I had the pleasure recently to interview Jan Vermeiren, Europe’s foremost expert on business networking and the author of How to REALLY use LinkedIn, one of the best books on any continent for getting the most from your LinkedIn account.

In speaking with Jan you soon realize that he gives such great advice for using LinkedIn not because he’s a LinkedIn expert but because he’s a networking expert. Jan’s the founder of Networking Coach and came to the attention of the global community with the publication of his best selling book on harnessing the power of networks, Let’s Connect!: A Practical Guide for Highly Effective Professional Networking.

How to Turn 20 Minutes into 45

When I approached Jan for this interview I told him that it would be about 15-20 minutes in length. I was fully prepared to honor this time committment but Jan, as incredibly generous as he is, wouldn’t stop giving great tips, techniques and strategies on turbocharging your LinkedIn presence. So grab a pen and plenty of paper to write down all the great LinkedIn and networking ideas Jan reveals:

• Where the real power of your LinkedIn network lies
• How to quickly grow an effective network
• What are the 3 most important principles for getting the most out of online networking
• The biggest problems with online networking
• … and much, much more

Free Light Version of How to Really Use LinkedIn

Jan has graciously made a light version of his LinkedIn book available at How-to-REALLY-Use-LinkedIn.com. His primary site, Networking-Coach.com, provides links to Jan’s products and services as well as a number of great free resources on building your prowess in business and professional networking.

Free Teleseminar: Social Media Essentials for Business

Jan Vermeiren provides great information and if you want to learn even more about using Social Media and Social Networking to accelerate your business marketing, reserve your seat for a free, 55 minute tele-session that will reveal the power of not only LinkedIn but blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other power social media platforms to give your business the edge it needs in these tough economic times! This value-packed, free social media marketing workshop will be broadcast via telephone Wednesday, May 20, 2009. Reserve your seat now!

And now, on to the interview, enjoy!

One of the confusing things to many new Twitter users is this seemingly weird use of symbols and acronyms that they are suddenly exposed to in a 140 character world.

While long time texters are familiar with the texting shorthand (LOL, BRB, IMHO, IDK*) that’s been adapted to Twitter there are a few variations unique to the Twittersphere that are a bit puzzling.

In this post we’ll tackle one particular Twitter convention that a lot of people struggle to get their heads around, hashtags.

Twitter Hashtags Explained

#[something] – this is a hash tag symbol, “#” (some of us think of it as the pound sign) followed by a word, phrase or acronym. Hash tags sprang up as a way for people to easily track conversations (or “tweets“, i.e., a twitter post) about a particular topic (#taxes), ideology (#rush), event (#FollowFriday), person (#Obama), company (#Dell), or product (#iphone) on Twitter. Hashtags.org is the mothership for all things hash tagged and, if you follow their Twitter feed (@hashtags), they’ll track and aggregate your use of hashtags in your personal posts.

Hashtags demonstrated…

Let’s say that I’m interested in starting a Twitter conversation about President Obama’s new health plan. I may create a hash tag called #OHP (for Obama’s Health Plan) to track this conversation on Twitter. Each time I tweet about the health plan I add the tag, #OHP, to my post and savvy respondents will do the same. Then I can use a number of tools including Twitter Search and Hashtags.org to see what everyone is contributing to this particular conversation. Sample Tweet stream (all Tweets made up):

Obama’s health plan is causing a lot of controversy. Ur opinion? Good or bad? #OHP
@tomjgray

Obama’s so called health plan is the first step on the road to perdition. #OHP
@rushonalimb

Every American is entitled to comprehensive health care and if the government needs to drive this the so be it #OHP
@bleedingheartliberal

… and so the Tweets flow…

Each time you use a hashtag in a post that post get’s captured at Hashtags.org and the entire conversation can be easily accessed there. Here’s a screen capture that illustrates how conversations are cataloged:

Drilling Down with Hashtags

If you want to ‘drill down’ into a particular conversation then you merely click on the hashtag itself (e.g., #iphone) to review a chronological listing of all the Tweets that have contained this tag as well as monthly activity for this hashtag….

