Questions
Follow up questions from the FEU Training workshop: ‘Meeting Up and Linking In’
Answers
By tutor David Thomas
Q1. Is it appropriate to use the ‘Projects’ section on LinkedIn as a pitch for a piece of work that you want to develop further?
A1: I’m a great believer in using LinkedIn in ways which are creative, and which fit your circumstances. If you are working on something, which is in progress and will continue over time, I see no reason why you can’t use the project section in this way. Try it, and if it doesn’t look quite right, change it or delete it and put information in ‘Interests’ or ‘Summary’ sections.
Q2. As a writer, would it be best for my social media accounts and .com to be in my full writing name, rather than an abbreviation (e.g., joannasmith.com rather than josmith.com). At present I have purchased the domain name in the abbreviation, but think perhaps I should buy the full one instead (or as well), to have more of a ‘brand’?
A2. I would suggest you use the domain that reflects how people know you when they meet you. For example, if you introduce yourself as Joanna Smith and that’s what appears in print (on a book jacket or scripts, etc.), then use that as your main domain. As you have spotted, you can buy both! Domains are not expensive, and you can link them up behind the scenes using the online tools provided when you buy them. For example: if someone types in josmith.com, they can be seamlessly re-directed to joannasmith.com.
Some people do this because their name is constantly being misspelt. They buy all the misspelt versions of the domain but redirect to the correct one.
Q3. What is the technique for transferring a domain name onto your email account, so you can, e.g., be ‘joanna@joannasmith.com‘? And can you change the email account provider that you transfer it to, at a later date (e.g., switch from yahoo to googlemail)?
A3. There are a number of ways of doing this but I’m going to outline what I think is the simplest: once you have bought yourself a domain (e.g., @joannasmith.com) and set up an email address (e.g., joanna@joannasmith.com) there are two stages in order to link it to your free Yahoo or Gmail account:
1. Make sure that people who write to you using your @joannasmith.com address can reach you. To do this you go into the online settings control panel that is given to you when you buy the domain. In the email section you can choose where to redirect your email. For example, you can tell it that you want joanna@joannasmith.com to be forwarded automatically to joannasmith@gmail.com (or whatever your actual account it called).
2. Make it look like your emails come from joanna@joannasmith.com, even when you send them from your Gmail or Yahoo account. To do this you have to go into the email accounts settings in Yahoo Mail or Gmail where you’ll find clear instructions.
In Yahoo Mail you need to log in to your Yahoo Mail as normal, then click on Mail Options >> Accounts >> Add Account. (Do not click ‘Create a New Account’ – that’s something different!) Follow the instructions and use the help notes for ‘How do I retrieve – and send – email from another address’.
In Gmail you log in as normal, then click the settings ‘cog’ on the right above the list of your email messages (it looks like a little wheel). Click on the ‘Accounts and Import’ tab. Half way down the page you’ll see ‘Send email as:’ and some instructions.
This is quite a common procedure so the instructions are pretty good but don’t rush it! Give yourself plenty of time and have a cup of tea and some of your favourite biscuits handy as you work through the procedures.
Q4. When you’re putting down the jobs that you’ve done, LinkedIn only seems to allow you to give month and year. But what if it’s a much shorter timescale for the project, e.g. five days?
A4. My first response is: ‘Does it matter’?. I agree that LinkedIn is limited in what it shows, but is it important that you are precise about the number of days? The implication of a project showing as ‘January’ is that it happened some time within that month. You can always add notes underneath to give more detail.
Q5. Websites and domain names: do you have to purchase both .co.uk and .com versions of your name? That is, if someone inputs your name as .com in a search engine, wouldn’t your details come up anyway, even if you were .co.uk (from inside or outside the UK)? Or is it more professional to just be .com?
A5. URLs (web addresses) are unique and precise. If someone puts in www.yourname.com into the address bar on a browser, your site will not show up if you are www.yourname.co.uk So you might want to buy both and redirect one to the other if you think this is likely to happen a lot.
For example, my business is at www.davidthomasmedia.com but I have also bought www.davidthomasmedia.co.uk in case someone types that in. It redirects automatically to the .com site.
Of course if someone types the wrong version into a search engine like Bing or Google there is a chance that the correct version comes up in the list, but that’s not always going to happen.
You also ask whether a .com is “more professional” than .co.uk. I don’t think so. It just depends where you work. I have .com because I work in a number of countries – and the .co.uk is not a commonly used form of domain in many areas of the world. If I only worked in the UK I would probably use .co.uk. If I had clients in Germany I would probably use buy .de.
Q6. Can I start using Hootsuite and Tweetdeck before I’ve got my domain name email account sorted out? In other words, can I alter/add/take away columns from the tweetdeck after I’ve set it up, if I change my email account provider or start using Twitter?
A6. Hootsuite and and Tweetdeck are nothing to do with email. They bring together all your social media into one place. So once you have set up a Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn account you can start using Hootsuite and/or Tweetdeck to administer them. And you can set up, change or delete any of the information and social media accounts as much as you like.
Q7. I’m still a bit doubtful about Twitter, its benefits, privacy, and how it all works. When you sign up, should you only let people you know ‘follow’ you, and if so, might that then be counter-productive to raising your profile?
A7. Twitter isn’t for everyone, but you can use it in different ways. If you’re just using it to follow other people you can use it as a kind of news feed without anyone knowing you’re doing it.
