Archive for the ‘Thought Leadership’ Category

LinkedIn Helps You Pay It Forward to Nonprofits

By Wayne Breitbarth, CEO of Power Formula and author of The Power Formula for LinkedIn Success: Kick-Start Your Business, Brand, and Job Search

You’ve polished your LinkedIn profile, developed a large network of valuable contacts, and joined the most advantageous LinkedIn groups. From a professional standpoint, you should now be reaping the benefits—growing your client/customer base, seeing increased activity on your website, and becoming a thought leader in your industry.

You obviously did not get to this point alone. Friends and business associates have written recommendations for you, used the introduction function to introduce you to key members of the business community, and shared your status updates with their networks. Along the way, you have undoubtedly assisted your connections as well, but now it is time to pay it forward in another way—by helping your favorite nonprofit organization.

Here are six ways you can use LinkedIn to benefit your favorite charitable group:

  1. Include information about the organization in your LinkedIn individual profile. In the Experience section, list as a current job your title and/or involvement, along with the name of the organization. You then have 2,000 characters to explain the organization’s mission, accomplishments, and needs. Once you do this, the organization will appear in the top box of your profile. You can list three websites on your profile. Use one of the three websites for a hyperlink directly to the organization’s website. In the Summary section, consider having a special section to describe why this organization is important to you. Include in the Specialties section the name of the organization or other keywords that describe the group. You can then be found more easily if someone searches for people involved in your specific group or other groups with a similar mission or purpose. Use SlideShare or Google Presentation to share a PowerPoint or video about the organization. Use Blog Link or WordPress applications to connect the organization’s blog to your profile. Finally, list the name of the organization in the Groups & Associations section.
  2. Use the Status Update Box on your home page or Discussions/News in groups you belong to. Here you can publicize an event, recruit volunteers, share results and accomplishments, ask a question of the group or your network that will help solve a problem, and find employees, suppliers, and/or vendors for the organization.
  3. Use the LinkedIn Advanced Search function to find out who in your network knows people at the significant foundations and companies in your marketplace. Then facilitate an introduction to the staff of the nonprofit organization.
  4. Search for and join LinkedIn groups in and out of your regional or local market that appear to be in the same space or have a similar mission as your organization. This is a great way to keep track of what others are doing, saying, and sharing.
  5. Start a LinkedIn group for the organization’s supporters, donors, and/or volunteers. A subgroup can be created to share information that is only pertinent to volunteers, for instance. Starting a group for an event you are planning can help you share information leading up to the event and wrap up information after the event.
  6. Use the Events application to promote the organization’s upcoming events.

Follow these six simple but highly effective steps—all of which can be done without leaving the comfort of your home or office—and then don’t be surprised when the phone rings with an invitation to join the board of your favorite nonprofit!

Posted in Altruism, Blogs, Cause Marketing, Charities, Community, Employees, Events, LinkedIn, Local, Networking, Relationships, SlideShare, Thought Leadership, Wayne Breitbarth | Comments Off on LinkedIn Helps You Pay It Forward to Nonprofits

Why Every C-Level Executive Should Write a Book

By Bill Newton, Owner of C-Suite Press

The executive leadership team in most organizations includes individuals who have titles that begin with the letter C, such as CEO, COO, CFO, CIO, CMO, and so forth. These are people who are important and influential to the mission of their respective companies. They see the big picture. They are strategically wired. And they command respect.

If you happen to be one of these individuals, you probably have a book in you. In fact, I’d be willing to bet you’ve at least entertained the idea or been told by someone that you should write a book.

Getting it written, however, is another matter altogether. Time constraints—travel, round-the-clock meetings, and family and personal responsibilities—probably mean that writing a book has become just wishful thinking for you. However, postponing such an endeavor, or dismissing the value it can bring to you, is really not acceptable—even if you’re not a very good writer. You’d be surprised at the amount of help that some of today’s best-selling business authors have had in their quest to produce a book.

What you need to fully understand is the impact that writing a book can have on your career. After all, you’ve already come a long way to get where you are. And now, putting your thoughts down on paper may be the only thing keeping you from reaching your next goal.

For a moment, let’s not look at your position with your company. Let’s instead examine you as an individual. Like it or not, you’re your own brand. People and companies have invested in you because you bring a strong value proposition to the table. Whatever you can do to enhance and preserve your brand should always be pursued.

In the corporate world, thought leaders—those people who can sell a premise, mount a charge, and have everyone follow—are often hard to come by. It’s a given that members of the C-suite have certain skill sets, or areas of expertise. If they are also well known, they are often recognized as subject matter experts. That’s where authoring a book can come into play.

