LinkedIn is a social network with over 53 million users that enables you to better use your professional network and help the people you trust in return. It is no secret that LinkedIn is a great place to network professionally, post and find jobs, post and answer questions and build your thought leadership among hundreds of thousands of members.

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

It is probably the most obvious way to identify people you may already be connected with either directly or through your connections. From my direct use of LinkedIn, I find it to a great tool to leverage my existing contacts to connect with people and find potential customers online. The purpose for writing this post is to introduce you to some of LinkedIn’s basic elements and what it can do for you to help build your brand, promote your website, and how to use LinkedIn to generate leads for your business.

I bet many of you may already use LinkedIn but are not taking advantage of its full value? Some of you may have probably stuck your toes in the water to make LinkedIn a part of your integrated online marketing strategy but are not aware of how to network among the Groups and thousands of members so as to introduce them to your thought leadership? This post is meant to introduce you to LinkedIn’s key elements so let’s get started by taking a look at this primer for all of the above.

What Is LinkedIn?

* LinkedIn is a B2B networking platform with the highest concentration of educated professionals of any social network.

Image via Wikipedia

* It is a social medium that is not really very “social” at all but is 100% about connecting and interacting with other professionals.

* LinkedIn is a B2B search engine that helps professionals find other professionals and businesses.

Is LinkedIn Effective?

* 57% of companies surveyed said they’d acquired a customer through LinkedIn (HubSpot)

* 58% of small and medium-sized businesses are actively using LinkedIn to promote their business (Merchant Circle)

* LinkedIn, more than any other social media site, is driving referrals to B2B sites (Leadforce1).

Ultimately, that’s what we all want: more traffic directed to our site, which translates to more leads we convert to sales.

Here’s a brief overview of the basic elements you’ll use as you get started and familiar with LinkedIn:

1. Profile

• The first thing many people do after meeting someone is to check-out their LinkedIn profile.
• Setting up your profile is free and quick – think of it as your optimized online resume plus – which will become a powerful magnet to attract people to you.
• People searching for contacts will make a decision to connect or not connect based on the information you provide in your profile.
• Your profile should be 100% complete and accurately reflect all that you’ve done professionally, and the skills and experience you bring to the relationship.
• It is important to upload a photo because people are more likely to connect with you if they recognize your face and they feel they are connecting with a real person. Be sure to ask for recommendations from friends, current and former colleagues, partners and clients.
• Optimize your LinkedIn profile for SEO by optimizing keywords in your summary section, for example. This is a full text section, which is indexed by Google. Including your favorite keywords in your summary helps you rank higher in search engine results for these keyword searches.

2. Contacts

• Connect with people whom you have worked with or done business, or generally people with similar interests or have worked in your industry.
• Invite thought leaders in your industry to connect with you so that you establish a relationship with them and, eventually, gain access to their network.
• LinkedIn compiles a list of all your contacts, which is viewable only by your contacts. These contacts get updates on activities you share on LinkedIn; blog posts you promote and events at which you’ll be speaking, for instance.
• Start asking and answering questions on LinkedIn Answers that will enable you to interact and connect with other thought leaders, as well as establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry. Update your content often for your status to be current.
• How many contacts should you have? There are some people on LinkedIn with 500+, but you can feel pretty confident if you have ~ 200 with the idea of increasing the number with quality contacts.

3. Company Page

• A LinkedIn company page is just like your personal page, but showcases your company as a whole.
• It’s a good place to highlight capabilities, services, and competitive advantages. (Learn how to get more traffic to your company page by reading white papers and viewing webinars, and other compelling content offered by HubSpot, the premier inbound marketing company.
  

  Image via CrunchBase

4. Groups

• LinkedIn Groups give you a great opportunity to reach out to and engage prospective customers online.
• The Groups function is where LinkedIn becomes a powerful networking tool. You can create a group for your industry or participate in as many as 50 groups that LinkedIn allows you to join.
• You can join groups of peers or groups populated with potential clients. If you create a group, promote it on your website, blog, email newsletter and social media networks.
• To get started, search for Groups with the greatest number of members and those that are similar to the Groups that match your ideal corporate profile for lead generation. You find these Groups by doing an Advanced Group search without entering any keywords in the search field. Click on the search icon and LinkedIn will list in descending order the Groups with the greatest number of members.
• You can join as many as 50 groups. When in the group, you can do a search for the decision-makers title. The result will be a list of group members who match your search for CEO or CIO or CTO, for example.
• LinkedIn enables you to send banner ad invitations to the groups you have joined. You can also send uploaded videos and presentations, which you will be able to track by users who open the content you provided. The goal is to establish your expertise among group members who request you to contact them that you will convert to leads.

