Copyright (c) 2009 Red Apple Auctions LLC

Utilizing social media, such as blogs, LinkedIn, Twiiter, and Facebook can be extremely beneficial in achieving guest mind share. They allow you to deliever information quickly about your auction,and they are also free to use.

Creating “something to write” can be overwhelming for some people, so to get you (or your volunteer P.R. person) started, below is a list of specific suggestions on what to write.

1. Announce donations: When a donation arrives, announce the item, thank the donor, and provide a link back to the donor’s website. Be sure to include a photo, if possible.

2. Ask for a donation to round out a package: “We need a florist to donate a bouquet to complete our Mother’s Day package.”

3. Testimonials: Auction fundraisers should be mission-focused. Keep your supporters updated with successes. For instance, “Peggy is off the streets, thanks to our non-profit,” or “Jeremy credits St. Stephens’s art teacher in giving him the confidence to pursue art in college.”

4. Event Preparations: Share a photo of the decor committee drawing backdrops for the auction, or the Gala Chairs meeting to send out invitations. This shows that others are getting involved and making plans to attend the event.

5. Special announcements: Share news. “In just three weeks, we’ve surpassed 50 raffle ticket sales.” Or, “Only 200 seats left before sell-out!”

6. Apply gentle pressure to past donors: A post such as, “We sold a lovely 2-night stay at the Fairmont last year, and are hoping they’ll donate again,” might work. Include a link to the hotel, and then contact the hotel so they see how you are treating them kindly – even before they donate.

7. Answer questions: Make the questions up, if you need to. “A new family to our school asked what was appropriate to wear to the auction. Here’s our response, along with three photos of past guests.”

8. Create a list: You can create a list on almost anything. “Top 5 Reasons to Attend our Gala.” “Three Ways You Can Volunteer That Will Take Less Than 2 Hours per Week.”

9. Seek specific volunteers: “Any math lovers out there? We need an auction clerk, and your primary job is recording numbers at the auction. Any takers?”

10. Link to relevant websites: “In 55 days, our auction will be raising money for cancer research. Here’s a link to fascinating article written by XYZ about the need for a cure.”

11. Support your supporters: When you notice that one of your supporters (e.g. a school parent, a Board member, an auction donor) is mentioned in the paper, link to it and promote it. “Parent Joe Smith just got promoted and here’s the link. Way to go, Joe! We look forward to congratulating you in person at the gala next Saturday.”

12. Call to action: Get your audience to act (or think about acting). Something like, “Early-bird pricing on gala tickets ends tomorrow,” or “Get your gala dress at Lord & Taylor this weekend. The store has special occasion dresses on sale.”

These tips will get you started. In no time at all you will have new information!

There is a fun side to the Internet, but there are also some very neat things you can do that have a more serious tone. Social networking is huge, and is all about fun, connecting with people, and even finding those you may not have been in touch with for a while. Professional networking, on the other hand, is a bit more serious. It is a great way for professionals to meet up with each other. That also means there are contacts, and contact information like telephone numbers can be found.

In fact, of all places online, professional networking sites like LinkedIn are more likely to be good spaces to find listed phone numbers. People use these sites to network with both colleagues and to find business connections. They want to be sure that anyone can reach them for these reasons. That being said, those on LinkedIn are more likely to list a phone number. That makes your search easy if they are on that site.

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You should first sign up for your own account when you log on to LinkedIn. That makes your quest for a phone number much easier. You can add or omit whatever you like. What is cool about LinkedIn is that you can allow the site to search your contact email list to see if there are any matches. That might help you find someone right away. You can go back, after the search, and change your email password if that is a worry for you.

You may not get what you want through the email match, but that is okay. You can then move on to the other options. You will see search options that you can use, and you should try them all. Use what you know about someone, but leave out what you are not sure about when filling out the forms to search. Use your school information if that would help, and see if a phone number comes up with the right name.

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Using The LinkedIn Badge To Promote Your Online Profile

You Have Finally Found Your LinkedIn Badge – That Was Hard. Where to use it, now? Well, due to the ’seriousness’ of this Professional Networking portal, you are presented a very few designs available for badges.

LinkedIn offers you only ten designs, plus one more special for the TypePad users that beams you up right into the TypePad’s TypeLists widget management system. You will stay put and have nothing to tweak or configure, I should say. It’s straight and simple, quite spartan design.

