Summary:

I think it is a really bad idea to become a LinkedIn LION, except for a few exceptions.  However, here’s how to become one if you want to, and I will show you how to get over 1,600 connections in a week.

Details:

What is a LinkedIn LION?

LION stands for “LinkedIn Open Networker”, and describes a bunch of people who want to connect with anyone and everyone they possibly can.  The advantages to this are:

• you have a much larger network, and can see profiles for more people
• you have the email addresses for all of these LIONs

Disadvantages of being a LinkedIn LION

The biggest disadvantage of being a LION is that is that you lose one of the great powers of LinkedIn.  If you have a normal network, comprised of people that you know, then when you to an advanced search in LinkedIn (as I have discussed in my email newsletters), your 2nd level connections are connected thru someone you know.  That common connection is usually the best way to actually get to speak to the target person.

The more unfamiliar you are with your connections, the more likely it will be that the target of your search is connected through someone you don’t know.  If you are connected to LIONs, especially if you are connected to 1,600+ of them, you know they are all connecting to thousands of people they don’t know, so your network becomes so diluted that your 2nd level connections are usually meaningless.

Getting spammed

Another disadvantage is that all of your 1st level connections can get your email address.  You know that lots of spammers will become LIONs just to get as many email addresses as they can from as many professionals as they can.  They will spam you, and they will sell your email address to other spammers.  This is also why I’ve recommended in my mothly emails emails that your primary LinkedIn address not be your main email address.

Becoming a LION, if you insist

Regardless, some people want to become LIONs.  If you do, here are the steps:

• Go to a site called www.toplinked.com and sign up, which is free
• They will send you a list of 1,600+ people who will accept your LinkedIn invitation
• Follow their instructions to add all of your new fake friends
• There may be some restrictions on how many requests you can send at a time (LinkedIn periodically changes this)
• Some of these people will IDK you (say they don’t know you), as evil as that is
• You can pay to be put on the list

In an upcoming blog, I will show you 2 types of people that really may want to become LIONs.  Roar.

Summary:

I think it is a really bad idea to become a LinkedIn LION, except for a few exceptions.  However, here’s how to become one if you want to, and I can show you how to get over 1,600 connections in a week.

Details:

What is a LinkedIn LION?

LION stands for LinkedIn Open Networker, and describes a bunch of people who want to connect with anyone and everyone they possibly can.  The advantages to this are:

• you have a much larger network, and can see profiles for more people
• you have access to the email addresses for all of these LIONs

Disadvantages of being a LinkedIn LION

The biggest disadvantage of being a LION is that is that you lose one of the great powers of LinkedIn.  If you have a normal network, comprised of people that you know, then when you to an advanced search in LinkedIn (as I have discussed in many of my newsletters), your 2nd level connections are connected thru someone you know.  That common connection is usually the best way to actually get to speak to the target person.

The more unfamiliar you are with your connections, the more likely it will be that the target of your search is connected through someone you don’t know.  If you are connected to LIONs, especially if you are connected to 1,600+ of them, you know they are all connecting to thousands of people they don’t know, so your network becomes so diluted that your 2nd level connections are usually meaningless.

Getting spammed

Another disadvantage is that all of your 1st level connections can get your email address.  You know that lots of spammers will become LIONs just to get as many email addresses as they can from as many professionals as they can.  They will spam you, and they will sell your email address to other spammers.  This is also why I’ve recommended in the past that your primary LinkedIn address not be your main email address.

Becoming a LION, if you insist

Regardless, some people want to become LIONs.  If you do, please send me a LinkedIn invitation at https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickomalley/ and in the message say “Become a LION”.

I won’t judge, and I wil sed you the steps, and you can have 1,600+ connections within a few days.

Summary (LinkedIn spam and your “primary” email address) :

 
Your “primary email address” on LinkedIn should NOT be your primary email address.

Your LinkedIn connections can get a copy of your email address, and since they will sometimes send you emails that aren’t important to you (and are sometimes outright spam), you want to make your primary LinkedIn address an email address other than your true primary email address.

Problem (receiving LinkedIn spam):

Solution (change your LinkedIn “primary” email address):

• Go to your LinkedIn home page
• In the upper right, click the drop down menu under your picture
• Click “Settings & Privacy”
• Click Email Addresses
• At the bottom, add an email address
• When you refresh the list, click “Make primary” to make it the primary
• Note that you will have to confirm receipt of an email from LinkedIn

Other (LinkedIn groups sending you email):

Summary:

Want to learn how to fast forward (at different speeds), slow, and control YouTube videos? A quick set of shortcuts.