5. Answers                                        

Image via Wikipedia

• LinkedIn also acts like a forum where you can ask a question or respond to relevant questions posted by others (a great way to demonstrate your expertise).
• Make certain you do not sell your services, no spamming please, but, above all, feel free to drive people to relevant and valuable and compelling content on your LinkedIn profile, website or blog.

6. Search

• Use LinkedIn’s Advanced Search for fine-tuning your way of searching for decision-makers by title and function in specific industries that are located in cities you have selected anywhere in the world to do business.
• Refer to search methods (above) in Groups, which will help you identify the groups you should join that fit your company profile for lead generation and how you can upload content, which can be inmailed to group members. Here is a way to create a list of prospects who you can contact, qualify, and convert from lead status to a new customer.
• The goal for all of this is simple: to engage an audience with compelling content, which will establish you as a thought leader as you build a network and a list of leads.

What Can LinkedIn Do For You?

1. Build Your Brand

• It is impossible to attend every networking event out there. With LinkedIn, you will be able to get in front of everyone you want to – and they can find you too.
• By being visible and a genius resource on the #1 professional networking platform, you will build your brand, if you do it right and do it consistently. Find a time each day to interact with your network.

2. Promote Your Website and Its Content

• If you want people to find you when they’re looking for your niche like a law firm or a dentist or a contractor or whatever it is you can do for them, you need to draw them in like a magnet into your site by offering the audience valuable content in the form of: articles, demonstration videos, surveys, blogs – any compelling content that helps educate your prospect, and solves problems for customers so they buy what you offer to them.
• LinkedIn is a great community to promote your site and your expertise to a targeted audience.
• By sharing what you know with the prospect will lead to forming a trusted relationship, and will see how you can help solve their immediate challenges on the way to building your credibility for the long-term.

3. Using LinkedIn Applications

• LinkedIn offers valuable applications that will help you to promote your content and your brand.
• Connect your blog to your LinkedIn profile to continually share your content with your network. The Blog Link will automatically pull in the latest blog posts from around your network.
• Share and collaborate on files with others in your LinkedIn network by using Box.net file.
• Promote your content by sharing slides from current and past webinars or presentations when you use SlideShare.net.

4. Generate Leads

• LinkedIn can be used to generate new leads for your business by engaging an audience and building a network. You do this by demonstrating your expertise and thought leadership. Refer (above) to Search and Groups.
• Don’t sell your services but drive people to relevant and compelling content on your website and blog. You will learn to distribute content from RSS feeds via LinkedIn ads, newsletters and articles.
• If you do all of the above – create compelling content, promote it on your website, blog, and social media sites, interact and engage with your audience, and showcase your expertise and thought leadership – you will generate leads.
• You can also use LinkedIn’s DirectAds to push relevant ads to LinkedIn subscribers targeted by profile demographic information. This is very similar to ad targeting on Facebook and Google AdWords.
• Make the best use of marketing tools like a landing page where you direct prospects to a compelling offer that will differentiate your product or service and result in the prospect identifying themselves as a lead when they enter their name and email address for you to contact.
• As cited above, use LinkedIn’s Advanced Search to identify and join the largest membership Groups and those that are similar to the ones which match the ideal criteria for the companies where you will generate leads.
• When you are a group member, you will be able to send uploaded ppt. presentations and videos, create RSS Feeds, send banner ad invitations to Group members, and follow User Engagement analytics with a list of leads who have opted-in.

Enjoy the experience as you become familiar with LinkedIn’s capabilities for lead generation. Happy hunting!

Related articles

• Help Your B2B Company in 10 Minutes a Day Using LinkedIn (gcsagents.com)
• LinkedIn groups: Have you joined the conversation? (marketing.yell.com)

Dan

Dan has 25 years of experience in information technology (IT) services sales, marketing, and enterprise account management. He holds a degree in business administration from Miami University, a Master's in Public Administration from the University of Southern California and Masters Certificate in Internet Marketing from the University of San Francisco. Dan is also a certified Guerrilla Marketing Coach. Dan's passion is for cloud computing, Internet marketing, social media marketing, and mobile marketing.

