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Archive for the ‘Social Media’ category

Mobile eLearning with iTeam Technology

June 3rd, 2011

Mobile platforms such as iPhones, iPads, and Android – powered smart phones all belong to a category that holds a lot of exciting potential for increasing participant activity levels during training and team building experiences. We have recently begun featuring an e-learning and team building platform that we call iTeam Technology. iTeam Technology is a unique and flexible mobile gaming platform that allows small teams or individuals to use Android powered smart phones or tablets for playing interactive learning games, engaging in team building activities, enjoying photo scavenger hunts, or even as an mobile electronic on-boarding guide for new employees. We use this particular tool for a variety of reasons:

-It is highly customizable and configurable – timers, multiple choice questions, SMS, write in questions, photos, video, etc.

-It is stable and not dependent on wifi or cell signal! Content is pre-developed and loaded,usable at anytime, then interactive when in wifi or cell coverage zones.

-It is fun and easy to use

-As activity leaders, it allows us to monitor individual or team progress and to selectively interact with teams.

We have just begun to scratch the surface of where, when and how we can apply eLearning and mobile platforms in corporate and adult education – stay tuned, and feel free to ask us about working with you to create custom implementations of this technology with your students, clients or work teams!

Technology for Educators: Tools for Teachers (elearningcentralia.wordpress.com)

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Posted in Innovation, Social Media, Team Building, Teamwork, Work Life, Workplace Learning

Tags: Android eLearning iPad iPhone Team Building

Five Ways To Rock Your LinkedIn Profile

October 5th, 2010

I’m a big fan of LinkedIn, and spend plenty of time clicking through profiles and learning quite a bit about some amazing people. Something that stuns me though, is how many people’s profiles read like slightly boring resumes. There are enough boring resumes being passed around right now. In this post, I’m going to share five ways to make your LinkedIn profile rock much more than it does now…

Use something other than your job title in your headline. While accurate, job titles are not always super clear about what you can do for the person who is looking at your profile. Instead, provide readers with a short and catchy description of what you can do for them. For example, “Social media consultant who will help you rock your LinkedIn profile”, or, “Small business Financial Consultant–Savings Specialist–Tax planner.”
Customize your website links. This is very easy, in the “edit my profile tab” in Linkedin, look for the section titled “websites”, select edit, click the “other” drop- down, This will open text boxes that will allow you to enter the actual name and personalize URL of your website or blog.
Ask questions in your summary. Your summary is a great place to do kind of a light marketing piece. Started out with questions that potential customers or people you’d like to interact with would be interested in the answers to. Then throughout the rest of your summary, you can provide answers and explanations for those questions.
Use LinkedIn applications. LinkedIn applications are a great way to add some color to your profile, and to insert a little bit more of your professional personality as well. The Amazon app for example, allows you to review and recommend books, the Google presentation and slide share apps allow you to share Keynote or PowerPoint presentations that you created this is a great way to share your expertise build yourself up as an industry leader and to allow people the opportunity to see a little of your style. Box.net allows you to share documents through your LinkedIn profile as well.
Include plenty of keywords in your profile. In some industries such as social media, it might be tough to rise to the top of the search. In less hotly contested categories though, by including plenty of keywords in your profile, you can increase your chances of being found by someone who is looking for someone in your category.

These are very simple tips, and will not take you long at all to integrate into your LinkedIn profile, if you take the time to do this it will pay off in a much more appealing and searchable professional presence online.

4 Digital Alternatives to the Traditional Resume (mashable.com)
20 Killer Social Job Search Tools That Will Get You Hired (socialtimes.com)
LinkedIn Enhances Company Profiles (socialmediatoday.com)
LinkedIn: how to get the best from LinkedIn [Tamara Baranova] (ecademy.com)

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Posted in Networking, Social Media, Workplace Learning

Are You Maximizing LinkedIn?

September 2nd, 2010

LinkedIn is a fantastic tool for meeting people, job hunting, learning new information, branding and marketing yourself, and establishing a web presence. To really maximize it as one part of your networking strategy it is important to use it wisely. Here are a few thoughts to enhance your ROI from LinkedIn:

1. Think of it as a way to “break the ice” in making connections with people-rather than just asking people to join your network, and “racking up numbers”, make it a point to notice something about each person you invite to connect with you that you may want to mention when speaking to them. You can use the invitation as an opportunity to set up a phone call, a face-to-face meeting or an email based “info exchange”. This way you are actually meeting people and making deeper connections.

2. When you are at “real world” networking events, ask people you meet if they are on LinkedIn, and if they would like to become connected with you.

3. Be sure to keep new information flowing onto your profile. There are plenty of ways to do this- using applications such as SlideShare, Amazon Reading List, BlogLink or WordPress gives you an opportunity to share thoughts and expertise with others in your network and to add value to their LinkedIn experience. You can also change your status frequently which provides more interest and a reason for people to keep coming back to your profile. A few ideas for what to put in your status box include; inspirational quotes, what you are working on, events you are planning, new hires, new lines of business, etc.

4. Freely give recommendations to people you have worked with or hired. Writing recommendations is a great way to “pay it forward”, create positive feelings amongst people in your network, and who knows, maybe people will return the favor!

