Netiquette Core Essentials For Linkedin - Via Netiquette IQ

With the growing popularity of Linkedin, its power and reach can often result in inappropriate actions and bad Netiquette. This has been discussed before in this blog and my book, referenced below. I have posted the article below as a good start to some of the Netiquette to follow for those involved in the job seeking and placement areas.
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Guide to LinkedIn Etiquette

By Stephanie Buck Jan 18, 2014 from mashable.com

LinkedIn has developed a killer resource of 225 million users, one you absolutely should take advantage of when it comes to your career. But you'll have to navigate LinkedIn's potentially tricky tools and settings while you're at it. Not to mention take care to maintain proper etiquette at all times. That's a lot of pressure.

Chances are, if you do use LinkedIn, you're approaching the network from a job seeker's perspective — if not now, then in the future. Or maybe you're a recruiter or a PR representative looking to network and pitch via LinkedIn.

No matter your background, let's dissect some of the biggest etiquette dos and don'ts when logging into LinkedIn, the web's largest professional network. 

Job Seekers

1. Hide your activity, but make your profile public.

This could get confusing, so let's break it down. When you plan to look for a new job, one of the first things you should do is update your LinkedIn profile. However, you don't want to alert your current bosses of all this activity, lest they get suspicious.

Head to Privacy & Settings > Profile > Privacy Controls > Turn on/off your activity broadcasts. This will prevent edits to your profile from appearing in LinkedIn's feed of updates, on your boss' homepage. After unchecking that box, feel free to make updates, follow companies and apply to jobs via LinkedIn in peace.

"If [you] are browsing profiles of HR managers at companies [you] are targeting to go work for, adjust the setting so those people can see that the prospect viewed their profiles," she says. They'll know you're interested in learning about the people behind the companies, instead of just following the brand alone.

Navigate Privacy & Settings > Profile > Privacy Controls > Select what others see when you've viewed their profile and click "your name and headline."

2. Maintain a transparent public profile.

In addition to updating all the information on your LinkedIn profile, make sure you remain as open as possible about your professional past. According to LinkedIn Career Expert Nicole Williams, the most common mistake job seekers make on LinkedIn is not accounting for gaps in their employment histories.

We've all had jobs that don't align with our ultimate career goals, times when we've chosen to go back to school or even months we needed a sabbatical. Wright suggests using the summary part of your LinkedIn profile to explain these gaps. Remain candid and accountable.

"If you took a year off to travel or tend to a family situation that needed your attention and were not employed during that time, address these gaps," Wright says. "Any good recruiter is going to ask you, or worse, might eliminate you for an opportunity when they see the gaps."

Go beyond filling in gaps, Williams says. List positions and experiences that don't necessarily align with your current career track. You never know what might strike a chord with a recruiter or an employer you haven't considered.

"They are going to discern what's relevant to them, not you," Williams says. Your employer may have studied law in another life, so your stint as an associate attorney might strike a chord. Don't leave it out.

Furthermore, include the various titles you've achieved at one company, along with the period of time you held them and your responsibilities for each. "This tells us how quickly you moved up within the organization and about your value add to the company," Wright says.

3. Get to know the people behind the position.

Here's where LinkedIn creepiness works in your favor. Use your advanced search skills to find the hiring manager behind the position you're applying for. Try connecting with that person. Even if she doesn't accept your request, at the very least she'll see you tried, or viewed her profile.

Do your due diligence to get to know the people behind the company, Williams says. What do you have in common? Did your hiring manager volunteer at the SPCA in college, like you? What did he do before IBM? What articles is he sharing?

"For job seekers online, it's not so different from meeting in person. You want to build a rapport first before asking for an opportunity," Williams says.

After you've established a connection or sent her an InMail, inquire about job opportunities, or ask someone to make an introduction so you can learn more about the company. People are much more responsive when they know you've taken the time to care.