Details:
Here is how to Fast Forward and otherwise control your YouTube videos:

• Fast forward – hit the right arrow once (5 second jump, repeat if necessary)
• Faster forward – to jump ahead 10 seconds, hit the L key
• Fastest forward – hold the right arrow button down
• Go to the 10% mark – hit the 1 key. Go to the 20 mark by hitting the 2 key
• Pause/play – the space bar, which is a toggle key (to stop then start)
  • Alternatively, click on video
• Make the whole video go 2 times as fast in speed up mode:
  • Click the “Settings” wheel, which is the 3^rd item from the right in the lower right
    • Change speed from normal to 2x or whatever other option you want

You can probably figure out the rest, but for completeness, I have put a bunch of it here.

Here is how to Rewind your YouTube videos:

• Rewind – hit the left arrow once (5 second jump, repeat if necessary)
• Faster rewind – hit the J key
• Fastest rewind – hold the right arrow button down
• Go to the 10% mark – hit the 1 key. Go to the 20 mark by hitting the 2 key
• Pause/play – the space bar, which is a toggle key (to stop then start)
• Make the whole video go 50% of the speed:
  • Click the “Settings” wheel, which is the 3^rd item from the right in the lower right
    • Change speed from normal to 0.5 or whatever other option you want

Shouldn’t someone have taught you that earlier?

Summary:

Your LinkedIn connections can get a copy of your email address, and some of them will send you emails that aren’t important to you (and are sometimes outright spam), so you might want to make your primary LinkedIn address an email address other than your true primary email address.

Details:

Problem:

Your LinkedIn 1st  level connections can get a copy of your email address, either by looking at the contact information in your profile, or by exporting all of the email addresses for thier connections out to a file.

Inevitably, some of them will send you emails that aren’t important to you (and are sometimes spam), so you should make your primary LinkedIn address an address other than your true primary email address.

Solution:

For instance, I use patlink@patrickomalley.com as my primary email address in LinkedIn, and then filter those emails into a separate folder where I scan the subject fields to see if the email is spam.  My real email addresses are different, and are all filtered into my primary folder.

To make a change your primary email address in LinkedIn,

• Go to your LinkedIn home page
• In the upper right, click on your tiny profile picture (usually above the word “Upgrade”)
• On the dropdown, click “Privacy & Settings”
• In the lower left, click “Account “
• Add an email address
• Note that you will have to confirm receipt of an email from LinkedIn
• After you confirm, you can go back and make that email address your Primary email address, which is the only one your connections can see
• In the upper right of that box, click “Add & change email addresses”

Other :

Updates from LinkedIn groups are also sent to your primary email address in LinkedIn.  Since these are usually the types of emails that you’d prefer to scan rather than read, this is another reason to change your primary email address.  However, this can be overridden in the Group settings for each individual group.

Summary:

You assume that if someone “Likes” your business page, and you post a status update, that it will show up on their News Feed if they look quickly enough, right?

Wrong – Most status updates by business pages are not shown to most of their fans.

This is devastating to businesses, and most don’t know anything about it.

Details:

This is from a newsletter I wrote a year ago, in March of 2012.  To subscribe to my monthly newsletter, go to 617-PATRICK Social Media Newsletter

Facebook does not show every status post to everyone who “Likes” your page.  In fact, estimates are that when you first start to post, your posts are only shown to 7% (yep, seven percent) of the people who clicked “Like” on your business page.  Other estimates are that most business’ posts are only seen by 17% (not a typo, seventeen) of their fans.

Don’t believe me?  Google facebook edgerank 17

Why?

Zuckerberg didn’t tell me this directly, but conjecture is that Facebook’s philosophy is that it is a place for friends to hang out with friends.  Businesses can pay to advertise, but creating a business page is almost a free way to advertise to loyal customers on Facebook, and there’s no big upside to Facebook to support that.  Also, they worry about spam (even though you can control your “Likes”) and businesses that just do one way broadcasting communication.

What does Facebook want?

Engagement.  They want businesses to be interactive and engaging with their customers.

How do they measure?

They use a complicated, undocumented formula called “Edgerank”.  Google it, and you’ll see proof of what I’ve said above (which you still didn’t believe, did you).  It will annoy you and frustrate you, but it will help educate you.

What can you do?

There are a lot of things you can do, but here are two of the biggest:

• Post statuses that encourage Comments
• Post statuses that encourage “Likes”
  • Comments are more important than “Likes”, maybe by as much as four times
• Get people to “Share” you post by clicking Share
  • Facebook likes this more than anything

Bad example of a status post – “We are selling $50 restaurant gift cards”
Better example – “We are selling $50 restaurant gift cards.  What are your favorite restaurants to go to?”

Bad example – “We’re having our monthly open house on Thursday night.”
Good example – “We’re having our monthly open house on Thursday night.  If you’re coming, please click Like.  If not, please tell us in a comment so we can make adjustments for next month.”

