Now that you know how LinkedIn can help you and your small business, we’ll jump right into building an interesting and effective user profile and a business profile.

Building a personal profile

To build a complete profile, LinkedIn recommends:

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While some have christened LinkedIn “Facebook for business people,” it offers both more and less to small businesses than Facebook. Read on to see what LinkedIn can do for your company.

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Facebook took the social media world by storm back in 2004, before many of us had even heard the term “social media.” Today we’ll cover what Facebook is and why it could enhance your marketing strategy.

What is Facebook?

Facebook is a social media platform that allows users to:

• Create in-depth personal profiles,
• Share short status updates (similar to Twitter),
• “Friend” other users to see their content and updates,
• Write on friends’ bulletin-board-like “walls,”
• Chat via built-in mail and instant messaging systems,
• Join user-created common-interest groups, and,
• Become “fans” of a company, product and brand “pages.”

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Now that we’ve covered the definition of social media and social media etiquette for small businesses, you’re probably itching to test out your newfound knowledge. Let’s get started with Twitter!

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You know what social media is… but now what? Here are a few things you need to know before jumping on board any social media platform.

First of all, don’t start by creating a company profile. If you’re brand new to social media, you need to test the waters first! Make a personal account and see what social media feels like from a user’s perspective. Find out what other companies like yours are doing, and try to find out how the platform’s population responds to their techniques. Only once you’re comfortable with a platform from a user standpoint, and if you think that platform meshes with your company’s desired image, should you create a company page. (more…)