The badge you’re getting has a sole purpose: to link back to your own LinkedIn Public Profile page. Actually, it is only an image (a proprietary one) that may be added with no fuss to any online portals or social networks, blogging platform or your own sites.

Having no JavaScript (it’s a html – href with an img src – tag) you’ll find yourself easy to insert it into your TypePad, MySpace, or Blogger template. I’ll exemplify from my direct experience with my WordPress blog. It is just the best example. Here’s how I did it…

Inserting LinkedIn Badge into your WordPress Sidebar

* Login as admin into your WordPress dashboard
* Select Setting on the upper right side of the screen
* Click on Design
* Then on Widgets
* And Finally the Text category with the Add Arbitrary text or HTML link
* That opens the widget editor to the right
* Give it a nice title like ‘Look at me’ or whatever you may dream of
* Copy/paste the html code previously taken from LinkedIn’s Badge
* Click Change to the bottom-left
* Then Save Changes
* And Visit Site to check it

That’s about all. You will have now a very nice badge inside one of the widget areas on your blog’s sidebar. Nice! Go promote it! It will bring you back, in time many kinks and, of course, free traffic. Enjoy!

LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site developed by entrepreneurs to shrink the business cycle in their favor. This article gives some tips on how to make the most of this popular business networking service and help you expand your business.

The main purpose of setting up this site was mainly developed to set up entrepreneurial venture. However, over time the site is also helpful for finding jobs. The site is equally helpful for the employer and the job seeker. Many entrepreneurs do not fully appreciate the benefits of LinkedIn to shrink their business cycle in their favor.

LinkedIn is a great place for business social networking and also enables the user to market his/her business. If you are a user of the site you can avail of these benefits to expand your business circle. In order to become popular in this business social networking site you need to know certain tips of effectively managing your business circle. Some of the tips are listed below:

•    Make use of the Q&A function: This function is one the powerful revenue generating tool of the site. It is advisable to try the advanced answers search to get specific questions about your company’s expertise. This tool is the best medium to get the best answer. It is regarded as the give-to-get medium as you give freely and will be rewarded back in spades.

•    Promoting your blog: promoting your blog in this site will enhance your image and add value to it. Many of you have your blogs and have published whitepapers and corporate presentations. Promote your blog in the news section of the groups you belong to. You can also promote your whitepapers and presentations in the groups by the discussion function.

•    Join groups: Joining groups can also help you to become popular and manage your business. You can join as many as 50 groups in LinkedIn. After joining you can introduce yourself and your services. This is very similar to the Q&A method.

•    Becoming an expert: This creates an expertise for you and your company. When a question is asked in the site, a time of about seven days is given to answer. After the question closes the asker can rate the best answer given to the question. Expert status is given to the person who gave the best answer. This status follows you wherever you go in the site. An expert badge is also awarded to you for your excellence. This acts as an advantage since you represent your company. In this way your expertise gives an expert status to your company also.

•    Starting a group: This is one of the easiest tasks, which you can do in LinkedIn. You can start a group regarding your company’s core competencies. For instance if you are a software engineer then you can start a group on this and ask questions on software. With just a couple of clicks you are done.

Make the full use of the site in order to become popular as well as managing your business at the same time. LinkedIn lets you tap into the huge potential of social media networking and help you find new business partners, prospects and even customers.

Social media has become a great marketing strategy to use because you can reach hundreds of people and it is a FREE marketing strategy. One of the best things about MLMLeadSystemPro is that the training offered includes free marketing strategies as well as paid marketing strategies. Training is vital because 98% of network marketers do not possess marketing training; and nine out of ten network marketers have a very minimal marketing budget. By implementing free marketing strategies an inexperienced marketer can learn how to properly market. Free marketing strategies can also generate the capital needed to pay for the paid marketing strategies such as pay-per-click. If you are going to get good results using pay-per-click you need to have a minimum budget of $1200 per month. Going through trial and error with paid strategies can become expensive, so it is recommended that you use free marketing strategies to begin with.