Image via CrunchBase

We’ve prepared these “Cheat Sheets” to help you understand it is no secret in our society, mobile devices are more pervasive than computers and it is time for you to develop a mobile marketing strategy for your business. To help you make the leap to considering and implementing a mobile-friendly website for your business, we have prepared mobile device usage facts, mobile website facts and benefits and a mobile website “Getting Started” checklist.

Consumer Mobile Device Usage FACTS

• Consumers are using their mobile devices to access the Internet more than ever before – and it’s expected to grow at astonishing rates over the next 12 months and beyond.

• There are approximately 4 BILLION mobile subscribers across the world.

• Most mobile device users keep their phones within arm’s reach over 90 percent of waking hours.

• Nielsen predicts that smart phones will account for nearly half of worldwide mobile sales by 2013. This is a clear indication of how much more the Internet will be accessed via mobile devices.

• Americans today are spending an average of three hours per day on the Internet from their mobile devices.

• Over the past few years, the shipment of mobile handsets has grown 16% annually – reaching 400 million sold in the last quarter of 2010. Mobile device companies sold a total of 1.39 billion units in 2010.
  

  Image via Wikipedia

• Approximately 30% of U.S. mobile phone users have a smartphone according to Nielson. This number is expected to grow to approximately 43% by 2015 according to eMarketer.

• In 2009, approximately half a BILLION people went online using their mobile device. This number is expected to double within the next 5 years.

• By 2014, mobile Internet usage is expected to exceed desktop Internet usage.

• According to Nielson, 70% of mobile users plan to upgrade to 4G service within the next year so they can have faster Internet speed while using their mobile devices.

• According to founder and CEO of Amazon.com, Jeff Bezos, customers around the world have ordered more than $1 BILLION U.S. dollars from Amazon.com using a mobile device.

• Gartner also predicts that by 2014, more people will access the internet from their mobile devices than from their PC desktops.

• According to Facebook official statistics from January 2011, more than 200 million users (out of over 600 million Facebook users) access Facebook using their mobile devices; also, mobile Facebook users are twice as active as non-mobile users.

• More than 200 million YouTube views occur on mobile devices every day.

• 86% of mobile Internet usage happens while the users are watching TV.

• Mobile marketing methods have proven to be effective in acquiring new customers, providing service to existing customers, and driving repeat business through relationship-building.

• When combined with other marketing methods, mobile marketing has proven to increase conversion rates.

• Studies show that as time goes on, people will prefer to deal with technology over human interaction.

Mobile Website FACTS & BENEFITS

• Studies show that current mobile web-user experiences are dissatisfied when it comes to viewing and navigating websites. Websites that have not been optimized for mobile viewing are too cluttered and negatively impact the visitor’s ability to locate information.

• Traditional websites are designed to be viewed on a computer screen instead of a mobile device. This means that most regular websites are not compatible with mobile devices.

• More and more people are using their mobile devices to access the Internet while on the go. In fact, one-third of the world’s population use their mobile devices to perform Internet searches.

• One-half of all Internet searches for LOCAL products and services are performed from mobile devices.

• Gartner reports that approximately 96 million mobile searches performed in 2009 were by those looking for a “location –based” (LOCAL) service. This number is expected to grow to more than 526 million searches by 2012.

• Mobile-friendly websites receive higher mobile search engine rankings.

• Mobile-friendly websites have higher speed, making the visitor experience more pleasurable.

• Mobile-friendly websites attract both “new” and “repeat” customers by giving your business “instant mobile marketability” when your visitors land on your mobile site with all of the important business information clearly and easily accessible.

• Can be viewed anytime and anywhere mobile cell phone coverage is available.  Due to the massive amount of Internet-enabled mobile devices across the world, this means your website can easily be exposed to many millions of people.

• Makes it easier for “On-the-go” visitors to easily find your business and contact you with one-click calling, one-click email, and instant directions. This eliminates the need for your customers to take “extra steps” in order to contact or visit your business.

• When users are successful in finding what they need while visiting a mobile website, they’re more likely to come back.   When mobile users land on a website that is all distorted, they quickly exit and make a mental note never to return.

