Attention Nonprofits! The New LinkedIn News Feed Design Has Arrived

Nonprofit Tech 2.0 Blog :: A Social Media Guide for Nonprofits

At long last, the new LinkedIn News Feed is here! For years I have been completely baffled by LinkedIn’s partnership with Twitter to allow a mass automation of tweets to be published the LinkedIn News Feed. All those robotic tweets rife with too many hashtags and bad punctuation essentially rendered the LinkedIn News Feed useless, gave it the appearance of a cluttered mess, and was the antithesis of social (as in social media).

So, now that the automated tweets are gone and the LinkedIn News Feed has a new design with larger pictures, it would be a very good time for nonprofit staff to start posting authentically to the LinkedIn News Feed again. I also recommend that you start promoting your LinkedIn Group if you haven’t done so in awhile because when people join a group that action gets published to a now much less cluttered news feed. Also, you…

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How to leverage yourself as an expert with social media (infographic)

The business consultant network Zintro  pulled research from more than a dozen sources including Mashable, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google and Quantcast to put together this infographic, which will help you figure out which social network is best suited to your social media strategy.

Although a lot of this information may not be new to you, I love the at-a-glance way of seeing the different ways  in which social media platforms function. I also see it as a great presentation tool to introduce new clients to the wonderful world of  social media.

LinkedIn Improves Group Search

Are you new here? Why not click the subscribe button on the right to keep up to date with the latest social media news for non-profit marketing.

Did you know that there are 1.2 million groups on LinkedIn covering a wide variety of topics and shared interests?

I find LinkedIn groups are a wonderful resource and use them regularly to connect with others in my PR and marketing field. I use LinkedIn groups to share knowledge, ask questions, research, and learn new things. I also find it a good source of referral back to mine and client websites and blogs.

How to find a LinkedIn group

Group search helps you search across all the groups on LinkedIn and find the right group for you. Last week, LinkedIn announced some improvements to make user’s search results smarter and more relevant.

From the LinkedIn blog:

First, instead of relying on the title and description of the group, we give you the best results based on how well your search matches the conversations taking place. We also show your connections who may be in that group, which makes it easier for you to find groups that really matter to you.

Filtering your results is improved as well. You can now filter your results by your network, categories, and also language.

I would encourage you, if you haven’t done so already, to check out groups relevant to your profession. There are plenty of non-profit and non-profit marketing groups on LinkedIn to choose from.

If you can’t find what you are looking for, then why not set up your own group? It’s easy to do and you get to control the flow of both in and outbound information.

Here is a step-by-step guide to setting up your own LinkedIn group

How to build a follow button on Linkedin for your brand

Is your non profit on Linkedin?

(If not, you should be. There is an estimated 662,662 people on LinkedIN in Ireland)

If you are on Linkedin you may have noticed that it has launched a new follow button for companies – a simple way for Linkedin users to follow your non profit’s activities.

Hubspot have a great guide to how you can build your non-profits’s reach by installing the Linkedin follow button.

4 steps to build a company follow button on Linkedin 

1. Visit https://developer.linkedin.com/plugins/follow-company

2. Enter your company name or ID, or select your company from the dropdown menu that appears when you start typing.

3. Choose your button’s count mode preference, i.e how you want to display how many followers you have (no count is an option).

4. Click ‘Get Code’ and a code appears that you then need to copy and paste onto your website, blog, or wherever else you want it to appear.

Top 5 Blog Posts of 2011

In the tradition of new year’s eve reviews, here is a list of the top five posts of 2011 on Social Media Marketing for Non-Profits, ranked according to most viewed.

How do you monitor online conversations about your organisation?

Prezi for professional presentations

How to bring your on and off-line audience together

What’s your brand personality?

How to make your LinkedIN profile stand out from the crowd

How to make your LinkedIn profile stand out from the crowd

Would you like to stand out from the crowd on LinkedIN?

Then you need to

Optimize your LinkedIn profile with appropriate keywords.

Think about the keyword phrases that LinkedIn users will search for  in your business or service category and add them to your profile.

You can do this in two ways:

1. Add key words and phrases directly after your name (professional headline)

2. Add key words and phrases to your professional summary and specialites

Make it local

To increase your chance of being found in your local area, add your locality name to your profile details. This is a great way to come up in search results when prospective clients search for a service or business in your particular location.

One word of caution…

The same rule on use of keywords goes for LinkedIn as for the rest of your social media engagement – don’t over do it! If you do, your professional credibility will suffer.

Just like your Google ranking, judicious application of keywords will make you stand out from the crowd at LinkedIn.