LinkedIn is the free marketing strategy that will be discussed in this article. LinkedIn can be thought of as the “white collar capital” of social media. In terms of occupation, acumen and education the quality of members is expectional. Imagine your leads in a suit everyday or accustomed to an affluent lifestyle. The community is made of corporate CEOs, politicians, executives from fortune 500 companies, celebrities, etc. totalling 47 million member in 200 countries around the world. The average household income is $109,000 so that means there is an abundance of social capital and disposable income. These high-level and mid-level professionals are an excellent for network marketing. Joining an MLM business for this community will not be a great feet to conquer. There will not be such a lag in time between the time they are introduced to the opportunity and joining, because they do not have to gather money to join.

With LinkedIn you are making professional connections, rather than casual friends as with Facebook. Therefore, you have to interact with the members properly and professionally. You have to offer much value to them in order build credibility and trust with them. The members would rather look at your credentials than your friends and family. If you want to consistently generate 10-15 leads a day on LinkedIn you have to be knowledgeable about the likes and dislikes of the members of this professional community.

A useful approach for generating leads is article marketing. It is not beneficial for you to post articles without following up. You have to be committed to get the most out of using this technique. You have to interact with the community regularly. You have to have the ability to speak their language. You have to be skillful in your approach on LinkedIn.

Here are 7 of the common mistakes that people make when they network on LinkedIn:
1. Improperly formatted profile page.
2. Poor etiquette in discussion groups.
3. Producing the wrong information in subgroups.

Facebook and Twitter have both recently passed significant milestones in new user growth over the past few months, Facebook reached 300 million users, while Twitter saw growth rates over 1000 percent. It came as no surprise that LinkedIn would follow suit, announcing on Wednesday that the popular professional networking site had surpassed 50 million users. The news was even more interesting in that much of the growth came from unique visitors, signaling to those in charge that people were going there with a purpose, proving that it’s not just a passing fad.

According to LinkedIn, it took the site over one year to reach one million users. The last million to sign up, bringing them to the 50 million mark, took only 12 days. Clearly, this growth shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon. The site prides itself on its global accessibility, and attributes much of its growth from international users. In this age of global information and a global economy, making these kinds of meaningful connections is what can bring about change and opportunity, which was seemingly impossible in the past.

Social networking has obviously experienced exponential growth over the past few years. Rather than seeing them as short-term trend, we should embrace them as tools that can add value. In business terms, this is known as a network economy. Value can be found in every social network, and LinkedIn is no exception.

Considering the site’s audience and user base, this isn’t much of a surprise. Having such a targeted focus – professional networking and development – it isn’t where many online users are flocking. However, in today’s economy, job hunters are hearing more and more about the necessity of having a presence on LinkedIn and the value it can add to the job search. It provides actual value to its users, something that can be copied, but may be hard to match. LinkedIn has established itself as the “go-to” place for professionals of all ages, and helps to connect all industries on a common level.

We can look at these networks in a few ways. The relationships that can be built and fostered through LinkedIn can also be thought of as social capital. The connections made on the site help…

To read more about LinkedIn, go to Sparxoo, a digital marketing, branding, and business development blog.

LinkedIn as a tool to promote yourself and your business – A Brief review

LinkedIn is probably the most extended international professional network, a concept only slightly (but significantly, however) different from the usual social networking model. Some older LinkedIn Statistics (as of February 2008) said, “LinkedIn has 20 million registered users, three-quarters of a million of them are senior level executives at their respective companies. The site is growing by 1 million members per month. The average user is 41-years-old and has a household income of $109,000.”

Amazing, isn’t it?

LinkedIn focuses on helping all kind of professionals to manage their business contacts, but even better, being able to be introduced to others that are connected to them through their 2nd or even 3rd step acquaintances – what they call a connections network.

This was the key to LinkedIn’s success, most probably. At the moment I’m writing this, they proudly announce over 30 million members (as per their own About LinkedIn page). Huge!

Seeing the power of this, I decided to review my own profile on the portal and to link it to other places on the Internet, like my blog here, for instance. I’m pretending to be skillful enough for such apparently simple job.

I’ve spent just about 2 hours to update ‘make-up’ and carefully complete as much of my profile as possible in one round, yet when it came to find the LinkedIn badge to add it to my blog, I was stuck there for 3 hours.

Finding the LinkedIn Badge on the site -

A step-by-step tutorial

So, starting with some ‘Googling’ and following some advice from here, another from there, I ended up with the beautiful badge that I proudly pinned on the right column of my blog. Long story short, I finally found it under my Profile tab, at the edit option of my personalized Public Profile (it’s the last one, on top of the Summary Section ).