Of course that rather defeats the main purpose of Twitter, which is to build networks and engage with other people. If you’re using Twitter to raise your profile you clearly need to allow people to find you and follow you.
Q8. At the workshop, I think you said that you should use the same picture for all your profiles, e.g., Facebook and Linkedin. However, I use a ‘social’ picture for Facebook and a ‘professional’ picture elsewhere. Do you think I should change this?
A8. I may have misled you slightly with what I said. What I meant was, if you are using different social media for professional purposes, try to have consistency with photos and descriptions of what you do. Otherwise people will get confused about what your professional skills are.
If you’re using one tool for personal life and one for professional life it’s not such an issue. But bear in mind that whacky photos of you bungee jumping in a penguin suit might still find their way into the public domain even if you think they’re in a ‘social’ section of the internet. So be careful what you put up anywhere online.
Q9. How often should you update your Linkedin profile?
A9. I think once a month you need to glance quickly over the profile and update as necessary. I know people who update much more often than that. They work in a fast-moving industry where they need to let a lot of people know where they are and what they are doing.
The advantage of updating your LinkedIn profile is that it alerts your connections that you’ve updated something. This raises your profile.
Q10. Should you accept every invitation from others who want to link to you – with the aim of building your audience?
A10. No. Definitely not. You are judged by the company you keep. Only link to people you know or are likely to be professional contacts very soon. In my view, it’s not about building an audience. It’s about developing meaningful professional relationships.
I have a rule of thumb: if someone invites me to connect, I ask myself if I could reply to him or her with a personal message immediately after I accept the invitation. If the answer is ‘no’ or ‘who is this person anyway?’ I don’t accept the invitation. Likewise I only invite people if I know I have something personal to say which replaces the horrible default ‘I’d like to add you to my professional network’ message.
Q11. There seems to be a lot of sections to fill in on Linkedin. Which ones do you think are the ‘must’ sections to complete?
A11. Good question. I think ‘less is more’. But there are some that would look odd if they were missing. My choice would be:
- a personal (human) tag line under your name;
- a professional-looking photo
- the Summary in 3 or 4 sentences
- experience (in the order in which you’d like roles to appear under your photo)
- skills and Expertise (because these are the key words that others might search on to find people with your skills.)
- links to any websites you run or your Twitter account(s)
- recommendations.
The key thing is to ask yourself: “What would someone find useful if they were trying to find out what I do?”
Q12 If you don’t want to accept an invitation, can you do this without seeming rude? That is, does the person know that you’ve rejected them?
A12. They might be able to work out that you hadn’t linked up, but they will NOT be sent a note that says “Hah – you’ve been rejected, loser.”
So it’s not rude. And bear in mind that LinkedIn is about building meaningful professional relationships. If you don’t feel you can do that with someone, you’re doing him or her a favour by not linking with them.
Finally, remember that sometimes people send invitations willy nilly to everyone in their contacts book (always a bad idea, by the way). So they may not even have thought very hard about the invitation.
Q13. On top of my ‘real’ work, I don’t think I’ll have time to create and continually update a website, Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. So, which ones would you say are the most important to have?
A13. This totally depends on what you do, and what your professional contacts are using. If all your industry tends to use Facebook but no one is on LinkedIn, go with the former.
Having said that, it’s easy to save time so that you’re not going into each social network individually to update things. For example, I have linked Facebook status updates, LinkedIn updates and Twitter so that I only have to update one and they are all updated. Even better, use something like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck. These allow you to control all your social media from one place. The beauty of these two tools is that they work on Smartphones too, so you can easily check things whenever you have a minute to spare.
Q14. How do you find interesting/relevant groups to join on Linkedin?
A14. LinkedIn will prompt you to join groups based on the information in your profile and the groups that your connections have joined. If that doesn’t happen automatically, click on the ‘Groups’ tab at the top and select ‘Groups You May Like’. You can also browse groups from that tab or search for groups on a particular subject. I always add ‘UK’ to my searches to avoid groups in countries I’ve never heard of.
If that still doesn’t get you anywhere, you probably need to click ‘Create a Group’.
Q15. If you only link to a small yet select number of people via Linkedin, doesn’t this make you look like ‘Billy no mates/contacts’ to other people?
A15. No. It makes you look focused and it shows that you understand it’s all about building meaningful relationships. It’s not a popularity competition.
Q16. As far as face-to-face networking events go, do you have any tips for controlling your nerves?
A16. Firstly, go in with a purpose in mind. Plan why you are there, and what you would like to have achieved before you leave. I give myself a target of how many new people I would like to meet within the time available. This is particularly useful if I’m likely to bump into old colleagues or friends at the event. It’s all too easy to end up having a laugh with old mates all evening. They know you anyway, so it wastes a great opportunity to meet others.
I find this focuses me and on a practical level it helps me remember that I’m there for professional purposes, so I don’t forget my box of business cards.
I also remind myself that everyone is there to meet other people, so no one will mind if you make eye contact, smile and say hello. I also find it helpful to remember that it’s a room full of individuals, not a crowd of faces. Each of those individuals will be a normal, charming human being. And they are probably as nervous as you are, even if they’re pretending not to be.
Relaxation exercises like deep breathing can help calm the nerves, and I like to have a couple of introductory questions prepared so that the conversation kicks off quickly. Even clichés like: “Do you come here often?” or “Do you know many people here?” can break the ice.