Social Media for Business Development: Using LinkedIN
5:30-7:00pm

This course reviews not only the nuts & bolts of how LinkedIN works, but also how you can effectively work LinkedIN to build your business. In this course you will learn:

* who should be, who is already is, and who shouldn’t be using LinkedIN
* why you should be “linked” & how to build your network
* how to contact potential clients without getting kicked out
* tips and tricks from successful users

The course is an hour and a half long, so please arrive promptly. No need to bring your laptop (we don’t have wireless access for you in the room) but it is suggested you have a LinkedIN profile before you arrive.

$40 at the door
35 attendees maximum

Hosted at the Sandler Sales offices
17701 Cowan #120
Irvine, CA 92614

Register Online for this Event April 1

Register Online for this Event June 3

Register Online for this Event August 5

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Social Media for Marketing: Using Facebook and Twitter
5:30-7:00pm

Twitter and Facebook have become much more well-known over the last few months as a tool for building business. In this course we’ll cover the following:

-What the heck is it anyway?

-How 140 characters could make an impact for your business

-Standing out from a crowd of 200 million plus

-Creating messaging people will respond to and share with friends

-Prioritizing your time and resources so still have time to run your business

-Who leads in these fields and how you can be like them (or not)

-Etiquette

-Who to turn to if things go awry.

No need to bring a laptop, handouts will be provided.
$40 at the door or via online RSVP
30 attendees maximum

Hosted at the Sandler Sales offices
17701 Cowan #120
Irvine, CA 92614

Register Online for this Event June 17

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Using Facebook for Business
5:30-7:00pm

This course reviews the following within Facebook:

• how it works
• who uses it
• the structures of profiles, pages, and groups
• promoting your events
• creating buzz about products
• showcasing services to your network
• dovetailing your facebook efforts w/ your offline marketing

The course is an hour and a half long, so please arrive promptly. No need to bring your laptop (we don’t have wireless access for you in the room) but it is suggested you have a Facebook profile before you arrive.

$40 at the door or via online RSVP
30 attendees maximum

Hosted at the Sandler Sales offices
17701 Cowan #120
Irvine, CA 92614

Register Online for this Event May 6

Register Online for this Event July 1

1. YOU MIGHT BE A SPAMMER IF: you compulsively send strangers connection requests and not jut the people you met once, but the folks you’ve never ever met…

Yes, LinkedIn is a place to connect with colleagues, references, past co-workers, and prospective clients – but stalking people has never been a pleasant experience for the stalk-ee. If you are reaching out to someone you don’t know for a good reason, then tell it to them. I’ve reached out to many people I didn’t know, for work purposes or client projects, but in the subject line will say “you don’t know me, found you on LinkedIn” and start off the message by saying why I’m emailing. The result? About 4 times more responses.

2. YOU MIGHT BE A SPAMMER IF: you join lots of groups and post your sales pitch in them over and over and over and over and over..

LinkedIn Groups is your destination to find and join communities of professionals based on common interest, experience, affiliation, and goals. Stay in touch with organizations, schools, and companies that you are and were a part of, network with professionals with similar interests and goals, and collaborate in a professional community online.

Groups are typically organized around a company (IBM or Apple), a trade organization (AIGA or APA), or a special interest group (Mac Users, Blackberry Users). You apply for membership and the group owner can either accept or decline your request for membership. Once accepted, you have access to discussion boards, job boards, news feeds, and the ability to submit news articles to the group. Being involved in the community (posting answers to questions, sharing news articles relevant to the community) is a way to increase your visibility, credibility, and esteem within the community. Trouble seems to be – this takes time. Rather than spend this time, many seem to post their sales pitches as discussions over and over again…. my guess they think this visibility makes people think of them – and it’s true… but thinking of you as an intelligent authority or just the pain-in-the-keester newbie?

It’s totally appropriate to get out there and try new things – try the groups, try posting comments, try inviting connections – but if no one posts comments, and your invitations aren’t accepted take the hint that you may be coming on too pitchy and not enough of a human being. People like people, much more than salespeople….

Sending Announcements
In response to overwhelming demand from group managers, we have created the ability for you to send group announcements directly from your LinkedIn group to your members, via email. Your announcement will also automatically be posted as a discussion within the group so members can comment on it together.

As membership in LinkedIn groups continues to explode, we hear increasing concerns from our members about how their privacy is protected. Now that we have the Announcement feature, and in response to these concerns, we have removed the ability to download or view member email addresses.

RSS Feeds into Groups
Posting news items into groups has become very popular in the past couple months. So we’ve made it even easier for you to spark discussions around news and other Web content by enabling you to add RSS and Atom feeds to your group. You can pick up RSS and Atom feeds from your favorite sites around the web. News items from your feed will automatically show up under the News tab.

Managing Job-Focused Discussions
Group managers now have full control over whether to enable the jobs discussion capabilities within your group. The jobs area enables members to discuss job opportunities in these difficult economic times without cluttering the main conversation, and like all discussions it’s free.

LinkedIN’s made all email addresses private in groups – good for the group member but not so good for the group owner, especially if you were merging that group into your newsletter databases. The other thing we’re missing is the geographic management – I’ve got a colleague who has one group for her entire association – regardless of chapter preference – so now we’ll all get eachother’s notices… because she can no longer filter “only orange county” like she could in her email marketing platform. As is the case with upgrades, once they start they rarely stop, so I’m sure we’ll see more over the next few weeks…

Rebekah