There are other posts out in the blogosphere on using LinkedIn- the tips here are ones that I have not seen elsewhere (or variations based on my own experience).
Here are a few links to some other articles about how to use LinkedIn as a networking tool:

1. From Guy Kawasaki:
Ten Ways To Use LinkedIn
2. From Webworker Daily:
33 Ways to Use LinkedIn for Business
3. From LinkedIntelligence:
Smart Ways to use LinkedIn
4. From bnet:
How to Get Started on LinkedIn
5. A really unique idea from CopyBloggger:
How To Use LinkedIn to Generate Content

How I Use LinkedIn Content for Intelligence (conversationagent.com)
LinkedIn Photo Advice : The Why, What and What Happened? (customerthink.com)
Scott Meis: Prospect for Business Using LinkedIn and Twitter Together | Social Media Examiner (socialmediaexaminer.com)
Using LinkedIn For Branding (socialmediatoday.com)
5 More Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Blog From LinkedIn (johnchow.com)
Diving into LinkedIn: The Information You May Not Know is There (networksolutions.com)

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Posted in Networking, Social Media

Tags: Business LinkedIn Marketing Online Communities SlideShare Social media Twitter Wordpress

Bring Social Media Into Your Real World!

July 28th, 2010

After spending too much time (way too much ) ”playing with” social media, I had kind of an epiphany about it- if I were to use it to “turbo-charge” and support my “real world” networking-it might be more effective as a business and relationship building tool. As soon as I came to this realization, the quality of my connections through the various social media sitesI use has begun to improve (and so have the actual business leads).

A few examples:
- When networking in the real world- I always remember to ask people I meet if they are on LinkedIn,Twitter or Facebook, and if they would like to connect. By doing this, I have met them face to face, and if I am able to keep my various profiles interesting, then when they go online to “check me out”, I am creating another level of professional credibility along with slightly deepening the networking contact.

-When connecting with people on LinkedIn (who I have not yet met face to face), I make it a point to send them an email asking if they would like to speak on the phone or meet for coffee if local, at some time in the near future-I have not done this with everyone on my list yet- but I have made progress-and have made some great connections with some amazing people.

-Meetup.com-BRILLIANT. Meetup.com is an amazing social media tool-kind of a cross between Facebook and the groups feature of LinkedIn, with a key twist-the groups actually meet in the real world-regularly! In my opinion, this has the most business building potential, and makes sense for truly building relationships (don’t most of us love actually being with people?) Check this one out-I’m confident that you will see the potential immediately.

In our business, http://teamtrainingunlimited.com , we are in the process of starting to put together some marketing and training videos, presentations and audio recordings as support for our “real world” marketing, networking and Team development efforts. We are also offering “Simple Social Media for Smart Business People” workshops- these are 4 hr, hands-on (experiential) sessions where we help participants to:

-Understand how it all fits together.
-Make plans to fit some social media into their life.
-Brainstorm interesting and unusual things to say and do with their social media accounts.
-Manage the time invested in social media networking (start big, then phase it down to less than an hour 1 day a week + up to 15 minutes a day)

Social media coaching is also a service we offer-give us a call-we love this stuff!

How I Use LinkedIn Content for Intelligence (conversationagent.com)
40+ Essential Social Business Resources (mashable.com)
USA Today portended social media saying: “Best Friends Good for Business” (integratedalliances.com)

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Posted in Networking, Social Media, Training

Tags: Facebook LinkedIn Online Communities Social media Social network Twitter

5 Things to Know About Social Media and Small Business

May 12th, 2010

I was speaking to my sister this morning about some of the things we do at TTU with Social Media and Social Networking when she asked me, “How do you know about all that stuff? I only know Facebook and I don’t even use it….should I be?” Good question Sis!

I’m no guru by any means but have recently learned about a lot of this stuff because I was forced to….plain and simple. If you are starting a new business, designing and creating your own website and blog site, you better plan on a strong internet presence for a chance at success. Social Media and Social Networking are essential these days if you want to compete in the marketplace. We look at our website and blog site as if they were billboards on a busy highway full of autos with people interested in Team Training Unlimited and our services. If the billboard is on a dead-end street, it might look nice and sound cool but if no one is driving past it, then we are wasting a lot of time. We really focus on Search Engine Optimization and Visibility to get people to visit those sites.

There are five things I learned about Social Media and Social Networking as soon as we opened the doors at TTU:

Be a Sponge – There is sooooo much information out there that is free on webinars, YouTube videos, blogging sites, LinkedIn groups, etc. that allow you to really get up to speed quite quickly about the whole process.
You don’t have to be EVERYWHERE – You really need to decide how you plan to use Social Media for your business before you jump into any of this. We tend to focus on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter (and soon YouTube) to help market products, build traffic and create relationships. There are many different sites that are similar so stay focused….it is easy to get overwhelmed.
Make the Time – I have been getting up 1-hour earlier everyday to focus solely just on Social Media and Social Networking either tweeting some interesting articles, writing a blog, updating our Facebook page or answering some questions in my LinkedIn groups. I found a little bit each day beats a 5-hour Sunday afternoon blasting through it.
Be Committed – Having a Social Media presence takes a lot of effort for a small business owner on a budget…to be honest, you are not going to be getting 500 hits a day immediately on your sites and closing Million Dollar Deals in a few weeks….be in it for the long haul and you will see results.
Have some FUN with it – Share some unique stories with your readers or help someone out on a LinkedIn group that is interesting to you. What comes around goes around so have some fun!

So Sis…to answer your question: Should you be on it? Ask yourself why you should. Is it just to connect with friends and family, doing it because “everyone is” or to really ramp up the exposure of your business and internet presence? When you figure that out you’ll know….Now get on your Facebook account and go friend me!

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Posted in Social Media

Tags: Blog Facebook LinkedIn Search Engine Optimization Small Business Social Networking Twitter YouTube