The good examples encourage Comments and Likes.  If you want to see a great example of a business that does this well, follow the Phantom Gourmet at http://www.facebook.com/phantomgourmet

They are one of my clients, but they used this philosophy before I started working with them.

How important, powerful, annoying and frustrating is that?

For speaking, training or consulting on social media or internet marketing, please call (617)-PATRICK, i.e. 617-728-7425

Summary:

Name a word that starts with G and ends with E and rhymes with Hullible.  Its harder than you think!

No, it isn’t.

And here’s why they do it…..

Details:

Name a word that starts with G and ends with E and rhymes with Hullible.  Its harder than you think!

No, it isn’t.

Or, type “Jump” in the comments and watch what happens. Its amazing!

No, it isn’t.

However, you’re now getting 5 posts a week with something like that. Here’s why:

Facebook likes businesses that have posts with a lot of Likes and Comments.  They use an algorithm called “Edgerank”, and that algorithm loves Comments 4 times as much as Likes, so spammers will use any  annoying techniques to get anyone to put in any type of Comment.

They post a status asking you to put in a Comment with “a band name that doesn’t have an X in it”, and they end up with a post that has a lot of Comments and a lot of Likes.

Facebook will now put that business’s posts at the top of people’s news feeds, because they think that Facebook users are commenting because they like the posts.  Right now, Facebook isn’t smart enough to see this annoying trend and stop it.

These businesses then usually change the page name to be the name of their spam site, where they sell “blue pills”, but because of the posts that had a lot of Comments and Likes, they look legitimate from Facebook’s point of view, so their posts get seen by more people.

And their blue pills taste terrible, Gullible.

To fight back,

• go to the upper right of the post, click the down arrow, and click “Report Story Or Spam”
• Click “Share” and share this info with others

¸,☆*°´The More You Know ¸,☆*°´`°*☆,¸

Joe Ciulla just watched the Socialcam video “Great white shark eats gangster beating up girlfriend”

Don’t you hate it when your Facebook timeline is filled up with posts saying what videos or articles your friends are watching on

• Socialcam
• Viddy
• Yahoo reader
• Washington Post, et cetera

especially since you know your friends didn’t want you to see what they were reading/watching.

Here’s how you stop your friends from seeing what you are watching:

• click Facebook in the upper left hand corner
• in the upper right, beside Home click the arrow
• click Account Settings
• on the left, click Apps
• Yikes.  There are probably a bunch of them.
• to remove an app, on the right, click the X.  Great tip – to remove a bunch quickly, click the X, then when it asks for a confirmation, click Enter with your left hand, and that one will be deleted, but the next one will have its X under the mouse.  Rinse, lather, repeat.
• if you want to keep the app, but not have everyone see what you read, click Edit.  The 3rd line down says “Posts on your behalf”.  On the right, click Edit, then “Only me”.

Now the rest of the world can’t see your white shark gangster fetish.

You’re welcome.

P.S.  those videos are never as good as the posts make them appear to be.

You have extra season tickets for Red Sox games.  I’ll show you how to use LinkedIn to make great business connections, and maybe someday get some new referrals and sales.

Details:

A favorite client

One of my favorite clients, named Vology, in Tampa, Florida, is an award winning computer reseller, selling computer networking equipment like Juniper routers.  They brought me down to teach their sales people how to use LinkedIn and Twitter to make more sales.

They have season tickets to the Tampa Bay Rays games (3rd row behind home plate) and arranged the seminar so that I trained them during the day, and we went to see the Red Sox play the Rays that night.  Awesome.

I asked them what they do if they can’t find a client to take their season tickets for a game.  They said that they’d typically give them to employees or corporate friends.

Innovative relationship technique: use LinkedIn to make “influential friends” using your tickets

I gave them an idea that was worth the price of admission.   I said that they should find Chief-level officers from Tampa on LinkedIn that liked baseball, and ask them to the game.  How?  Do an Advanced Search with:

• Title: Chief
• Location: within 50 miles of Tampa
• Keywords: baseball or rays

This way, they could find anyone with the word “Chief” in their title who liked baseball so much that they put “Baseball” or “Rays” in their profile.  There are 11 matches.

Now track them down and make the most fun cold call ever:

You: “Want to go to the Rays game tomorrow night?  Third row behind the plate.  Free premium buffet.”
Them: “What’s the catch?”
You: “No catch.  We do this 10 times a year, and we make friends with other baseball fans.”

Think that some of them some might give you some great referrals?  Think you’ll have a great time regardless?

How cool is that idea?

Invite me to a game.

Join my newsletter

This is a tip that I sent out in my newsletter last summer.  Sign up for my newsletter of awesomeness and you could get tips like this before I put them in my blog.

Good luck out there.