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| | | | | Canterbury Tales, the CGSM newsletter Canterbury Tales - Winter 2012
Six LinkedIn Features You Probably Don't Know About.
By Paul Gillin
Reprinted from BtoBOnline.com
November 2011  | While Facebook gets all the glory (and a fair amount of criticism) for frequent revisions to its service, LinkedIn keeps quietly getting better. Here are six useful features of the favored social network for b2b professionals that you probably didn't know about, but should. (Note: You must log in to LinkedIn to see some of the pages
referred to below.)
1. Follow companies. You can now choose to follow companies in the same way that you
follow people on LinkedIn and Twitter. Status updates from those companies appear in your timeline, so you can keep track of new job opportunities, RFPs or activities of your
competitors. If you have a company page on LinkedIn, you can see who comments and shares your status updates.
Shares broaden your reach and identify fans and prospects. Comments can give you immediate feedback on how your news is being received. You can also see who has visited your page and group visitors by job function, industry and company.
2. Competitive intelligence. LinkedIn rolls up information about members to create some
intriguing company statistics. Drill down to see the most common categories of jobs at a
company, its head-count growth and the percentage of employees who change titles each month. This can yield insight into reorganizations or turmoil at competitors or at companies you might be considering doing business with.
The statistics page also tells you who recently changed jobs and who has departed the
company, which can be useful information if you're looking for a job. The “most recommended” employees section is useful for recruiters seeking top-quality candidates.
3. Products and services. If you have a LinkedIn company page, you can list descriptions, images and videos of your products and services and ask your customers to recommend them. Posting a recommendation is as simple as clicking a button, but customers can also post detailed comments. There's no downside for you because people can only cast a positive vote. You can also seek out recommenders to serve as case studies and reference customers.
4. LinkedIn Alumni. This recently introduced feature can be a great source of contacts and leads. We know how strong school ties can be; now you can get a page that shows who on LinkedIn attended the schools you did, where they now work and what they do. If you're
looking for an opening line to use when approaching a prospect or someone who can get your foot in the door for a job, a comment on the football team's performance last weekend might be a good starting point.
5. LinkedIn Applications. Unlike Facebook's freewheeling approach to third-party apps, LinkedIn maintains a small but growing stable of useful tools to enhance your profile, keep up with news and share with others. You've been able to embed your blog posts, slide presentations and travel plans in your profile for some time, but more recent additions let you monitor real estate listings, find events and collaborate in shared work spaces. All apps take advantage of your shared connections or can be used to burnish your reputation.
6. LinkedIn Signal. This little-known gem lets you filter LinkedIn status updates (including Twitter feeds) by keyword, but the real power is in the feature that lets you narrow results to specific companies, industries, locations or degrees of connection. Want to find out who's seeking legal advice in the Cleveland area? Signal can help.
Paul Gillin is an Internet marketing consultant and the author of three books about social media. He also writes the New Channels column in BtoB. Download Back to Top.
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CGSM Launches Sinomarketing.us.
CGSM Wire  | CGSM has launched a new company to enable US > China marketing ventures. The company, Sinomarketing, was created by Mark Kolier to enable Chinese companies seeking to open new markets, particularly in the United States with advice on marketing and US business
practices related to marketing.
Similarly, Sinomarketing also helps US-based businesses understand the nuances and norms of operating in or expanding into China. These issues can often be the difference between
success and failure, and Sinomarketing seeks to enable success on both sides of the Pacific.
The company helps businesses solve both macro and micro issues concerning marketing, such as branding, positioning, advertising and other strategic concerns. Beyond these larger applications, Sinomarketing helps businesses with operational applications like distribution programs or logistics enabling.
The Sinomarketing team is led by Mark Kolier, President of CGSM and now Managing Partner of Sinomarketing. In addition, there are executive team members in northern California and in China. This alignment places a Sinomarketing team member in three strategic locations around the world, and helps to expand the influence of the company from an operational perspective.
Sinomarketing will be offering a suite of business and technology services to both private sector businesses and governmental bodies. Also, the company will provide high-level consulting on important topics, including two focus areas of environmental responsibility and corporate citizenry.
Sinomarketing.us launched in November 2011, and the executive team has been participating in business conferences and meetings in China over the past year.
For more information, visit
www.sinomarketing.us Download Back to Top.
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YourCover Rebrand: One Year Later
CGSM Wire  | The new YourCover brand launched back in November of 2010 with a redesigned website and many new exciting features.
It started with a new identity. The YourCover logo, designed by CGSM, was a clean visual
representation of a magazine cover (shown by the turned corner in the green field,) with a bright green single color that is also carried through on the website.
The website was also redesigned, in several important ways. First of course, was the design. The bright green was carried through into the main navigation presentation, and the site was also reworked in terms of the information architecture.
The main portion of the site redesign was the development of a new interactive personalized magazine cover generator, which was built in Silverlight, Microsoft’s interactive animation
software. Using this generator, a user can create a magazine cover in just minutes, and
customize with their own text and images.
The brand was broadened to include dozens of newly designed covers as well, and every month, new titles are being added. Finally, from a merchandising perspective, YourCover now offers more items for purchase, including an array of frames, and several new gift ideas, like mugs, t-shirts and larger-than-life wall posters.
In the early part of 2011, YourCover also ran an advertising campaign around Valentine’s Day. Using satellite radio as the primary medium, YourCover created various radio spots (each with slightly different features for tracking purposes,) that drove Valentine’s Day cover sales to their best year ever.
Speaking of best year ever, 2011 has been just that for YourCover: sales are up, order volume is up, site visits are up. The rebrand is just a part of that, of course, but YourCover is a brand on the move. On tap for 2012: more development for the site, partnership deals with 3rd party sites and a few new surprises. Stay tuned! Download Back to Top. |
CGSM Wins Prestigious DMA Innovation Award.
Is Recognized as One of the Seven Most Innovative Companies of 2011 by the Direct Marketing Association  | CGSM is proud to announce that is has won the prestigious DMA Innovation Award for 2011 for its “Holiday Hash” Twitter campaign.
The campaign was launched during the holiday season of 2010, and centered around a CGSM-created hashtag. The company invited its clients, colleagues and friends to Tweet glad
tidings around the holiday season: favorite songs, best memories, delicious recipes, etc.
It united business people around a simple theme, and without denominational concerns, created a community of people and their favorite holiday traditions.
Further, the campaign was a cause marketing program, as CGSM awarded the two best Tweeters with a donation to the charity of their choice.
The DMA Innovation Awards, co-sponsored by Google and Canoe Ventures, recognize the
innovative advances being made in marketing technology. Innovation can be in the form of new-to-market offers, standing solutions addressing complex business problems,
market-leading solutions, or a new approach that improves the efficiency or effectiveness of the programs. Winners are selected by a distinguished panel of judges.
The Awards were given out October 2nd at the opening of DMA’s national conference in Boston. CGSM’s Mark Kolier and Nader Ashway were on hand to receive the honor, and the plaques are on display in both the Connecticut and New York City offices.
CGSM was one of only seven recipients of this honor. The “Holiday Hash” campaign will be
re-run this year, and expanded to include more recipients and larger donations to charity. CGSM hopes to make the program a yearly and national industry-recognized event.
Download Back to Top. |
Previous Issues of Canterbury Tales: Summer 2011 Issue Winter 2011 Issue Summer 2010 Issue Summer 2009 Issue (366KB) Sign Up For Our Newsletter!
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