#1: Host Social Media Events
Mari Smith
You can build a loyal, raving community by hosting online events that put the focus on your fans.
A fun and effective online event is hosting a “Fan Page Friday”—it’s essentially a virtual networking party where you allow all your fans to share links to their own pages on your page.
The event can last as long as 24 hours or more and is a great way to discover new businesses, get more fans, and build tremendous community while increasing your EdgeRank (news feed visibility), too.
Many page owners launch a Fan Page Friday event every week; however, I find it much more effective to host one about every four to six weeks, as it has a bigger impact. On my last virtual party, several thousand page owners participated, many of whom picked up as much as a hundred or more new fans as a result.
Be sure to include a hashtag like #FacebookFriday and schedule your initial invitation to go out very early in the morning. Then add another couple of invitations throughout the day.
Facebook Friday is a great way to build your community.
Another example is to host live webinars where you give away great content. You can monetize your time and effort by making a great offer on the webinar. Many businesses both large and small use this model well.
By way of example, my latest Facebook marketing webinar had over 13,000 registrations; I like to provide ongoing access to the replay as well. Whether your fans ever purchase from you as a result of one of these webinars, you’ll find a good percentage become evangelists for your brand and love to help spread the word to their own community.
Mari Smith, author of The New Relationship Marketing and co-author of Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day.
#2: Use LinkedIn’s “Your Day” Feature
Viveka von Rosen
Get a big return on your time investment using LinkedIn’s Your Day feature.
Linda Coles wrote a very thorough article on the new LinkedIn Contacts back in June. If you haven’t read it yet, go read it now!
Sync your contacts and your calendar with LinkedIn and the Your Day feature will give you an opportunity to more deeply communicate and engage with your network, especially as this feature is new and most people aren’t using it. Strike while the iron is hot!
Use the Your Day feature to deepen your relationships on LinkedIn.
The Your Day section in Contacts will show you if your contacts are having a birthday, have been promoted or are in a city you’re traveling to.
Your average Facebook user probably gets between 50 and 100 congratulations on his or her birthday. They might get one or two on LinkedIn. Who’s going to stand out?
If one of your contacts just got promoted in a company that you’ve been prospecting, this might be a really great time to reengage with him. And what better way than to congratulate him on his promotion?
How much more business are you likely to close in a face-to-face meeting? What if you could set five additional meetings in the next city you are traveling to? At the very least, you could write the trip off! The announcement section will also show you who in your network lives in a town you’re traveling to and you can set up a meeting right from there.
Any reminders you have set to get back in touch with the connection will show up here as well. And keep showing up until you do something about them.
Finally, when you sync your calendars to LinkedIn and have an appointment with another LinkedIn connection, LinkedIn will pull up her profile information in the Calendar feature so you can quickly get a snapshot of whom you’ll be talking to. Check the notes you’ve taken on her, as well as who introduced you so you can thank them later. A win-win-win situation!
Taking just a few minutes every day to review and congratulate your connections could have a big effect on your bottom line. How’s that for your return on time investment (ROTI)?
Viveka von Rosen, author of LinkedIn Marketing: An Hour a Day, host of #LinkedInChat and co-moderator of LinkedStrategies.
belizeinvest.net 
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