL) that has been copyrighted
3. Registering a long and difficult to remember domain nameStyle, Design, and Basic Blog Ingredients
4. Keeping the basic template that came installed on the blog
5. Using a black background or one that flashes, blinks, or moves in any other way
6. Using background music
7. Not updating the blogroll that comes with the blog
8. Not using permalinks for their blog posts
9. Not protecting their blogs from SPAM comments with easily installed plugins
10. Under-utilizing easily installed plugins
11. Not including a clear way to contact them
12. Not including a basic About the Author page
13. Not creating a sitemap for Google and other search enginesBlog Comments
14. Keeping the first post & comment that came with the blog
15. Forcing guests to register in order to leave comments
16. Commenting on other blogs with nothing to say other than “nice post” or some other worthless nonsense
17. Commenting on other blogs and posting spamming their blog’s URL in the post
18. Not commenting on other blogs enough
19. Not thinking through what they comment about on other sites
20. Not responding to comments on their blogs
21. Asking other bloggers to link to their blog in comments
22. Gathering email addresses from people who comment and adding them to email marketing lists without permission (privacy violation)
23. Posting affiliate links when making comments on other blogs

There’s more! READ ON . . .

But, after a few more articles, webinars and seeing Twitter links on many of my artist’s friends sites, I threw caution to the wind and I decided to give it a try.

It didn’t take me long to realize that if I said I was “working on a painting of xyz,” someone might ask about it later. So, in my warped, task achieving, type ‘A’ personality mind, Twitter transformed itself into this this really cool accountability for the tasks I need to get done And at the SAME TIME it keep me updated, on task while sharing with my “followers” stuff from my life. I don’t write most things on there, that WOULD be overkill, and I really wouldn’t accomplish anything, but I do try to include some highlight of the day and interact with other Twittters, too!

I am finding that everyone has their own approach to the types of entries that they share. The best thing for me, is that I can see what other artists around the world, friends, family member, and successful professionals are doing. My art licensing friend, Tara Reed, who wrote an excellent free e-book on Twitter, refers to Twitter as her “virtual office.” What a great way to stay in touch! I am realizing that we all lead the most interesting lives which further fuels the fire for what we do.

I don’t know if it has helped business yet, but I realize that building a brand takes a long time, so until I find out I guess I will be posting about it one tweet at a time.

You can follow me @cherishart on Twitter.