• Have the advantage of coming up higher in search engine results for local searches performed on mobile devices. This means that when people search for your type of product or service using their mobile device, you can show up higher in the results just because you have a mobile website.

• Gives you the advantage over your competitors; most of which are not even leveraging the powerful benefits of mobile marketing.

• It is easy to track your mobile success with free reporting and analytic tools available with most mobile platforms. Simply track your visitors and make improvements where necessary.

• Integrating social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube with your mobile website is simple and will help boost your profits even more.

                       Mobile Website “Getting Started” Checklist

                       Ready to get your own mobile-friendly website?

1. Decide what enhancements you want to provide with your mobile website.

• Easy access to your phone number and one-click calling.
• Easy access to your email address and one-click emailing.
• Easy access to your product information.
• Easy access to directions and a map to your establishment.
• Easily accessible through higher search engine rankings

• Retrieve Information Only
• Make Purchases
• Redeem Coupons
• Opt-in to Your List

3. Decide on the content for your mobile site. Keep the amount of graphics and content to a minimum as mobile devices navigate well the less content there is.

4. Decide on a mobile platform or method to create a mobile-friendly website for your business.

• You could purchase programs to help you create your own mobile website or you could hire a professional to do it for you.
• Design your mobile site to be very clean and simple. Only provide relevant content and information that is easy to access.
• Keep it simple – your visitors will appreciate it! Mobile users don’t care about the look and style of your website.
• Create a mobile site that enhances your visitors’ experience instead of distracting them.
• People who access websites from their mobile devices are usually looking for one specific piece of information and then leave.
• Make sure that all of your pertinent information is easily visible on your mobile website. This includes your phone number, address, directions, map, menu, contact capture forms, etc.

5. Track and measure your progress. Test various types of campaigns to drive traffic to your website. Use SMS/Text messaging and QR codes. Be sure to view the analytics of your mobile website to see how many views and conversions you are getting. No matter how many visitors you’re getting, at least you’ll know that they are finding what they need now that you have a mobile website.

If you would like more information about creating a mobile-friendly website for your business, give me a call at (925) 309-4888.

Related articles

• 7 Reasons why your Auto Dealership needs a mobile website in 2012 (slideshare.net)
• Mobile Ready Websites (centexmobilemarketing.com)

Dan

Dan has 25 years of experience in information technology (IT) services sales, marketing, and enterprise account management. He holds a degree in business administration from Miami University, a Master's in Public Administration from the University of Southern California and Masters Certificate in Internet Marketing from the University of San Francisco. Dan is also a certified Guerrilla Marketing Coach. Dan's passion is for cloud computing, Internet marketing, social media marketing, and mobile marketing.

There are a handful of resources out there for curation, but most of them only allow you to create a list and share it on a website or via email.

The beauty of Storify is that they allow digital publishers the ability to embed a curated list into a blog post – that’s huge !!

Earlier this month they released their WordPress plugin that makes it even easier to integrate curated stories into your blog posts.

The feature set is already awesome:

• Embed stories with ease — simply paste the URL to the story, and WordPress takes care of the rest.
• Easily add your stories to posts — just click the Storify button in the standard WordPress editor, and select from a list of your most recent stories.
• Create new stories and edit existing ones right from your WordPress dashboard.
• Adds SEO-friendly versions of your stories to each post, ensuring that your stories get properly index by search engines
• Allows users with filtered html restrictions to embed stories.
• Extensive API to customize the plugin’s functionality to meet your needs

Just imagine what’s next – maybe that iOS app I’ve been bugging them about

I highly recommend you checking out the Storify plugin. You can read more and download it in the WordPress Plugin Repository.

Follow Storify on Twitter

Related articles

• @Storify – Awesome new tool helps you curate amazing content to show off your expertise [Georgina Lester] (ecademy.com)
• Embed & Storify (trytotakeover.wordpress.com)

James Hicks

James is the Founder and Chief Technologist of HicksNewMedia, a technology consulting and digital publishing firm providing effective and relevant solutions to individuals and businesses looking to utilize all things on the interweb. Follow him on Twitter | about.me | Facebook | Google+

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Don’t overlook the aesthetics, the usability, and the social engagement pieces that could be touched up.

Check out this cool infographic showing the “12 Days of Christmas” giving for your website.

