Mid-Week Marketing Mashup

Check out the Paveya Mid-Week Marketing Mashup for this week covering marketing topics focused on LinkedIn, TweetDeck, WordPress Version Updates, and Creating an SEO Strategy.

LinkedIn Announces LinkedIn Groups Redesign LinkedIn Groups, a popular feature of the professional networking site and social media platform, LinkedIn, has recently gone through a makeover. LinkedIn officially shared the news yesterday on their blog. Though the new features are currently only available to the English speaking members of LinkedIn, the exciting new changes are part of an overall goal at LinkedIn to continue to be an online destination for business professionals to gain important insights, ask questions, share ideas and engage with others each day. Read More.

What WordPress Users Should Know About Version Updates WordPress™, one of the world’s most popular Content Management Systems (CMS), allows users to instantly launch a new website or begin blogging without the knowledge of web coding languages. Read more.

Twitter’s Shiny New TweetDeck On Monday, Twitter announced that there will be many new features added to their TweetDeck. The features will not be released all at once—they are starting with the website and Chrome app, and then Windows and Mac apps. Read more.

Website Optimization Strategies for Redesigns If you are currently using search engine optimization techniques for your company’s website, you probably understand the importance of showing you are a reliable source and the significance of a high ranking in search engines. Website optimization includes using keywords and keyword phrases within your web page content, blogging with keywords, generating internal and external links, optimizing images, and creating the appropriate redesign for your website. Read more.

Social Media: Using LinkedIn Groups To Extend Your Brand Message

LinkedIn Groups provide an online destination for to pose questions, seek expertise and recommendations within their industry or resources to use for different aspects of their business as well as make business contacts and become known amongst their peers as industry experts.
Within LinkedIn, you can find groups to join through the suggestions that LinkedIn provides as well as using the Groups Directory to seek out specific areas of interest.

The LinkedIn Group manager controls membership, discussions, settings, subgroups, rules, and more. When you submit a request to join a group, the request goes to the LinkedIn Group manager, and they have the control over whether to allow you membership in the group or not.

As a LinkedIn Group owner or manager, you are the one who controls the appearance of the group as well. With LinkedIn’s recent changes, here are two ways to take advantage of the new changes immediately:

• Upload a hero image for brand and community messaging
  
• Prominently feature manager’s choice discussions you want members to see
  

Not sure how to upload the hero image or what the size recommendations are? Here are step by step instructions:
To update the overall look of your LinkedIn Group for consistency with your branding and marketing initiatives:

1. Go to LinkedIn and log in.
   
2. Move your cursor over Interests at the top of your homepage and select Groups.
   
3. Click the group you want to edit.
   
4. Click Manage and then select Group Information on the left.
   
5. You can now browse and upload logos from your files.
   
6. Click Save Changes.
   

Image requirements:

• Group Logo - up to 100 x 50 pixels, PNG/JPEG/GIF format, maximum size 100KB
  
• Small Logo - up to 60 x 30 pixels, PNG/JPEG/GIF format, maximum size 100KB
  
• Hero Image - minimum 646 x 200 pixels, PNG/JPEG/GIF format, maximum size 2 MB
  

Please ensure that your image fits these sizes. There are several online tools that you can use to modify your images including Shrink Pictures and Web Resizer.

To upload and save an image, you must check the box that says. "I acknowledge and agree that the logo/image I am uploading does not infringe upon any third party copyrights, trademarks, or other proprietary rights or otherwise violate the User Agreement.”

If you don't update your hero image, it will be readily apparent to most regular users on LinkedIn. The standard image for LinkedIn Groups that haven't been updated is very recognizable, and you don't want to seem as though you aren't paying attention to your group and its members. Here is an example of what your LinkedIn Group will look like without your branding:



Note: LinkedIn doesn't allow excessive changes to a group's identity because it affects member confidence in your group and in the LinkedIn Groups product. You can only make a total of 5 group identity changes, including any group name and logo updates. Changes to the group Hero image are not counted in this limit.

To modify your manager’s choice discussions that you want prominently displayed:

1. Go to LinkedIn and log in.
   
2. Move your cursor over Interests at the top of your homepage and select Groups.
   
3. Click the group you want to edit.
   
4. Click Search and then select Set Manager’s Choice Order on the left.
   
5. You will see the lists of any discussions that have been selected and you can modify the order by clicking the arrow buttons to move them or by changing the number to the left of the post.
   
6. Click Save Changes.
   

LinkedIn is one of the oldest social networking sites, having launched on May 5, 2003. It is geared towards business professionals and boasts the largest professional network with over 238 million members in over 200 countries and territories. Businesses, marketers and users leverage the professional community as part of an overall social media marketing strategy.

Social Media Marketing: Linked In Announces LinkedIn Groups Redesign

LinkedIn Groups, a popular feature of the professional networking site and social media platform, LinkedIn, has recently gone through a makeover. LinkedIn officially shared the news yesterday on their blog. Though the new features are currently only available to the English speaking members of LinkedIn, the exciting new changes are part of an overall goal at LinkedIn to continue to be an online destination for business professionals to gain important insights, ask questions, share ideas and engage with others each day.

Some interesting stats surrounding LinkedIn Groups:

• More than 2 million LinkedIn Groups currently exist
  
• More than 200 conversations happening each minute across LinkedIn Groups
  
• More than 800 groups are created each week
  
• Professionals are signing up to join LinkedIn members at a rate of more than two new members per second.
  
• There are more than 30 million students and graduates on LinkedIn, and are LinkedIn’s fastest growing demographic
  
• There are more than 3 million companies with LinkedIn Company Pages
  
• LinkedIn members performed more than 5.7 billion professionally-oriented searches in 2012.
  

LinkedIn Groups have been a key feature of LinkedIn for many years and LinkedIn supports the formation of interest groups, and extremely large groups have as many as 744,662 members. The vast majority of LinkedIn Groups are employment related, but academic and alumni groups make up more than 130,000 groups.

Groups have been created for nearly any topic imaginable including social media, technology, real estate and small business, as well as community centric groups focusing on specific metropolitan areas like the Hampton Roads Technology group, alumni groups, formal associations such as the Board of Realtors, and online networking opportunities for Chambers of Commerce. LinkedIn Groups can vary in size, depending on participation, content, and number of active members. Certain groups require approval to become a member, while others allow you to immediately join.

Groups are some of the most highly trafficked areas of LinkedIn, and where many users within the LinkedIn community flock to discuss industry news, seek resources, support and advice, and look for recommendations of businesses with whom to do business.

With the new design, LinkedIn has mirrored the newer Facebook layout changes we’ve all experienced with an overall goal to make LinkedIn easier and simpler to use. Additionally, the overall look of LinkedIn Groups has been streamlined, and with the new changes, LinkedIn has focused on providing more options and control to the LinkedIn Group managers and members when it comes to customization and visual presentations of their particular conversation space.

One great feature of LinkedIn Groups is the ability to moderate content and posts as well as approve or remove members. This is extremely beneficial when you amass a large following in your LinkedIn Group, only to have members that try to use the forum to skirt the anti-spam regulations that are so prevalent in other forms of communication. LinkedIn has implemented a few resources to alleviate
 
As part of the launch today, LinkedIn shared a neat info graphic for those new to LinkedIn Groups and who may be looking to find out more information.


LinkedIn is one of the oldest social media sites, having launched on May 5, 2003. It is geared towards business professionals and boasts the largest professional network with over 238 million members in over 200 countries and territories.