Recruiters

1. Be aggressive.

According to LinkedIn, 60% of professionals aren't actively seeking new employment, but would be open to the opportunity if it presented itself. That stat makes LinkedIn a gold mine for recruiters.

 

Similar to our advice for job seekers, keep your profile open and public. LinkedIn Premium members will be able to see when recruiters are viewing their profiles, then can click through and see what kind of talent acquisition agencies are targeting them. 

Furthermore, use tools like InMail to reach out to especially promising candidates. (We promise most users won't mind at all.) LinkedIn recruiter tiers start at $99.95 per month, up to $719.95 per month, with access to a variety of features, including InMail, premium search filters and out-of-network visibility.

2. Be personable.

Whether you're using LinkedIn's free or premium models, the network's tools can be highly valuable.

Most people don't have access to unlimited InMail, for example, so make sure each message you send counts. Just as you would research your hiring manager, learn more about potential recruits and present opportunities narrowly tailored to their interests and skills. The first point of contact should answer the question "Why you? Why Stephanie, versus Peter from down the street?"

"If you just come in and say, 'Hey, here are six figures and travel opportunities,' the majority of people are going to dismiss that as spam," Williams says. "It's about investing in understanding who this is, their skill sets." 

PR Professionals

1. Don't make us work.

LinkedIn is a place for professionals. That level of professionalism should apply to all methods of communication across the platform. If you're in PR, first reaching out to someone with an idea or a product, don't come off too chummy or informal. Get to the point, graciously.

One of the first rules of PR pitches is to share a deliverable early on. Whether in the form of an enticing stat, a kickass testimonial or a shocking video, you'll need a hook to keep your reader's attention. In the example above, not only does the PR representative never describe what he's pitching; he doesn't even link to it.

Do you really expect people to type a company name into Google and then browse the site to learn more about it?

People are on LinkedIn to get business done. It's not Facebook — they're not casually browsing photo albums out of boredom. Get to the point so we can all get back to work.

2. Forget copy/paste.

 

The advantage of social media is that you have access to personal details about people — a phenomenon that didn't exist 10 years ago. And it doesn't take long to peruse someone's LinkedIn profile for interests you might be able to tap. 

For example, by looking at my profile, you would see I posted a clip about YouTube makeup guru Michelle Phan. Perhaps you would use that information to segue into a pitch about a new iPad app for young women in STEM careers. That way, you're demonstrating I don't just cover "technology"; my speciality is digital lifestyle and social media psychology. 

"It's that PR person's job to know what I cover," Williams says. "It's their job to have done the research to identify what they have to offer, as it pertains to your career and what you're interested in."

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For a great email parody, view the following link:
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTgYHHKs0Zw&__scoop_post=bcaa0440-2548-11e5-c1bd-90b11c3d2b20&__scoop_topic=2455618



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Special Bulletin - My just released book, You're Hired. Super Charge Your Email Skills in 60 Minutes! (And Get That Job...) is now on sales at Amazon.com

================================================
**Important note** - contact our company for very powerful solutions for IP management (IPv4 and IPv6, security, firewall and APT solutions:

www.tabularosa.net

In addition to this blog, I maintain a radio show on BlogtalkRadio  and an online newsletter via paper.li.I have established Netiquette discussion groups with Linkedin and  Yahoo.  I am also a member of the International Business Etiquette and Protocol Group and Minding Manners among others. I regularly consult for the Gerson Lehrman Group, a worldwide network of subject matter experts and I have been contributing to the blogs Everything Email and emailmonday . My work has appeared in numerous publications and I have presented to groups such as The Breakfast Club of NJ and  PSG of Mercer County, NJ.

I am the president of Tabula Rosa Systems, a “best of breed” reseller of products for communications, email, network management software, security products and professional services.  Also, I am the president of Netiquette IQ. We are currently developing an email IQ rating system, Netiquette IQ, which promotes the fundamentals outlined in my book.