Mintleaf Web Design Studio

James Hicks

James is the Founder and Chief Technologist of HicksNewMedia, a technology consulting and digital publishing firm providing effective and relevant solutions to individuals and businesses looking to utilize all things on the interweb. Follow him on Twitter | about.me | Facebook | Google+

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But then there’s a small few that go 2 steps above that. Those that are truly passionate about doing what is good and what is right. One of those truly awesome companies is Copyblogger Media. For those who don’t know, they’re the corporate entity that houses the StudioPress WordPress theme design team, the Scribe SEO optimization team, and the new Premise group that focuses on high quality, high conversion landing pages.

Side note: All quality products – You’ll notice that THE Tech Scoop is built on the Genesis Theme Framework which comes from the StudioPress team.

I say all this, not to necessarily give a plug for the company, but to really give a plug to their team. I received a very cool email from their Affiliate Manager yesterday that showed just how honest and personal the relationships are between Copyblogger Media and those within their community.

That message, with all its holiday cheer is below:

With the holidays just around the corner, I was going to send you a sweet newsletter that thanked you for being a StudioPress affiliate and for helping to make this our best year yet.

But that wouldn’t have been enough.

I have to do more than just tell you we’re grateful…

I have to sing.

So, while you may not be able to actually hear me through this email, just know I’m here singing this to you, to the tune of Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer… Feel free to join in if you’d like:

Genesis, the WordPress framework,
Had a lot of awesome themes,
And if you ever saw ‘em,
You would even say they gleam.

All of the other web devs
Kept doing business just the same;
They didn’t see that Genesis
Had become the best in the game.

Then one foggy Christmas Eve,
Santa came to say,
“StudioPress, with your themes so bright,
Won’t you redo my website?”

Then how the whole world loved it
And they shouted out with glee,
“Genesis, the WordPress framework,
You’ll go down in history!”

On behalf of the entire Copyblogger Media team, I thank you for being a part of the StudioPress community.

We hope you have a wonderful holiday season and send you our warmest wishes for a happy and healthy new year.

Now, I’m not going to embarrass anyone by directly calling them out here, but I will simply say – that is cool and thank you very much!!

You can follow Copyblogger online: Twitter | Facebook | Web

James Hicks

James is the Founder and Chief Technologist of HicksNewMedia, a technology consulting and digital publishing firm providing effective and relevant solutions to individuals and businesses looking to utilize all things on the interweb. Follow him on Twitter | about.me | Facebook | Google+

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We would argue that there’s a “slight” learning curve, while others claim it’s easy as pie to use and manage. Let me clarify WordPress is easy to use and manage, however to reap it’s full benefits, a complete newbie to online technology would be a tad lost. It took me roughly a few months to learn it well enough to get by, and about a year (or two) to truly deeply learn all its wonderful nooks and crannies. As I stated in a previous article one of the BEST ways to learn WordPress is via another blogger that already uses it. And knows it well.

But assuming you know it well enough to get by, below are five types of sites you can build with the popular and FREE CMS known to many a blog owner as WordPress.

1. Personal Blog – if you’re a real estate agent, hair dresser, mechanic or of any other professional background WordPress is great for creating and setting up your personal blog. This could be information about yourself, your skills, certification, licenses, etc. You could use it as a resume of sorts when looking for employment or simply as your placeholder online.

An example of a good personal blog built on WordPress is the site of real estate agent Ribeezie otherwise known as Ricardo Bueno. Notice how he uses the platform to establish himself as an authority in his field, this is how it’s done, take notes and see if you can emulate what he’s been able to do with his personal blog.

2. Company Site – whatever type of business you operate you can be sure someone has already used WordPress to make a website in your niche. You can hire the task out, you can try and do it yourself however the key takeaway is that with WordPress anything is possible including your company site.

An example of a cool and easy company site built on WordPress is the site of Extreme Tan and Smoothies based in Florida. For those who spend a good deal on Twitter and or social media might recognize this site as belonging to Extreme John who I easily could have used as an example of a good personal blog for number one above.

3. eCommerce – with an ecommerce plugin, just about any type of online shop can be created using WordPress. Can you create an Amazon.com size store? Well I highly doubt that as an online shop of that magnitude would require some sort of custom cart and many other custom enhancements. But assuming you’re not out to build the next Amazon.com, then WordPress would fit your needs just fine. And do so quite well.