A lot goes into writing a book, however, so make it easy on yourself. Start simple by opening a Word document and begin getting your thoughts down as a rough outline. Spend fifteen minutes a day making notes. In six months, you’ll probably have more than enough material for your book. Or, if you blog, simply collect all your posts. And since you’re reading this post, you’re at least somewhat active on social media. So be sure to include content from your activities on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. All that will make for a great start. 

There are professionals who can take your Word doc, craft a final piece, design the cover and interior layout, oversee the editing and proofing, and manage all the other activities necessary for your book to appear on the shelves in Barnes & Noble stores around the country and on the Amazon.com website. Believe it or not, that’s the easy part in today’s world of print on demand.

One more thought. If you take the initiative, a year from now, you could be taking copies of your book to your next stockholder’s meeting, key customer presentation, or speaking engagement.

Posted in Bill Newton, Blogs, Books, Branding, Facebook, LinkedIn, Thought Leadership, Twitter | Comments Off on Why Every C-Level Executive Should Write a Book

Fueling the Social Media Engine: How Building Relationships Online Drives the Growth of Brands

By Luis Gallardo, Managing Director of Global Brand & Marketing at Deloitte

The world’s most successful brands go the distance. Beyond logos, colors, and shapes, brands endure over time and geography, attempting to do what no other commodity or service offering before them could do—or better yet, promise.

Brands are expected to perform, and customers expect nothing short of that promise. In fact, one must think holistically about the brand by understanding how multiple stakeholders are interacting, sharing, and perceiving the value of the promise across hundreds of brand touch points around the world. Then, one must get personal by understanding how emerging media and other Web 2.0 communities impact the development and maintenance of meaningful relationships—an emotional bond and distinctive brand experience for customers and stakeholders.

Is your organization capitalizing on emerging media technology as a key brand-enhancing activity to help differentiate it from the competition?

At Deloitte, the largest private professional services organization globally, social media is not just another buzzword. We boldly anticipate the success of social media in helping our people and clients to step ahead in the marketplace. Pragmatic in our approach, we are building on the success of several social media marketing campaigns to continuously grow our brand within the professional services market.

Our recent success with the 2010 Deloitte Fantasy Football engagement program, for example, allowed our 170,000-member firm practitioners, as well as our clients, to highlight their pride in cultural diversity, their love for the game of soccer, and a relentless approach to staying a step ahead of the fantasy competition during every World Cup match game. In addition to being an all-around fun game, Deloitte Fantasy Football was a strategic brand-building initiative that relied heavily on the power of building relationships online via social media channels, peer-to-peer recommendations, and real-time collaboration among colleagues, friends, and clients.

Social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, in particular) played an integral role in sustaining the momentum and energy behind the campaign, week after week. In fact, the results of the campaign exceeded our expectations:

  • More than 80% of Deloitte member firms actively promoted this event, leveraging unique opportunities for local market fit.
  • There was a ten-fold jump from Deloitte Australia’s original 3,000 participant count in 2006 to an impressive 33,848 total number of participants who registered to play the game in more than 160 countries.
  • More than 61 percent of the Deloitte workforce participated in the competition, complemented by a respectable level of client participation at 34 percent.
  • More than half a million unique online visitors from 162 countries and territories came to the competition site. More than 15 percent of these visitors had not previously visited a Deloitte Web site.
  • Each visitor spent an average of 7.38 minutes visiting the Web site—an equivalent of more than 4 million page views.
  • The Deloitte Fantasy Football campaign directly impacted our overall social media profile. We grew our official Deloitte Facebook page during that time from a fan base of 2,000 to more than 77,000 active users. Deloitte now has the largest global Facebook presence among its professional services competitors.
  • More than 40 Deloitte member firm practitioners from the South African firm acted as “green dot” reporters by blogging about the spirit of the live games.

Deloitte continues to shift perception from being just one of the Big Four to being the market-leading private professional services organization—in a category of one. To help accomplish this goal, Deloitte Fantasy Football (as well as other brand engagement programs) allowed our network of member firms to build on the exciting momentum of the world’s largest sports phenomenon, while exposing stakeholders to a variety of brand messages that appeal to clients and talent. By supporting these relationships in online social media applications such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, and blogs, Deloitte continues to break away from the pack.

Using social media as part of the marketing mix, Deloitte is able to authentically embrace the interests of its people and clients in a non-traditional way. From weekly engagement levels provided by Facebook metrics to a whole new database of potential clients, social media is a strategic business driver with the potential to positively impact lead generation, brand reputation, and risk, as well as advancements in thought leadership and new product development.

Posted in Blogs, Branding, Collaboration, Competitors, Customer Experience, Customers, Engagement, Facebook, LinkedIn, Luis Gallardo, Marketing, Relationships, Strategy, Thought Leadership, Twitter, YouTube | Comments Off on Fueling the Social Media Engine: How Building Relationships Online Drives the Growth of Brands