Follow these steps:

* Open your own account and * Login (called a sign in in this case) OR * Join Today for those who are just jumping in * Fill your e-mail and password if you already have an account to get through * On the Home page that opens, look for the Profile tab from the left side * Click the Edit my Profile link * Find the last item, immediately above the Summary section, called Public Profile * Click the [Edit ] link shown at the right end * Under the Public Profile that appears there, select the discreet second bullet: * Promote your profile with customized buttons

Drrrrums! Ta Daa! You have finally found it!

Recruiters and Human Resources professionals love to use LinkedIn to recruit prospective employees. It also boasts an international membership with about half of the members located outside of the United States. Your goal with LinkedIn should be to establish yourself as a leader in your industry or niche, not to simply find a way to get traffic.

Make meaningful connections with customers and colleagues that you already have a working relationship with, and build outwards from there. When it comes to connecting with new people, it pays to tread lightly. The rules on LinkedIn suggest that people should only be connecting to people that they already know.

The focus really should be on developing relationships not on amassing a huge number of followers that you don’t know. If your profile is robust and you come across as a knowledgeable authority on your topic, then you will become a resource, and people will begin to seek you out to make connections. Be mindful of the fact that LinkedIn is focused on building professional networking relationships with business colleagues.

Everything that you post there will either build or diminish your professional credibility. LinkedIn Answers provides the opportunity for you to display your knowledge on your web site’s topic keywords. When you answer a question you can include a link to your blog in your answer.
Asking questions is another opportunity to share your link along with your expertise. Here are a few tips for getting targeted traffic from LinkedIn:
 Fully complete your profile and include links to your blog or web site. Your profile is your first impression, so make it impress! You only get one chance for a first impression.
Join groups in your industry or niche and participate in the discussions. You can post news articles in your groups containing a link back to your web site or blog.
Use the status updates to inform your network about what you are working on, new projects that you are launching and upcoming events that would be of interest to them
Edit your profile’s headline, which is the line under your name to include your web site address.
Now when people are browsing through lists of profiles, your web site address will be visible and curious people will click on it to see what your web site is all about LinkedIn is a site that is used by smart business professionals from around the world. Take the time to develop useful content to share, nurture your connections by providing recommendations for your colleagues, and participate in the conversations and you should see a steady uptick in traffic and leads from this powerful social networking site.

As a real estate investor you know that the most important element of your business is constant contact. You must cultivate relationships on a constant basis, and of course you need to find homes that would make for quality investments, whether you are seeking to fix-up-and-flip or rent out those properties.

An amazing 21st century tool for keeping you ahead of your competitors is LinkedIn. LinkedIn is known to many of us already as a way of re-connecting with friends and family and existing work colleagues, but many of us don’t realize what a powerful business networking tool this website can be for us if we just use it right. As a real estate investor, you need to know real estate agents, loan officers, contractors, and title agents in various areas. And–you also need to stay in touch with all those people who may want to sell their houses, or buy houses. You need relationships with all of these people, andLinkedIn is an incredible hub that works to that end.

How should you use LinkedIn to further your business?

*Once you have created your free profile, immediately import all of your e-mail contacts. You’ll be told which ones are using LinkedIn and you can send them invitations to view your profile and link up with you. Also, add in all of your networking contacts. Take every business card you have and add those people in, too. When they receive your invitation to link up, they will better remember you and discover an easier, faster way to contact you.

*Your second step is to begin joining (or creating) groups, recommending other businesses, and answering questions. The last thing that you want to do onLinkedIn is sell yourself. Never do this–as a matter of fact, any overly aggressive contact can be viewed as spam and could result in you getting your account terminated.LinkedIn is all about passive contact.

*You can build your own group as just mentioned. To do this the right way, choose some broad theme that includes real estate investing under its umbrella. Lead the group in topical discussions about your theme. Be creative in how you get people to join your group. Invite your relevant contacts; place your group on your website; create a group blog; advertise your group or create widget for it to include in yourautoresponder e-mails; even invited other real estate investment experts to join (it’s best, of course, to invite those who work in geographical locations where they are not competing with you).

