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3 Critical Personal Brand Lessons From the Closing of Vine

All Hallows Eve is the time of the year dedicated to remembering the dead. It seems fitting that on Halloween we reflect on the personal brand lessons from the news last week that Twitter will be closing down their 6-second video app Vine. It may have come as a surprise to many of you, however, the ‘Vine Personal Brand Stars’ that it helped to create have already been moving on… Read More »3 Critical Personal Brand Lessons From the Closing of Vine

Are Skills Endorsements on LinkedIn Really Worth Anything?

Many believe that the endorsements, given by others, of your skills on your profile, are next to worthless. Following several acquisitions of companies in the artificial intelligence (A.I.) space, LinkedIn has been incorporating some of the technology into upgrades of its platform. This includes looking to make the endorsements of skills more relevant to those viewing your profile. We all appreciate the value of a solid recommendation from a colleague or client.… Read More »Are Skills Endorsements on LinkedIn Really Worth Anything?

Don’t Make the Mistake of Telling Your Boss Your Are Looking for a New Job

A big source of revenue for LinkedIn is it’s recruiter focused accounts. Naturally (as in the ad above) they want to make the platform attractive to recruiters. But not all candidates are public about their job searching intentions because they fear their boss may find out. Now LinkedIn has introduced a feature that you can turn on or off which privately advises recruiters that you are open to new opportunities.… Read More »Don’t Make the Mistake of Telling Your Boss Your Are Looking for a New Job

10 Ways LinkedIn Can Help Build Your Local Business

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Imagine standing at a local networking event and every second that passes, two more new people walked in the door. It would soon get packed!

This is exactly what is happening 24 hours a day on LinkedIn as 7,200 new members join ever hour. As the world’s largest professional network, with over 450 million members, LinkedIn offers a huge global business opportunity.

But can it be useful on a local level and can it help you build new relationships and grow your business or career? Yes!

LinkedIn is business focused unlike Facebook or Twitter where the lines are blurred. On LinkedIn it is understood that you are connecting for business purposes. Around 40% of LinkedIn’s 12 million Canadian members live in Ontario. A simple postcode ‘Advanced Search’ can connect you with people as close as a 15 km radius to your location or target area.

You can also search by industry, company, job title and specific keywords to accurately pinpoint the connections your business needs. It is important for you to be very clear about who you want to connect with and why.

With that in mind, here are my TOP TEN ways to use LinkedIn effectively;

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Why can I only make connect automatically with some 2nd connections on LinkedIn ?

This weeks tip comes via a reader question “I’m wondering why sometimes I can do a “connect” invite to some secondary connections (without having to say how I know them), but not others? Thanks Paul” – Joe This is not something you can control because it is how others have their settings on accepting invitations. It is something that you want to check for your own profile so that if you ensure you… Read More »Why can I only make connect automatically with some 2nd connections on LinkedIn ?

How to share content directly from a LinkedIn Pulse article

Pulse is one of the most useful areas on the LinkedIn platform to read longer form articles, thought leaders and find useful insights and information. For some bizarre reason LinkedIn decided a few weeks ago to ‘hide’ the Pulse channel and I shared how to now find it, – read Are You Getting the Full Story on LinkedIn? Hopefully you are now regularly reading various articles (including mine 🙂 –… Read More »How to share content directly from a LinkedIn Pulse article

The Good & Bad About Gwyneth Paltrow’s LinkedIn Profile

Time magazine gushingly reported this week that “Gwyneth Paltrow Has a Seriously Extensive LinkedIn Profile”. But on closer examination her profile may not even reach ‘All Star’ status, which is the ideal minimum that you want your profile to be. You can view her profile by clicking here. There are several good things to notice; Well taken headshot, interestingly using black and white which is different. Good use of a custom header… Read More »The Good & Bad About Gwyneth Paltrow’s LinkedIn Profile

Have you reached your commercial limit for LinkedIn searches?

A client contacted me this week because for the first time they had seen the notice, whilst doing LinkedIn searches, “You are approaching your limit for searches”. One day later they were told that was it for this month unless they wanted to upgrade to one of the top end accounts. This seems to be happening more and more, which suggests that LinkedIn is changing the way free accounts can… Read More »Have you reached your commercial limit for LinkedIn searches?

Lessons From Discover Your Personal Brand Conference – The All Star Panel

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This past weekend I had the opportunity to speak again at the Discover Your Personal Brand Conference.  DYPB 2016 was different from 2014 in a number of ways.

The focus was more toward small business and the caliber of speaker, panels and attendees was awesome. There were many inspiring young Canadians in attendance that really gave me a lift about the future of our country. All held within the back drop of Telus’ state of the art office in downtown Toronto, an environmental LEED building, bursting with technology and balanced with space and light.

The opportunity to attend conferences is always a big investment, even if its local so it was great to get such a rich experience. 

After introductions from the motivating conference organizer and founder Bobby Umar and keynotes from the always excellent Mark Bowden and inspiring Real Food for Real Kids founder Lulu Cohen-Farnell the highlight of the first evening for me was the Personal Brand Leadership All Star Panel. They were;

Cameron Gordon, Head of Communications, Twitter – Moderator
Erin Bury, Managing Director at 88 Creative
Jennifer Ettinger, Founder & President at Fit Your Style
Jagmeet Singh, MPP, ONDP Deputy Leader
Bobby Umar, Founder, Raeallan & DYPB

Full bios and more details on the schedule http://www.dypb.ca/schedule/ and other speakers can be found here http://www.dypb.ca/speakers/ 

Here is a Summary of the questions and panel answers;

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5 Helpful Tips For After Attending a Conference

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Travelling to my first European speaking engagement in Slovakia really opened my eyes to the benefits of being a ‘Conference Guerilla’. I was travelling almost 14,000 km in the space of 4 days to speak for approximately one and a half hours. Just like when going on vacation, I tried to clear the decks before I went. In the end a few things had to get left unfinished and I had to accept that.

It was most important to me to ensure that everything was taken care of back home. This was key to being able to focus on the conference and my wonderful girlfriend really stepped up and took on the responsibility for my two kids.  I am really grateful because I knew they were in good hands.

There are three distinct phases of conferences – Pre, During and After. In ‘How to be  a Conference Guerrilla – Part 1’, we looked at the pre-Conference activities and in ‘How to be  a Conference Guerrilla  – Part 2’ we discussed optimizing the time while at the conference.

Overall I felt that Pre & During I did a fairly good job. What I tend to find though is that once I return home, it can all start to fall apart.

So what happens once you get back home or to the office?

Read More »5 Helpful Tips For After Attending a Conference