LinkedIn

Linked In is a really good way of building professional links both in your own industry and also in those of complementary professions. Look to link with others that are likely to be relevant to growing your business.

How do you join?

1. Visit www. LinkedIn.com
2. Click on the Join Today page
3. Add your details as requested and click the Join LinkedIn button ( Remember that as this is a business site LinkedIn uses your email address as the username so if your email address is something like “squiggles” it is really not going to be a good user name!).
4. Having got an account set up then you need to make sure you remember your user name and password
5. Then go to your website and if you have the ability to edit this then add in a link to your Linked In page by doing the following:-
   
   a. Choose the profile page from your home page on Linked In. Then Choose View Profile, you will be shown a Public Profile Link as part of this page and this is the link you should use on your website.
   b. Or alternatively ask your website company to do this for you.
6. Then you may find that colleagues and contacts offer to link to you and it is important to check your account regularly and to process your link requests quickly. Remember that when you add a link that you get access to that person’s links too so this may be a very valuable resource for you.

Twitter

So now you are up and running on LinkedIn it is time to appeal to your future clients by getting yourself a twitter account.

How do you do it?

1. Go to www.twitter.com
2. Click Sign Up Now And add your details again and click Create My Account
3. Remember when choosing your username to make it relevant. You may want to have an account for you personally and one for your business.
4. Now you have a Twitter account, it’s time to start posting some messages, so here are some things to remember:

a. Using Twitter can get your message across to a younger generation.

b. Twitter is a short message service for the net where people can follow your messages. Lots of businesses now post messages on Twitter.

c. You can search Twitter for people and posts of interest. You could for example search for ‘Wills’

d. Twitter can be linked to any RSS feed such as blog entries using services like twitfeed, so that when an entry is posted it automatically appears in twitter. You can talk to your website provider to see if you could use this to automatically post news and articles from your website.

e. If you need to post links in your Twitter messages which are longer than the Twitter limit you can use services such as www.bit.ly to shorten the link. This is automatically done by twitfeed

f. Twitter messages have to be short so should be to the point.

g. Users on Twitter can be put off by what seems like advertising so be informative but not blatant.

Be careful what you post on all social networks - remember for example on Twitter that anyone can read your public timeline so don't tell them you are going to be away from home and invite a burglary.

If you need some help to get twittering please contact us.

© Miss Ruth Moore - Whittaker Moore Associates Ltd

May 2010

Miss Ruth Moore currently works at Whittaker Moore Associate Ltd - Making IT work for you.

Contact us at:

Whittaker Moore Associates Limited, 26 Priestgate, Peterborough, PE1 1WG

www.whittakermoore.com

Telephone 01733 865005

e-mail: info@whittakermoore.com

© Whittaker Moore Associates Limited