*If you give teleseminars or do trade shows, invite your leads and audience member contacts to join your LinkedIn Group. Then you can notify all group members about your forthcoming seminars or other events in the future, so that they come back and visit you again.

*You can try LinkedIn’s Direct Ads.These work in a similar way to Google AdWords campaigns. You can have targeted ads going out only to relevant LinkedIn members. (They are not sent as spam, don’t worry.) LikedIn already contains 49 million professionals who have average household incomes over $100,000–meaning that you will be reaching out to people who can afford to do business with you.

*Ask questions and give answers in the “Answers” section. This works very similarly to Yahoo Answers. This is a great way of building your credibility as someone who can be trusted and someone who is knowledgeable. Just as with Yahoo Answers, you gain expertise points if you get a “Best Answer” selection for one of your answers. The people onLinkedIn are very keen on contacting those who have expertise points in a field that they are concerned about. When they contact you for help, that’s when you are allowed to strut your stuff and try to get them to work with you. Also, in the Answers section you can provide information about other businesses. Think how much a loan officer or a real estate agent is going to love you for giving her some free advertising! She will respond in kind and give you free referrals, too.

So, follow this set of techniques and you’re sure to get yourself a growing, thriving network. But always remember the rule about not soliciting business! The people in LinkedIn do not want to be solicited. They are interested in learning and in having enjoyable, intelligent conversations with people of similar minds. Yes, there are plenty of other people there like you who hope to get some new business, too, but the relationship element is everything. You should never attempt to try to get a new business venture going with anyone onLinkedIn until you have exchanged communications with them at least half a dozen times. You never want to be reported for spamming or be seen as breaking thewebsite’s rules about spamming, even if it’s purely by accident.

The way to have a successful real estate investment business in the 21st century is to network online. selling. The Internet provides you with an unprecedented platform to get more done in less time

Have you secretly been wondering what all the hoopla is over social networking sites liked LinkedIn…but been too afraid to ask? Or perhaps you are in the midst of a job search and know using sites liked LinkedIn should be part of your job search strategy….but you are not exactly sure how to go about it?

If so, you are going to love these 5 easy tips for using LinkedIn to create powerful networking connections, brand your image and quickly get you noticed!

Tip #1: Create a powerful profile

It’s free to join and once you have, you’ll want to create a profile which best highlights the skills and strengths you most want to showcase. Here are a few tips to setting up your account:

- Use a current version of your resume to post your profile. – Your profile should contain those things you wish to be known for – and nothing more! – Don’t go back too far with your job history unless you have a really good reason for it. – Have someone (friend, loved one, resume writer) edit and proof your profile. – Use discretion with listing personal information…just like a resume.

Tip #2: Find your friends

You can search for old classmates, past companies, friends or just try keyword searches in your area of interest. Invite friends and associates to connect with you and accept invitations from others to quickly grow your network (you will want to read LinkedIn’s information about accepting others’ invitations to help you decide whose invitations to accept). Bear in mind the larger your network, the wider your audience and that is generally what you want.

Tip #3: Get involved in Q&A

Easily search topics and offer answers to establish yourself as an expert. You can also ask questions to engage others and establish rapport. This small investment of your time will pay off abundantly in both the short and long term.

Tip #4: Join groups

There are tens of thousands of groups and group forums on LinkedIn. Forums give you an instant audience in a particular industry, networking group, alumni group, company or geographic area! Currently you can join up to 50 groups.

You can post a question, post a news or blog article or announce you are open to new career opportunities.

If you are a job seeker, don’t forget to post your candidacy on the 10,000+ member recruiter groups. You will be casting a wide net, but stand to garner several positive responses. Just be clear about what your specialty is to make it easy for the recruiters to identify potential interest on their part.

Tip #5: Use LinkedIn’s group email feature

Sometimes LinkedIn will charge a user to connect with others, but not in group forums. Check out the member listings for your groups and email selected group members (in the group forums) absolutely free!

Being a member of LinkedIn quickly establishes your credibility, gives you an audience in an amazing choice of industries and allows you to fully leverage yourself in the market.

These five tips will get you quickly moving forward, however this is just the tip of the iceberg! My friend, Jason Alba, wrote an amazing little book called, “I’m on LinkedIn, Now What?” That is packed with useful tips to quickly getting your LinkedIn membership working for you!