inapro.posthaven

An ads API is like steroids for an ad platform. Consider Facebook. The social network in 2009 began letting a few companies access its ads API and brought even more on board in 2010, when advertising revenue grew 145 percent to $1.87 billion. The following year Facebook officially released the ads API, which would open it up to more developers who would be able to manage and run more ads for marketers. Facebook closed 2011 with $3.15 billion in ad revenue; it already has $2.95 billion in ad revenue over the first three quarters of 2012. Obviously the ads API isn’t the only reason Facebook has seen such a steep rise in ad revenue—hitting a billion users and increasing ad rates certainly helped—but the API definitely catalyzed that growth.

getting found. it's a searchable world, so businesses and organizations like to believe that when people are looking for something they provide, their name will pop up. here's a somewhat snide little post that dismisses "the obvious SEO signals" for some less wellknown but pretty easily accomplished tweaks to kick your findability up a notch.

#6 is highlighted here - go to the article for the rest

Images. This is more an addition to Facebook and Google +, but has massive impacts for image search. I personally was having an issue getting certain images to show up on Facebook from my blog, and couldn’t diagnose the issue. Rather than pulling in the images I uploaded for the post, it was pulling in the Social Sharing icons I had set. Bad user experience for anyone else sharing. I found a great plugin to fix the Facebook like thumbnail which brings the images you want to the top, and adds a tag to identify those as the preferred images for the post and for Open Graph.

Do yourself a favor and ensure that the images on your site are descriptive, and they are being picked up by social networks and Google image search.

a post about LinkedIn's new Endorsements feature I wrote on my btrandolph.com blog has been getting a lot of comments in a LinkedIn group, but that's just the tip of the iceberg for changes. LinkedIn recently made huse enhancements to functionality and formatting for brand pages, and now that comes to personal profiles, too. Check out the full article in Adweek for deets.

LinkedIn is revamping its core profile pages.

Starting Tuesday (Oct. 16) the company's 175 million users will see a host of new tools and user options on their Linkedin profile pages, part of an overhaul CEO Jeff Weiner described as “one of the biggest changes to a LinkedIn pillar product in the company’s history,” during an event at its Moutain View, Calif., headquarters.

The changes to Linkedin's profiles include several new photo, biography and editing options. But overall, the biggest difference in profile pages are a series of new features Linkedin hopes will encourage users to share a whole lot more content via the networking site.

Using Board Connect on LinkedIn allows you see past first connections on LinkedIn, check out a potential candidate’s knowledge and their connections. It streamlines the process. But, if all board members add their networks, this produces a richer set of potential candidates. And, remember,  you are not just adding a board member, you are also adding their network.

As part of the board connect program, nonprofits get free access to a Talent Finder account (valued at $1000/annually), an exclusive LinkedIn education webcast (with tools and tips to use the account), and membership to the Board Connect Group on LinkedIn.

so - in order to use the announcement feature, you have to be a linkedin group manager. and the announcement goes out only to group members - if they haven't turned off announcement because you spam them every week. so it's like having only a few bullets. use them wisely, and keep count for pete sakes. you don't want to end up with clint eastwood asking if you feel lucky, do ya, punk?:) 

having solved that mystery, on to the tips!

With LinkedIn Announcements, you can send email messages straight to the inboxes of likely prospects. Sound good? Here's the right way to do it:

·      Ditch the default subject line. If you don't take the time to write an original subject line, why should anyone take the time to read your message? Treat this like any other email campaign—intrigue your recipient with a subject line that compels further investigation.

·      Make your copy irresistible. Grab your reader's attention with a relevant case for action. "This is a great place for stats—not only can they present a compelling case in a short amount of space," she notes, "but they can also help readers visualize a particular topic or subject matter, which will help pique their interest."

·      Include a call to action. Don't expect anyone to read your mind. Make your call to action, and the pathway to conversion, perfectly clear.

·      Don't be a jerk. Would you want an endless stream of irrelevant LinkedIn Announcements? Probably not. So treat this access to a prospect's inbox with respect.

via marketingprofs.com (click through to the full post)

Today, we’re really excited to share that the Outlook Social Connector for the next release of Office will no longer require an additional download to sync with LinkedIn. This means you just have to sign-in once with your LinkedIn credentials and immediately you’ll start seeing rich profile information, like photos and LinkedIn network activity for any connection that emails you. You’ll also see LinkedIn profile data surface when you view a People Card throughout the new Office experience.

from the announcement on LinkedIn's blog:

Millions of you are coming to LinkedIn everyday to discover and discuss what matters most to your professional life. And today, we’ve started to roll out a simpler and easier way to navigate Homepage experience that offers quick access to the relevant information and updates that help you be great at your job.

So what’s new?

Facebook has clearly grown weary of losing business-oriented members to social networking rival LinkedIn, and have decided to do something about it.

That paradigm has existed almost since social networking began and has developed into something of a lore. Popular, social searches happen on Facebook, but when it’s time to get serious and “grow up”, you move over to LinkedIn.

Branchout is a new Facebook application that seeks to add career networking to the Facebook universe. According to TechCrunch, “the application unlocks massive amounts of career data about my friends and friends of friends that was just impossible to get to before.”

This application allows you to search by company name to discover which of your friends work there, or used to work there. If they have also downloaded the application, then you can see which of their friends are also part of that company. This information could of course lead to a referral and a job. BranchOut believes that 80% of all job opportunities are the direct result of networking with friends.

Downloading the application is an interesting exercise. I did not know that one of my friends worked at Disney, one at NBC Universal, and another at the World Bank. Suddenly I am more impressed with my friends. I did, however, know that six of my friends worked “at freelance.”

BranchOut is a great idea and a welcome addition to the Facebook application family. The job boards, insider tips and additional information will, no doubt, come in handy. But it does rely on your friends keeping their work info up-to-date, which is often not the case.

As it is with so much of Facebook, they are offering a handy, clever app that will suit the masses who use it, but for detailed and comprehensive business searches, the specialised focussed nature of LinkedIn is still a superior service.