Posts Tagged LinkedIn
LinkedIn Launches Targeted Partner Messaging
Posted by Dan Hall in Adding Value, Human Resource Practices, Personal Brand, social media on April 17, 2010
I received my first sponsored message from LinkedIn today, delivered directly to my inbox. The message was for job opportunites with Accenture and was actually well done. See the message below:
- LinkedIn Partner Message from Accenture
I can see this being effective for both LinkedIn and the sponsor of the message. Sponsors will be able to track the effectivness of their message as they get their own custom landing page. From LinkedIn: “Partner Messages allow for extensive marketing copy on a co-branded landing page, an ad unit, and a call-to-action element.” You can check out their partner message page here.
I also think it is smart that LinkedIn delivers sponsored to the top of the member’s LinkedIn inbox “for high visibility” while only allowing members only receive one Partner Message every 60 days, “providing impact and exclusivity.” This also means they get to charge a premium for a service that only can be used six times per year per member. It will also prevent me, the member, from getting too pissed off at LinkedIn.
I would say that Accenture, while having a nicely designed landing page, could have provided a better targeted message to the recipients. Their message was clearly targeting an IT / Tech professional. While I ran HR and Recruiting at Visible Technologies, a tech start up, I am not an IT / Tech professional. I suspect they sent the message solely based off industry without any refinement based off title, which in my case on LinkedIn, is clearly as a Human Resources Manager. Hopefully, they were not paying on per member basis.
Regardless, I think we will see more and more sponsored messages in closed social networks. I think LinkedIn, in this case, did a pretty good job creating a new revenue stream.
Beware of the Glowing LinkedIn Recommendations
Posted by Dan Hall in Human Resource Practices, social media on July 8, 2009
I ran across a great article from The National Law Journal on the legal implications that LinkedIn recommendations might have on employment lawsuits. It is a definite read.
“Management-side lawyers are warning employers about the hidden dangers of LinkedIn, the popular business networking site that posts recommendations for job candidates. Specifically, attorneys are advising employers to be wary of giving glowing remarks about employees on the site because the employers risk having the recommendations used against them in a discrimination or harassment suit. ”
Read the full article here.
I have noticed a growing number of reciprocal recommendations between current and former employees of companies, which is to be expected to some extent. However, the danger lies in supervisors giving glowing reviews of former employees. eDiscovery is all too easy and becoming the norm rather than the exception. Twitter accounts, cell phone data, and social media profiles are now fair game in the legal arena. More and more companies are collecting this data and providing data streams to clients as a service. Lawyers are doing this same research.
Pretty soon we will see articles depicting the impact of a single LinkedIn recommendation on the outcome of a case (or maybe not, if the Company had decent counsel, they would settle out of court with a non-disclosure agreement).
Dan Hall
Why the LinkedIn iPhone App Misses the Mark
Posted by Dan Hall in Adding Value, Consumer Advocacy, iPhone, social media on June 26, 2009
First, let me say that I am a fan of LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a great professional networking site that adds value to both organizations, professionals, job seekers, and recruiters alike. LinkedIn does have its limitations but it has done a good job carving out a fairly large niche market in the Social Networking space.
LinkedIn allowed me as a recruiter to directly source senior level executive candidates for Visible Technologies. This enabled the company to recruit for very senior positions without resorting to the use of a very expensive executive search agency. That is a very valuable resource.
That being said, I recently purchased an iPhone 3GS and downloaded the LinkedIn iPhone App. There are plenty of product reviews floating around on the web, so I won’t go into the actual product specs in great detail. However, I was surprised in doing a quick Google search on “LinkedIn iPhone App”, how positive the reviews were. See the reviews at AppSafari or SocialTimes; both of which are in the Top 5 Google search results. I think LinkedIn fundamentally missed the mark on their iPhone app.
First, whenever you launch an add-on product or service, you need to design it in context of your core product or service strengths and value. LinkedIn is not a communication platform whose value relies on connection or status updates, yet half of their iPhone App is dedicated to this. Having even a couple Open Networkers (see my previous posts on Open Networking), removes any desire I have to follow my LinkedIn contact connection updates. Of the current network updates I have in my LinkedIn iPhone App, 49 of the 50 updates are connection updates. Connection Updates are arguably the least interesting type of update on LinkedIn (vs. status updates, question / answer updates, or profile updates). Of those 49 connection updates, Open Networkers comprise of 45 of those updates.
Yes, 90% of my LinkedIn iPhone App updates consist of Open Networker connection updates, which has the same value to me as the phone company informing me that the White Pages just got updated. Even worse, every connection update is listed out individually. Why not incorporate the same feature as in the LinkedIn weekly emails updates where connection updates are aggregated by person? That way I don’t see every new connection that an Open Networker, who 35 new connections in one day, has, I only see they have 35 new connections with the option to drill down further.
LinkedIn is not the place I go to understand what people in my Social Network are currently up to. I don’t feel a compelling need to check LinkedIn everyday and certainly not with their iPhone App. Twitter and Facebook have a stranglehold on that space. I have a healthy number of LinkedIn connections (238, I am selective in whom I connect with), and of my connections three, yes 3, have updated their status on LinkedIn within the last 48 hours.
LinkedIn’s iPhone App is a useful tool with its connection and search capabilities, a tool to be used in specific circumstances. That is the area that LinkedIn is strong, being a great tool for specific uses, i.e. Recruiting, Finding a Job, Professional Networking, and Researching People and Organizations. Monetize what you do well, don’t create products that service the areas you don’t.