An example of an e-commerce site built using WordPress is Chopper, an online shop for skateboarders. The site sells clothing, shoes and other assorted merchandise aimed at those who skate. It’s a nice looking site with built-in cart functionality and a fully operational shop.

4. Landing Page – a landing page is essentially a one page site that is used for a laser focused purpose such as collecting email leads, selling a product and or other single purpose. Many who use WordPress for their landing pages use it for email capture and or for selling a single product such as an ebook.

An example of a landing page site built using WordPress would be the Probloger Book page where noted blogger Darren Rowse sells his book. It’s simple and created using WordPress.

5. Portfolio Site – this is what a website designer, a freelance photographer and anyone who creates a visual service for a living would use to showcase their work, skills and talent for all to see. As a website designer you naturally would link to and highlight the various websites you’ve created over the years. As a photographer you would link to and display your most noted and celebrated photos for prospective clients to view and so on.

Your turn to speak? Leave a comment below and show us examples of good portfolio sites built using WordPress and do include a link in your comment. We look forward to your good picks.

As you can see from my examples above, WordPress is quite robust and comprehensive. It’s pliable enough that you can create just about any type of website imaginable. This is why it’s the CMS of choice among many web professionals.

Guest article by: Missy Diaz who relishes writing for BroadbandExpert.com, a high speed internet service provider.

Guest

Contributing authors on the cutting edge of technology reporting.

What is it about social media that has made it such a HUGE part of everyone’s marketing portfolio? Fact is that at the core of social media is a need to connect and share. As human beings this is a central and crucial need. It was only a matter of time before social networks became a household name and for online business users – a marketing phenomenon.

If you recently took up social media for your blog or business, let’s take a look at three quick and smart tips for new users.

1. Share Freely and Regularly – if you want to be a good standing member in any social network – be it Twitter, Facebook or Google Plus the one thing I would most advise a new social media user is to share, share and share. Follow those you genuinely like and consider good sources of information, entertainment, tips, etc and share freely whenever you can. And don’t be shy about letting another user know that you tweeted, LIKED or PLUSED something. As you may or may not know there are ways to “tag” someone to let them know they were mentioned. In time and as you become skilled in using social media you will in turn become a resource yourself and someone that other people look to for tips and advice. Keep this in mind and know that someday newbies will be coming to you on how best to use social media. But for now, the golden rule is? Share, share and share.

2. Busy? Cherry Pick Your Social Network – we admit that running any sort of social media campaign is daunting and can become very time consuming. With this in mind, we advise to choose just one of the BIG three in social media which is: Google Plus, Twitter and Facebook. Choose the one you most enjoy using and would like to become more involved with and give it your all. Follow, share, learn, keep up with the trends and changes and master your chosen social network. In time, you will become a dominant player and member within your own right.

3. Learn The Tips of The Trade – if you really want to master social media, then study the trade. As in follow those with good tips on the subject and subscribe to blogs that deliver the goods on best practices within social media. Some of these sites include Problogger, Social Media Explorer, Chris Brogan and others. All of the BIG THREE social networks implement a surprising amount of changes on a regular basis. But to stay current and learn how best to use social media we need to stay on our toes and keep up with the never ending surprises.

What did we miss? Share below your BEST tip for a new social media user. Pretend your next door neighbor – who runs an auto shop – just signed up for Facebook. What advice do you have for him.

This guest contribution comes from Missy Diaz who writes for several web clients including Paul, a cheap car hire service in the UK.

[image via]

Guest

Contributing authors on the cutting edge of technology reporting.

That’s what Livefyre does. They actually take it a step further and focus on real-time conversations.

I’ve used nearly every comment/discussion platform in the marketplace today for the WordPress platform. In the end, after all my bleeding edge testing and evaluation, I come right back to Livefyre.

For me it’s a combination of a few things. Yes, the tool has to be of extremely high quality and integrate seamlessly into my workflow and environment – Livefyre does that.

Scalability and interoperability also has to be there for the leading social/new media platforms – Livefyre does that and has a robust roadmap to bring in even more interoperability in the coming weeks.

The most recent platform update brought users SocialSync which is a collection of features that enable publishers to share, follow and curate content in real-time as it spills out across the web. In layman’s terms – your Facebook, and Twitter interactions about a given topic are seamlessly integrated into the conversation.

