(This is a guest post I contributed to the Design Rangers Camp Blog

Linkedin has become a powerful tool for professionals looking to network and find career opportunities as well as companies looking for talent. Linkedin also provides some unique tools that can be particularly effective for small business marketing.

Here are some tips for making the most of Linkedin:

Get Your Company In

Create a profile for your company, and make sure to include relevant keywords in your descriptions. Linkedin can be a great source of SEO links, and your profile will start to appear in Google and other search engine results.

Get Your Team In

Make sure that your principals and team members have Linkedin profiles. They can easily create unique URLs (http://www.linkedin.com/in/name) so their profiles will be easier to find. Individual profiles should also include relevant keywords as well as good photos. Linkedin is a great way to put a face on your team – and your company!

Get In the Conversation

A unique feature of Linkedin is the ability to ask Questions and provide Answers to other members. Providing smart, helpful answers can position you or a team member as an expert, and increase your network of connections. You can also ask thoughtful questions as a way to start conversations. With Linkedin, you can also join or start groups! You can join relevant industry or local groups, or start and facilitate groups of your own. Group discussions can lead to increased connections, industry insights, referrals, and even prospects!

Get In with the Media

Most people get connected with professional colleagues, service providers, clients, friends, and associates. But don’t miss the chance to connect with journalists, bloggers, and other media professionals. If you meet or are introduced to a media contact, invite him or her to connect on Linkedin! Staying connected helps keep you top-of-mind and may lead to PR opportunities.

Keep Your Contacts in the Loop

Use Network Updates to keep your contacts informed about your professional news, and select the News Module to share the latest news about your company. A word of caution: Linkedin is not a micro-blogging site like Twitter and it’s not nearly as personal as Facebook. Encourage your team to be strategic and limit their number of status updates. If you are a prolific tweeter, it’s not a good idea to connect your Linkedin updates to your Twitter profile. Don’t overwhelm your professional contacts!

I’m looking forward to seeing you Linkedin! (Connect with me here.)

Here’s the link for blogging tips and tricks.

Happy blogging!

As you reflect on your marketing efforts in 2009 and prepare for 2010, it’s easy to focus on what you accomplished (or didn’t) and what kinds of strategies will meet your needs going forward. But before you design a plan that’s all about YOU, remember that no marketing will work unless you put your customers first.

Ask yourself the following question: how often do you listen to your customers?

Listening is critical to your business. [Note: it's especially important that non-profits listen to their clients and stakeholders, too!] Listening – seriously – to your customers will not only provide you with key insights about your products and services, but it is essential for developing a strong and effective marketing plan. As you move into 2010, make sure that a fundamental component of your strategy is setting up a listening post to talk to your customers – offline and online.

Listening in the Real World

This sounds simple, but most companies try to avoid actually talking to customers unless they have to. Don’t skip out on your chance to connect personally and get honest feedback about what you’re offering! If you’re a small business, chances are good that you have developed relationships with customers in your target markets. Listening is as simple as asking them how they have experienced your product or service, how they perceive your company, why they choose you over a competitor, and what you can do to improve. This feedback can help you determine if your messaging and design is effective, if you’re using the right marketing channels, and if your performance delivers against your promises.

Listening in the real world can also provide you with key information on how to plan your online and social media marketing. This type of marketing requires a large investment of time and, often, resources, and it’s critical to determine how to make that investment. Make sure to ask customers in your target markets how they use the Web, what (if any) social networks they prefer, and if they feel it would be useful for you to be there, too.

Listening in the Virtual World

You also want to make sure that you’re listening online. Many businesses make decisions about their online presence and social media channels without ever first assessing how their customers use the Web and the sentiment of customers towards products, services and competitors online.

To listen online, start by searching for your company name on broad range of platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google Blog Search, and general search engines. How large is your online reach, and how positive is sentiment about you? Next, do the same thing for your competitors. Are they reaching customers in ways or places you are not? Take the time to inventory how they are using the Web. Finally, start searching for conversations about the types of products or services you offer. Are there influential blogs you should be watching and contributing to? Are customers even talking about your types of products and services on certain platforms? Remember that you may be able to gain new customers and strengthen your relationships very effectively online and with social media channels – but only if people in your key markets are actually engaged with that channel.

Make online listening an ongoing project! You can automate this in several ways, including setting up Google Alerts to track mentions of your company name, your competitors, and other keywords that are essential to your business.

One More Thing: Be Prepared For Less-Than-Awesome Feedback

If you’re listening, chances are good that you’re going to hear some things that you might not want to. But negative feedback might be among the most valuable feedback you can receive. It represents an opportunity to respectfully and considerately respond as well as to improve! Remember that with social media, your customers are asking you to listen to them. Responding in an honest, authentic and ongoing way is the surest way to support your marketing efforts and build stronger relationships.