Dan Hall
Sourcing Seattle
Professional Re-engineering in Human Resources
Posted by Dan Hall in Creating Efficiency, Human Resource Practices on December 15, 2008
I saw re-engineering described in a way that made me stop and think (as you know adding value and creating efficiency are two of my guiding philosophies):
Re-engineering involves looking at the entire organization to simplify or eliminate unnecessary processes with the goal of increasing customer satisfaction though improvements in efficiency.
This got me to thinking about the sometimes bad reputation Human Resources has in organizations and led to think about the following questions:
1. When have you as a professional engaged in your own re-engineering? When was the last time you took a hard look at how to improve your customer satisfaction through the elimination of unneccesary processes? What actions did you take and what was the outcome?
2. If Human Resources does have a bad reputation for customer service (i.e. to our Employees and Managers) what can we do as a profession to re-engineer ourselves to improve this?
I would love to hear your answers. I’ll even tell you what, I will buy the person with the best answers coffee at Zeitgeist Coffee in Seattle if they are in the local area (this should get the recruiting agencies attention).
Dan Hall
Seattle Human Resources Manager
It’s been a little while…
Posted by Dan Hall in social media on December 11, 2008
since my last post. I needed a little motivation, so I took advantage of a great plug-in app on LinkedIn that shows my recent WordPress blog posts. It also shows when they were posted. I am quite ashamed of myself, but I am a big believer of transparency as motivation.
Is there any doubt Social Media is changing the world – how we do business, how we interact, how learn, how we live?
I just embedded a presentation about Visible Technologies on LinkedIn. It was created with Microsoft PowerPoint and uploaded from Google Docs (signed in with my Yahoo! email). I shared this presentation with one of my (much smarter than me) co-workers so he could edit it as a collaborator – just in case.
And now you might be reading this post on my profile. Wow.
Dan Hall
Seattle Human Resources Manager
Hey! I didn’t know Open Networking Groups had Fine Print…
Posted by Dan Hall in Adding Value, Open Networking, social media on April 7, 2008
Imagine my surprise when I learned that Open Networking Groups actually have fine print. Once again, someone I don’t know sent an invitation to join their network on LinkedIn, which is fine. I don’t have anything personally against Open Networking. From a professional standpoint, I don’t believe this practice adds much value to my personal brand or my social network and therefore don’t participate in such behavior.
However, I am ever curious about people’s online social networking behavior so I studied the requestor’s profile and followed a link or two.
Here is a snipped of what I stumbled across from TopLinked.Com:
Did you receive an “I Don’t Know”?
Everyone who participates in TopLinked.com has agreed to never mark a LinkedIn connection invitation as “I Don’t Know” or “Flag as Spam” – if they do not wish to accept an invitation, they should instead just simply click the “Archive” button (or ask to be removed from TopLinked.com via an email sent to: toplinked@gmail.com)
If you come across someone who violates this agreement, please first contact them directly, remind them of this rule, and see if they are willing to remedy the situation.
If they are then unresponsive or unwilling to resolve the problem, please be sure to let us know via email: toplinked@gmail.com (thanks!)
Tips: To stay safe, only invite people by clicking over from the listings on this site and then look for BOTH the TopLinked.com group logo (the same as the logo of this site) AND the TopLinked.com wording displayed properly on their profile. That provides three levels of assurance that they are active TopLinked.com networkers who understand and play by the rules. It is also a good idea to mention TopLinked.com in your connection invitations to TopLinked.com people and remind them of the TopLinked.com rules.
We cannot help you if you receive an invitation from someone who is not officially part of TopLinked.com – and someone is officially part of TopLinked.com ONLY if they are linked to from this site or are part of the TopLinked.com group on LinkedIn.”
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Whodahthunkit. They have fine print afterall.
Adding Value to Social Media Sites and Your Network
Posted by Dan Hall in Adding Value, Open Social, social media on March 31, 2008
Why are current Social Network sites’ accessibility controlled a simple switch – an on and off switch of permissibility if you will? The major players in the field MySpace, Facebook, even LinkedIn – all have a common theme in whether or not you deem this person a connection / friend or not. If you do they have access to you – your information, pictures, posts in some cases or in others just communicating or networking with you (adding value to the network).
Is that old acquaintance from high school that you haven’t talked to in 5 years on par with your boss at work? Should they be given the same accessibility into your social network, your social media life as it is.
What about business partners who are at odds with each other, do you want them to see each other as mutual connections? What about the functionality of sharing more personal photos – such as your wedding pictures to your close friends but not to your co-workers?
Why do we use professional social networking sites for your professional connections but Facebook for your more peronably friend and why do they not overlap at all – it is your life and network isn’t it?
There should be an overarching social networking platform that address these issues. The Economist had a good article addressing the closed social media worlds based on proprietary standards and their historical precedents of AOL, CompuServe, and Prodigy (is history doomed to repeat itself?).
Social media websites should be as easy to setup as blogs and they continuing will exist if there is enough of a demographic who is passionate about the space to add enough value to warrant its existence. Social Media is a digital world shaping movement. The monetary prize in online ads which have fueled many of the big buyouts may be debatable in terms of future viability also discussed in the Economist, but the utility of Social Media is undeniable.
It is our networks, our lives that add value to Social Media not the proprietary systems that give us the platforms to connect. Sooner or later open social and digital portability will gain enough movement to achieve this and Social Media and the Internet will never be seperate again.