If You Want to Know More About Hashtags

For further understanding of Hashtags I’d recommend that you visit Hashtags.org and just explore the various options it provides for discovering the multitude of hashtags going on all around you on Twitter.

For even more good stuff on hashtags visit the hashtag page at the Twitter Fan Wiki.

One Last Thing

I encourage you to participate in the many dialogues tracked by hashtags on Twitter and to use hashtags to start and track your own but to avoid confusion do yourself, and your followers a favor, and check to see if the hashtag you’d like to use is available by checking it out in the directory of hashtags on twitter.

I’m Available to Help

As always, leave your comments or contact me directly with your questions about Twitter or other social media.

——–

[*LOL - Laugh Out Loud, BRB - Be Right Back, IMHO - In My Humble Opinion, IDK - I Don't Know]

I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing business and entrepreneur coach Ellen St. George Godfrey, LMHC (Elli) last week. We had a great discussion on the process Elli uses to engage her clients in a dynamic partnership that creates business growth while restoring life balance. Elli also shared how she employs the power of networking, both online and off, to develop effective and rewarding business and personal relationships.

Listen in if you’d like insight into how to have it all; a great business that doesn’t require you to sacrifice family, friends, self and community to the bottom line. And, if you’re considering whether a business coach makes sense for you this will give you a hype free view of the coaching process from a very passionate practitioner.

Elli offers not only one-to-one coaching programs but she periodically offers an 8 week enterpreneurial development program called How to Be an E.G.G. (for Entrepreneurial Go Getter). She has a session starting this week so if you’re interested you should contact her immediately to see if there’s still an opportunity to get on board or to get details for her next session.

For more information and to contact Elli visit her web site at www.abilitysuccessgrowth.com, call her at (781) 258-9952 or email info@abilitysuccessgrowth.com. Oh, and she’s quite the engaging tweeter @3keyscoach.

Enjoy the Podcast!

Tom Gray's Social Network

Social Media and Networking Sites can represent an overwhelming number of choices for any business trying to establish a corporate or personal presence in the social media sphere.

To try to sort out which social sites have the best impact for business online, I took the opportunity, a couple of months ago, to ask the following question through my LinkedIn profile. I was recently reviewing the answers and felt they deserved a broader distribution. If you have your own take on the best social media and social networking sites for business, please weigh in on the discussion in the comments…

My Social Media Question

There are literally thousands of social media and social networking sites available to the business community. I’m wondering what you feel are the 3-5 most valuable for developing business opportunities?

I received a number of great answers starting with…

Carson Poppenger wrote:

I believe facebook is rapidly emerging as the leader. They have so much traffic, incredibly sticky for users. I’ve heard some people refer to it as online crack… With all the applications that you can use to promote your business, connect with friends and customers there are so many advantages. I also believe, unlike linkedin, users (customers) are more likely to use Facebook all day (before, during, after hours) for many social activities, rather than just for work related social circles.

However, there are ways to drive lots of traffic using a variety of all available social sites, digg, twitter, delicious. I believe that all the available tools can be used together to generate traffic, keep people top of mind. It’ll be interesting to see if all of them can survive. Facebook will be here for the long haul, unless someone can develop something even more interactive.
————-

Carson Poppenger added the following clarification:
Tom, great post by the way. This is an incredible topic that just got me thinking. I did a quick check to see traffic comparisons between FaceBook and Linkedin. It’s not even close. Checkout the post I just put on my blog.

http://www.marketingcrackerjack.com/2009/01/social-media-traffic.html

David Avrin wrote:

LinkedIn - facilitates introductions

Chad Bordeaux wrote:

Facebook
LinkedIn
Twitter (although I am still figuring this one out – especially at the local level)

Hazel M Walker wrote:

I think that Twitter, Linkedin, and NING Communities are excellent for business.

I also use Facebook but not as impressed as many others.