Aside from all those technical pieces of the puzzle being in place, what keeps me waving the Livefyre banner is – the people. Led by Jordan Kretchmer, there is a strong sense of stability, collaboration, and upward mobility. Not only that, Jordan knows and appreciates good whiskey. I’m a Macallan single malt scotch man myself. I knew about the 10, 12 and 18 year vintages, but damn – hanging with Mr. Kretchmer I dabbled in the 25 year old scotch. #FTW

Jordan has assembled a team of winners and everyone is marching in the same direction and for the same goal – customer satisfaction and high quality of service delivery. There are two distinct divisions, if you will, of Livefyre – one consumer focused and one focused on larger enterprise brands. The strategy is strong, free model for consumers is where the overall market penetration is happening, but the enterprise side of the house is targeting big names (you’ll see much more of this in January…)

More about the people:

Jenna Langer, Director of Strategy at Livefyre and a fellow CSU Sacramento Alumni (shouts out to the Hornets !!) – if you’re a client of Livefyre, or considering the platform – hit up Jenna. She’s absolutely awesome. She’s got her hand on the pulse of the organization and can make things happen.

Jeremy Hicks, Community Manager. Now, I’m not biased just because we share the same last name; but Jeremy is always there – managing the community (hence his title). I’ve shot Jeremy questions late at night and early in the morning both about Livefyre and the over/under on a sports game – he responds damn near instantly. By the way Jeremy, sorry it’s been such a tough year for them Cowboys!

In summary, commenting and engagement on your blog is incredibly important and something no digital publisher should look at haphazardly. You’re going to want a robust platform that can scale. A platform that can meet the needs of the Social InterWeb today AND be built for the forthcoming needs of your readership. The overall user experience is key and if it’s not flat out easy and intuitive for a visitor to leave a comment or share a piece of your content, they won’t (and they’ll probably not come back to your site again…) Give Livefyre a try. You won’t be disappointed.

My word and my recommendation are the foundations of my brand, and I support Livefyre 100%.

Your thoughts?

James Hicks

James is the Founder and Chief Technologist of HicksNewMedia, a technology consulting and digital publishing firm providing effective and relevant solutions to individuals and businesses looking to utilize all things on the interweb. Follow him on Twitter | about.me | Facebook | Google+

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As you may (or may not) know there are numerous ways to bring exposure to your blog and promote it on the web, but we are going to focus on five for the purposes of this article.

See our top picks for five quick ways to promote your blog on the net.

1. Social Media - you have three to choose from here including Facebook, Twitter and now Google Plus the latest social network to join the fray. The method for each is pretty much the same however they do work differently and each have different guidelines to get the best out of them. For each one the key is to engage engage and engage. With Facebook try to post regularly and do post items of interest to you niche. Anything from quotes, tips, information, news, and anything else of interest to your audience. Keep it light, keep it short and keep it coming. With Twitter rack up some fans, keep them in the loop and retweet others on a continual basis. Remember that with social media the key is to share and to allow others to shine.

2. Contests/Giveaways - another fantastic method to promote your blog is to create a killer giveaway and let your readers and visitors know about it. The key is to have a fantastic prize then let everyone you know including blog friends about your giveaway. Also don’t forget about your social network such as Facebook,Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus.

3. Guest Blogging - one of the absolute best to promote any blog and to promote any blog page or article. Find one in your intended niche and then send an email to the blog owner via the sites contact form. From there create a knock out article and then submit it to the blog owner. If approved and published on the site, consider yourself very fortunate as you just scored a prominent spot in what could possibly be an established and popular blog.

4. Blog Carnival - this is an old classic but still rings true for any blog owner. Simply visit the site find a relevant blog carnival and submit a blog article to it then await a response from blog carnival host. This is a quick and easy way to gain exposure for your blog and in particular your blog site. They’ve been around for a long time and I use them on a regular basis. You should too.

We welcome and encourage you to try any one or more of the methods mentioned above to bring additional exposure to a new or existing blog and gain all the momentum you need.

Let us know below in the comment area which method (or methods) you intend to try and how we can help?

This guest article was written by Missy Diaz who writes for several clients including Tim a website builder on the web.

Guest

Contributing authors on the cutting edge of technology reporting.