Over the past twenty-five years, I have enjoyed a dynamic and successful career and have attained an extensive background in IT and electronic communications by selling and marketing within the information technology marketplace.Anyone who would like to review the book and have it posted on my blog or website, please contact me paul@netiquetteiq.com.

If you have not already done so, please view the trailer for my book below. 
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Netiquette IQ Blog Of 9/18/15 - Bragging About Poor Netiquette

The article below is a great statement of a subtle lack of Netiquette. There are email users who are proud of their lack of Netiquette. This should not be a source of pride. There are other items beside the large inbox, which is the focus of the article. These include short emails, lack of any grammar and little formatting. Resist the temptation of Netiquette the faux pas, your readers will be happy! ================================================ On The Count Of Three, Let's All Stop Comparing Our Unread Email Count Call it a symptom of the "busy-bragging" epidemic -- we love to tell people how #stressed we are. Katherine Brooks from thehuffingtonpost.com Posted: 09/16/2015 12:23 PM EDT | Edited: 09/18/2015 02:22 PM EDT "I have at least 300 unread emails in my inbox right now," an acquaintance of mine bemoaned over a glass of wine last week. I shuddered, imagining how bothered I'd be by that amount of unchecked surplus, and reached for the bottle.  "Really? Last time I checked I was in the thousands," another friend countered, upping the ante pretty abruptly. "I know someone with literally 50,000 plus," somebody else cooed. All of a sudden, I felt a real urge to spit out a bigger number. Why? Because I sensed we were competing for something. That little -- or rather, enormous -- number situated to the right of my envelope icon was taking on new meaning. To these people, to my friends, unread emails didn't symbolize being disorganized or incompetent. They symbolized being needed. They symbolized being in demand. They symbolized being important. They were, in effect, like a badge of honor. But wait. A few months ago, the Internet was agog with anecdotes about inbox shame. There are two kinds of people in this world, a meme purported: those who maintain inbox level zero and those who let the unread emails mount to ridiculous heights. More than a few writersconfirmed the power of this viral dichotomy. Approximately half of us compulsively delete, sort and filter, taking pleasure in being in the gmail equivalent of the black, they said. The other half watch as the numbers rise, checking only the emails they deem necessary, letting the others fester like an open wound.  The Atlantic's Joe Pinsker likened this curious meme to Muppet Theory, Slate writer Dahlia Lithwick's "Sesame Street" version of chaos theory. "Every one of us is either a Chaos Muppet or an Order Muppet," Lithwick claimed. While Order Muppets "tend to be neurotic, highly regimented, averse to surprises," their cousins, Chaos Muppets, are "out-of-control, emotional, volatile." Check the phone of a Chaos Muppet like Gonzo and you're likely to find unread emails abounding. Writer Anna Breslaw took it further. "There are 'the 0 unread emails people,' and 'the 13,000 unread emails people,'" she reiterated in Elle, creating a system in which the "0 unread" people get to look down on the "13,000 unread" people. "This implies, obviously, that the 13k people are disorganized, forgetful, and easily overwhelmed," she added. This characterization, like Lithwick's indictment of the Chaos Muppet, is not kind. Hence, the feeling of inbox shame. via GIPHY Except, the "13,000 unread" are revolting. The "13,000 unread" no longer feel shame for their email neglect; instead, they feel pride. They are actually competing for who can reach a higher number of unread emails. Thirteen thousand? Pshaw. I have a colleague who boasts 87,006 unchecked bits of correspondence as of publication of this piece. A quick Twitter search surpassed even that. Cultural commentators, though quick to sing the praises of the "0 unread" on the surface, have begun to come to the aid of the "13,000." You see, keeping our inboxes clean involves a lot of multitasking, flitting from one duty (like, writing this article) to another (habitually checking my email every five minutes) with varying degrees of attention. "Trying to do too many things at once makes people aggressive, impulsive and less sharp,"Sophie McBain wrote in The New Statesman. She cites research from neuroscientist David Levitin, "which suggests that simply noticing there’s a new email in your inbox while trying to concentrate on a different task reduces your IQ by 10 points." Ouch.  "When someone drops everything just to get an unread count back to zero, productivity might be taking a hit," Pinsker emphasized. "The appeal of these behaviors lies in the illusion of progress that they foster," he added later. "Few tasks have a sense of conclusion as neat and immediate as archiving or deleting an email. For that reason, neurotically tidy people like me can't help but triage emails the moment they arrive." Well, the Chaos Muppets have taken note. They are no longer ashamed of their indecorously messy email accounts. They are proud. A stack of unread emails means there are people out there who need your reply. A stack of unread emails means you're virtuously overworked. Call it a symptom of the "busy-bragging" epidemic. We love to tell people how #stressed we are, because it reveals some semblance of our status in the professional world. And unread emails represent an easy and quantifiable method of measuring that stress. When I pressed my colleague -- who is certainly not your typical braggadocious type -- about her unread email queue, she said that her 87,006 number was a dark symbol of her inability to become organized. But then she added: "Sometimes I will brag [about it] in a party trick kind of way though." What are we to do about this new trend of workplace swagger? Just as we grow tired of hearing our peers boast about their stress, I propose we side-eye any attempts to faux-complain about our unread email trove. The next time someone grumbles about their thousands of unkempt emails, resist the urge to compete. Continue sipping your wine and take refuge in the fact that we're all just Muppets trying to make our way in this Muppet world.
======================================================= For a great email parody, view the following link: ======================================================= https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTgYHHKs0Zw&__scoop_post=bcaa0440-2548-11e5-c1bd-90b11c3d2b20&__scoop_topic=2455618 ============================================== Special Bulletin - My just released book, You're Hired. Super Charge Your Email Skills in 60 Minutes! (And Get That Job...) is now on sales at Amazon.com ================================================ **Important note** - contact our company for very powerful solutions for IP management (IPv4 and IPv6, security, firewall and APT solutions: www.tabularosa.net In addition to this blog, Netiquette IQ has a website with great assets which are being added to on a regular basis. I have authored the premiere book on Netiquette, “Netiquette IQ - A Comprehensive Guide to Improve, Enhance and Add Power to Your Email". My new book, “You’re Hired! Super Charge Your Email Skills in 60 Minutes. . . And Get That Job!” will be published soon follow by a trilogy of books on Netiquette for young people. You can view my profile, reviews of the book and content excerpts at:  www.amazon.com/author/paulbabicki  If you would like to listen to experts in all aspects of Netiquette and communication, try my radio show on BlogtalkRadio  Additionally, I provide content for an online newsletter via paper.li. I have also established Netiquette discussion groups with Linkedin and Yahoo.  I am also a member of the International Business Etiquette and Protocol Group and Minding Manners among others. Further, I regularly consult for the Gerson Lehrman Group, a worldwide network of subject matter experts and have been a contributor to numerous blogs and publications.  Lastly, I am the founder and president of Tabula Rosa Systems, a company that provides “best of breed” products for network, security and system management and services. Tabula Rosa has a new blog and Twitter site which offers great IT product information for virtually anyone. ==============================================