Here’s to a 2010 with more listening – and more effective marketing!

I had the good fortune of catching a number of great sessions at the IABC Social Media Conference in New York last week, many of them by representatives of large companies like Nokia and Virgin USA. Many of those sessions reinforced the importance of a high-level approach that integrates social media with marketing and communications strategies when developing and maintaining a social media program. To echo the smart words of Julie Cottineau from Virgin: You don’t need a social media strategy; you need a brand-building strategy. This is something I find myself emphasizing to companies of all sizes, but especially to smaller organizations.

Because smaller organizations often forego strategy, it’s easy to believe they’re at a disadvantage as social media evolves. Not necessarily true!  In fact, being small has a real upside when it comes to social media.

I’ve worked with organizations on both the small and large end of the size spectrum – from solopreneur and small arts companies to teams within global businesses – and it’s clear that large organizations tend to have an advantage when it comes to social media: they’re already thinking big. Most larger companies have strategic marketing and communications objectives, which are tied to overall brand goals and monitored regularly against metrics and benchmarks. Forward-thinking large companies are using social media platforms and tools as channels for achieving those larger goals, rather than as completely separate programs or functionalities.  By contrast, smaller organizations tend to focus more on tactics: smaller reach, less people to do the work and limited access to resources or agencies means that many small companies generate limited campaigns, forego strategy, and often don’t have a process in place for monitoring and measuring.

Despite this, smaller organizations do have real advantage when it comes to social media: they’re more collaborative. Smaller staff means fewer resources, but it also means that communication is more clear and direct, cross-functional cooperation is more organic and, oftentimes, team members are engaged in multiple functions within the organization. One of the greatest challenges facing large organizations is a real lack of collaboration among teams implementing in shared social media spaces. (I’ve found that it’s actually not uncommon to see a deep divide between marketing and communications teams using social media – even in shared spaces.) For smaller organizations, collaboration is often as easy as walking down the hall or having a conference call with a colleague or two. For larger organizations, this often involves some culture change. But without cross-functional collaboration, it’s difficult to share customer insights and ensure consistent, meaningful engagement.

When it comes to social media, then, organizations of all sizes need to think big and act small.

• Thinking Big: Social media efforts must be tied to a larger strategy.  No shortcuts here.  Before starting out with any social media initiatives, make sure that your group or organization has done some solid planning.  What do you want to accomplish with your marketing and communications efforts, overall?  What does success look like?  How will you measure?
• Acting Small:  Not matter how big your organization is, start moving towards collaboration.  With the ever-expanding number of touchpoints you have with your customers, it’s critical that all of your teams have access to shared insight and best practices.  What’s more, by bringing your teams together on campaigns and strategy development, you’re likely to find more cost-effective leverage.

There’s not one-size-fits-all strategy for using social media.  The uses are as different as your customers.  But thinking big and acting small is key for organizations of all sizes.

Here are seven super tips for tweetslingers*:

Ignore the Twitter prompt. The answer to the question “What are you doing?” is just generally not that interesting. If you’re going to tweet about something you’re doing, make sure that it’s relevant, engaging, and worth the attention of your followers.

Be authentic. This is especially important if you are tweeting on behalf of a business or organization. Don’t be a billboard or a press release! Give your tweets a real human voice.

Retweet regularly. Share (and credit!) relevant and interesting blog posts, articles and links that you or your followers will find interesting. It’s not only good Twitter karma, but it’s also a way to build credibility and your reputation in areas of interest. (Note: If you aren’t quoting someone directly, you can also use “via @username” to share his/her link while still distinguishing your words. This also results in Twitter goodness!)

Use humor abundantly. Use snark sparingly. Know the difference! Feel free to be funny and thoughtfully critical, but too much negativity can turn off followers.

Use #hashtags to make your tweets more searchable. Words that follow the # symbol in tweets are called hashtags. This is an informal way of assigning a keyword to a tweet so that others can easily find it. Hashtags are a method of connecting tweets about the same subject, making it easier for users to find tweets on the same topic. Hashtags are often used by event conference organizers as a way of streaming all tweets about the event.

Revise your tweets. Take a moment before you hit ‘Update’ to check your spelling and read for clarity. It’s always a good idea to see if you can make your tweet shorter, too. Shorter than 140 characters? You bet! If you want your tweets to be retweetable, you’ll make sure to give your followers some unused characters.

Converse. Social media is just that: social! Respond to tweets, join in conversations, and encourage your followers to talk to you!

Happy tweeting!

*Bonus: awesome alliteration!

(This post also appeared on the Design Rangers Camp Blog!)