Alison Fraser wrote:

Depends on what you mean by business opportunities and exactly who the market is. Facebook does seem to have a good handle on very targeted advertising. For example, I put into my profile that one of my hobbies is sewing and now I get ads for fabric. I think that’s very clever because those ads actually interest me! It’s not based on my broad-based demographics like my age or income- although I get that too. For example, the other day there were anti wrinkle cream ads (based on my age I guess) and and ad for the Killers (based on my ‘alternative music” profile I think) . But there are limits to how businesses can use this information. Not many people will tell you their hobby is CRM mgt. Certainly LinkedIn is a great business networking site.

Twitter is interesting. There are people who follow me and I don’t know why. I follow people/groups that interest me. But it’s not a destination like Facebook and LinkedIn. I use Facebook for personal use, LinkedIn for business and Twitter cause I’m trying to figure out what it can really do. Myspace seems to be the music destination and YouTube the video one. Sites like Classmates and Reunion (now MyLife.com) seem to have focused on selling premium memberships rather than building value in the site on its own merits. LinkedIn provides a lot of value even without a premium.

Andi Enns wrote:

It is a tough choice! And the answer depends on the amount of work and content creation you want to do.

First off, kudos for being on LinkedIn. It’s definitely on my list.

Facebook is clearly defining itself as the place to be. Create a profile for you, a Page for your business, events listings for your events, and list your services in the Marketplace. You can also post videos and pictures (which, if you have them, can be very useful), as well as write “notes” (a blog). For the more technical people, you could create an app about your industry for your new friends to put on their profiles.

Twitter (@andienns) is all about the conversation. In my brief time on Twitter (less than two months), I’ve already closed business deals.

YouTube is a great site to get attention, as well. You do have to actively create content, though.

Mark O’Toole wrote:

Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook - all are very different and do require a level of effort to create and maintain. None of them are about the raw numbers, but rather the relevancy of your friends, followers and fans.

Dr. Sally Witt wrote:

Hi Tom!

Great question. I believe that the basic 4 are LinkedIn.com, Naymz.com, Ecademy.com, and Facebook.com. That is where everyone needs to start. Then the blogging and micro-blogging sites like twitter.com and plurk.com are wonderful to building relationships and credibility.

I believe that each person has to find their favorite or most comfortable site to dig in and network and do their business the most good. Realtors have activerain.com, for example. Professional speakers do well with speakersite.com. There are so many.

Because I use social media every day, youtube.com and blogtalkradio.com are critical to my success, and the networking aspect is wonderful on both of them.

Using feeds from your twitter, your blog, and youtube for example, can update your profiles on many sites even if you do not visit that often.

Naymz.com can further a relationship by offering a testimonial and a connection, but does not usually foster conversation unless you are connected on other sites. Naymz is important to get your name and reputation built up online.

My philosophy is multi-dimensional connecting with your contacts. By the time you are connected on 3 or 4 sites. you have the opportunity to be noticed by them and to feel distantly related! Just the conversation about why you are on the other sites may bring about a new way of relating to that person.

Networking is all about relationships, and relationships breed business opportunities.

People need to take advantage of clubs and groups on the sites to really get in there, share information and opinions. Linked In is so much better now with the discussions, and of course the Q & A’s.

The groups that have grown up around the networking sites are very important, such as My Linking Power Forum by Vincent Wright. Everyone needs to know the people in these forums, learn from them, and be mentored by wise professionals like Vincent.

Combining face to face networking with online networking is the best. Dr. Ivan Misner is the guru for networking and building business. His organization, BNI (bni.com), is the ultimate way to learn to move networking contacts into opportunity.

If I could only have one site (which I pray never happens!) I would choose Ecademy. Ecademy.com combines the business and relationship aspects of networking so well for me, plus the global neighborhood feeling that is very important to me. People that I have been connected to on Linked In for years become friends with me on Ecademy. Thomas Power and his wife and staff are amazing at offering training, tips, and opportunities to move your networking to higher levels all the time.

Thank you for the opportunity to answer such an important question in our word, Tom. Yes, you are a wise one!

Warmly,

Dr. Sally Witt
www.drsallywitt.com

Robert Ames wrote:

Great question Tom and I must say I’ve learned a great deal from reading the responses.

I certainly rate Linkedin for ‘finding decision makers and influencers’.

