Small Business | Forum « Guest Expert Stephanie Sammons Talks LinkedIn

Guest Expert Stephanie Sammons Talks LinkedIn (11 posts)

Topic tags: guest expert, linkedin, stephanie sammons

Rich Brooks said
8 months ago:
Hey all! We have an exciting new feature here in the Small Business Club!
We’re going to be bringing in guest experts each week for you to ask questions of, chat with, and otherwise try and stump!
I totally came up with this idea all by myself…after seeing the Facebook group do the same thing.
For our inaugural Guest Expert, I am very excited to introduce Stephanie Sammons, ( @stephsammons here on SME).
Stephanie is the founder and CEO of Wired Advisor, a digital strategy and marketing platform for financial advisors, business professionals, and professional services firms.
She is also the voice behind Build Online Influence, a blog covering digital business strategies, social media marketing, insights, interviews and digital tools. Stephanie launched Wired Advisor after spending more than 15 years in corporate leadership roles for Merrill Lynch and UBS, where she led marketing, training, recruiting, business and community development initiatives.
And, she’s one of the foremost experts on LinkedIn, so please let her know what your biggest LinkedIn challenges are!
@rich-brooks | # | Top
Stephanie Sammons said
8 months ago:
Hi Rich glad to be here. Anyone have any burning LinkedIn questions? Send them in!
@stephsammons | # | Top
Erno Hannink said
8 months ago:
Most often I get questions on business profiles. There is already a business profile but nobody at the company can edit this profile.
What is the fastest track to resolve this?
@ernohannink | # | Top
Stephanie Sammons said
8 months ago:
Hi Erno. If you’re not sure who has access to the profile (perhaps someone at the company set it up) I would suggest emailing LinkedIn support. Someone most likely created a basic profile without realizing it. They would have also had a company email address. Customer support is the best way to resolve.
@stephsammons | # | Top
Joan Crocker said
8 months ago:
Hi Stephanie,
I have two questions.
My first is, what’s the best way to find potential customers on LinkedIn and do you think LinkedIn prospects are higher quality leads (compared to other social networks)?
And, second, would you say that overall it’s a better space for b2b?
Thanks,Joan
@joancrocker | # | Top
Stephanie Sammons said
8 months ago:
Hi Joan,
It’s definitely a great network for B2B but really, we’re all consumers so if you are trying to reach and develop relationships with anyone around “business” LinkedIn is the place to do that. Whether or not LinkedIn prospects are higher quality leads depends on your business and your target market. For example, my company targets financial advisors primarily and we’ve had success on LinkedIn and Facebook. Regardless, LinkedIn members are active and engaged so it is definitely a high quality network. It is essentially becoming the professional web.
@stephsammons | # | Top
Dea Irby said
8 months ago:
Stephanie, a few questions about the LI profile: Are there any elements you want to include in your bio on LinkedIn that are different from other networking sites? What are the essential elements of information to include on a profile that make you stand out. Should you just copy and paste from others to maintain consistency or be original and creative? or, any other advice???@stephsammons
@deairby | # | Top
Kevin Pignone said
8 months ago:
Do you recommended adding people to your network that you do not know?
@kbpignone | # | Top
Sumit Roy said
8 months ago:
@stephsammons Hi there, Stephanie. I’ve stumbled on to a formula that seems to be working for me on LinkedIn. Listen, Befriend, Help, Solve, Share, Create Brand Champions, Don’t Sell.
Gets me a satisfactory rate of new business queries and recommendations. But also takes a fair amount of time.
Is there a way to improve new leads and references?
I guess I am looking for ways to save time while building up a network that trusts you.
@sumitroy | # | Top
Preston Odenbrett said
8 months ago:
@stephsammons – Nice to meet you and I am very happy that @rich-brooks thought of this. I do have a profile ( personal) and have joined many groups and created discussions. However, even though my business is B2B, it seems very difficult to do business on linked-in. I do have a lot of contacts and recommendations from past work. However, I don’t spend as much time in discussions as I do here. I also noticed just tonight that when I went to profile and that person had expertise it indicates for me to do recommendation for that skill is LInked-in trying to do the same as Empire Avenue and Klout. I have seen some major abuse to these systems and some fake endorsements can be given by just asking people to endorse. What will this do to our profiles? I do notice, however that when people type in my name on Google that the first thing that they see or at least I see is Linked-in Profile. In addiiton to all of this, I do own a business, but I am involved in some affiliate programs that I enjoy and really goes well with my business objectives, however I find I can’t create a business profile because of this. Is there a way to do this? Thanks
@prestonodenbrett | # | Top
Dea Irby said
8 months ago:
thanks for helping us out, Stephanie @stephsammons
@deairby | # | Top