Netiquette Great Email Subject Line Advice - Via Netiquette IQ

My blogs and book have always stressed the critical value of relevant and useful subject lines in your email. The article below offers some compelling solutions.
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The Three Key Elements of Irresistible Email Subject Lines

by  Brian Clark 2014-06-25T19:03:52+00:00  copyblogger.com

Email is back.

Despite repeated proclamations of its extinction, rumors of the death of email marketing have been greatly exaggerated — especially since email and social media are a powerful combination. You might not reach the average college freshman, but for slightly older types (you know, the ones with the money), email is still the way to go in many lucrative mainstream niches.

You must first, of course, get your emails read. And it all starts with the subject line.

Email subject lines are a form of headline. They perform the same function as a headline by attracting attention and getting your email content a chance to be read.

So, headline fundamentals still apply. But the context is different, with the email space having its own funky little quirks that need to be accounted for.

Here’s the good news — email also implies a special relationship with the reader; a relationship that will get more of your messages read, even with subject lines that wouldn’t work in other headline contexts. Let’s take a look back at headline fundamentals, the specifics that apply to subject lines, and the “secret sauce” that makes email your top conversion channel.

1. The Fundamentals:

When you’re writing your next subject line, run it through this checklist, based on the Four “U” Approach to headline writing:

·         Useful: Is the promised message valuable to the reader?

·         Ultra-specific: Does the reader know what’s being promised?

·         Unique: Is the promised message compelling and remarkable?

·         Urgent: Does the reader feel the need to read now?

When you’re trying to get someone to take valuable time and invest it in your message, a subject line that properly incorporates all four of these elements can’t miss. And yet, execution in the email context can be tricky, so let’s drill down into subject-line specifics for greater clarity.

2. The Specifics:

Beyond headline fundamentals, these are the things to specifically focus on with email subject lines:

·         Identify yourself: Over time, the most compelling thing about an email message should be that it’s from you. Even before then, your recipient needs to know at a glance that you’re a trusted source. Either make it crystal clear by smart use of your “From” field, or start every subject line with the same identifier.

·         Useful and specific first: Of the four “U” fundamentals, focus on useful and ultra-specific, even if you have to ignore unique and urgent. There are plenty of others who work at unique and urgent with every subject line — we call them spammers. Don’t cross the line into subject lines that are perceived as garbage. But do throw in a bit of a tease.

·         Urgent when it’s useful: When every message from you is urgent, none is. Use urgency when it’s actually useful, such as when there’s a real deadline or compelling reason to act now. If you’re running your email marketing based on value and great offers, people don’t want to miss out and need to know how much time they have.

·         Rely on spam checking software: We all know that certain words trigger spam filters, but there’s a lot of confusion out there about which words are the problem. Is it okay to use the word “free” in a subject line? Actually, yes. All reputable email services provide spam checking software as part of the service or as an add-on. Craft your messages with compelling language, let the software do its job, and adjust when you have to.

·         Shorter is better: Subject line real estate is valuable, so the more compact your subject line, the better. Don’t forget useful and ultra-specific, but try to compress the fundamentals into the most powerful promise possible.

3. The Secret Sauce:

Getting someone to trust you with their email address is not easy. Twelve years ago when I started in email publishing, people would sign up for anything remotely interesting.

No longer.

But if you do gain that initial trust, and more importantly, confirm and grow it, you can write pretty lame subject lines and people will still read your messages. Just as with that ditzy friend from high school who nonetheless always has something interesting to say, trust and substance matter most.

Don’t get me wrong, writing great subject lines combined with the more intimate relationship email represents is much more effective. And you have to get your initial messages read to establish the relationship in the first place. Regardless, your open rates will improve based on the quality of your subject line.

But there’s something special in this jaded digital age about being invited into someone’s email inbox. You just have to over-deliver on the value to ensure you’re a treasured guest who gets invited back.

The inbox can be a stressful place. How do you make it brighter?

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 In addition to this blog, I have authored the premiere book on Netiquette, "Netiquette IQ - A Comprehensive Guide to Improve, Enhance and Add Power to Your Email". You can view my profile, reviews of the book and content excerpts at:

 www.amazon.com/author/paulbabicki

 If you would like to listen to experts in all aspects of Netiquette and communication, try my radio show on BlogtalkRadio  and an online newsletter via paper.li.I have established Netiquette discussion groups with Linkedin and  Yahoo.  I am also a member of the International Business Etiquette and Protocol Group and Minding Manners among others. I regularly consult for the Gerson Lehrman Group, a worldwide network of subject matter experts and I have been contributing to the blogs Everything Email and emailmonday . My work has appeared in numerous publications and I have presented to groups such as The Breakfast Club of NJ Rider University and  PSG of Mercer County New Jersey.
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