For delivery and supply-side contacts I certainly rate ecademy.com and agree with Sally about the founders Thomas and Penny Power. If you ever get the chance to hear the personal story about ecademy from either of them then grab the opportunity with both hands, its inspiring. The culture of ecademy is ‘how can I help you’ and believe me, it works! Pay-it-forward in action.

What’s Your Opinion?

Use the comments to share your opinion on what social media and social networking sites are the best for building effective business relationships and uncovering business opportunities.

The Rocky Mountain News is dead. Long live InDenver Times.

InDenver Times is a collaboration between ex-Rocky Reporting staff and several Denver area entrepreneurs who are betting that there are 50,000 loyal subscribers to the former Rocky Mountain News who are willing to switch their allegiance to the new Rocky Mountain News InDenverTimes.com.

Most will admit that getting people to pay for something that they perceive should be free is going to be a tough ‘row to hoe’ as my grandmother used to say. The challenge is even greater when you consider that InDenver Times is pretty much positioned as a local play with a focus on the Denver Metro area. In other words, their national or international appeal is going to be somewhat limited meaning that they’re going to really have to work the local market to secure the subscriber numbers needed.

Can they do this? I don’t know but as a native Coloradoan and a long-time Denver area resident, I hope so. What’s a given is that their team is going to have to fire on all cylinders to make this work including tapping heavily into online social media to build support, buzz and their subscriber base. After all, who better to promote and buy in to this new digital newspaper model but those who’re already immersed in the online world.

Using Twitter to Promote InDenver Times

Full disclosure. I’m related to one of the entrepreneurs backing this venture. Brad Gray, a successful local entrepreneur with McAleer Gray, is not only a friend but he’s my cousin. I recently sent him a post with suggestions for using social media in general and Twitter in specific to boost their subscription drive efforts. Here’s the summary:

Either they (or somebody) has staked this profile at Twitter.com/InDenverTimes…

I don’t know if this is the indenvertimes twitter profile but, if it is, you should put someone in charge and begin to put it to use to support their efforts by:

1. Get to work now on creating a stream of InDenver Times generated ‘tweets’ with ongoing updates to Twitter that alerts your followers on the subscription drive, breaking news, staff profiles and upcoming stories and opinion pieces. Use it to promote local and national stories on your efforts like Westword’s coverage and the NBC Nightly News mention.
2. Create a custom background that tells the InDenver Times story and provides links to your primary properties. And, obviously, get your profile built ASAP.
3. Put a staffer in charge but enlist all of the reporting and management staff in keeping the tweets flowing. Have each of the staff, if they haven’t already, set up their own Twitter profiles with backgrounds and cross follow everyone.
4. Register at www.hashtags.org and use #indenvertimes to track all the tweets (you add the tag to each of your Twitter posts) related to your efforts.
5. Feed your twitter stream into your website and into your facebook profile which also needs to be setup…
6. Pick up locally based twitter followers quickly. Start out by farming the top of the food chain. Go to http://grader.twitter.com/location. Start with Denver then work through the region. Follow everybody on these lists and send those who follow back – which will be the majority – a Direct Message (dm) that thanks them and asks them to further spread the word.
7. Use Twitter Search to track the buzz. Search on the terms indenvertimes and iwantmyrocky to start… You’ll see something like this… (and see #4 above for a tip on using hash tags in this effort).
   
   Use Retweets, Replies (@twitter-name) and Direct Messages to thank all who’ve commented and keep the buzz building. By the way, when I conducted this search early this morning you’d already attracted over 35 pages of twitter mentions to your efforts on these 2 terms alone.

Twitter grew 800 % last year and is currently growing at about 1400% … you need to be using this and other social media channels to give yourself a fighting chance to attract the interest AND the subscribers you need to keep the spirit of the Rocky alive for another 150 years!

Comment with Your Ideas and Win a Subscription

Do you have one or more great ideas on helping InDenver Times meet their subscriber goal of 50,000? Comment on this post and we’ll select the best one to receive a one year paid subscription to the new InDenver Times … a $59.88 value. Note: If InDenver Times doesn’t make it then no subscription but don’t worry, you aren’t alone. We all lose!