LinkedIn and Branding: How to make it an effective tool to benefit you

Today LinkedIn, like Monster.com did ten years ago, is growing in popularity.  Although LinkedIn is based in the United States, it currently has hundreds of millions of professional members worldwide. LinkedIn members actively look for jobs and read work-related content on the LinkedIn website. A couple of years ago one of my co-works left for another company, before she left she gave us her LinkedIn user name. At first, I did not know anything about LinkedIn and what it was used for. Therefore, I did a Google search and found out that this was a new way that many professionals use to keep in touch with each other.

However, LinkedIn is not only for professionals, it is also very beneficial for college students and a great way to build business and grow customer base. Within this blog, I focus on students only. Students can find out what courses they should take if they want to work in certain fields. They can create and update their profile, make connections with other professionals by joining groups and submit job applications. When we navigate around LinkedIn’s website, we can see many companies worldwide that are looking to recruit professionals to join their companies.

So, the question is how to make your profile attractive and look professional. Well, there are a few things that you can do to make it look better. One thing to do is add a professional profile picture. Another thing is to complete your technical skills section. Employers look at these two things first when they read your profile.  The technical skills section is especially important, so you should not leave this part blank and do not under estimate your skills. Some of the skills you have you might not think are important. Some of the skills that you may think are unworthy to be included in there. But you never know some employers may be looking for those skills. For example, I heard one of my classmates said he did not intend to include one of the programming languages that he is learning in the technical skills because it is somewhat of an old programming language and that not many companies need it nowadays. This is your selling point so make sure you include as much detail as possible. Be sure to include what you are learning, what you know and your work experience in your profile. Doing this will benefit you and make you look professional.

Pic from arkovi.com

QR Codes: Ideal travel or tourism uses

I read through a few hand-outs and online articles, I see people mention a lot about using QR codes to promote their brands or to advertise their products, but not much mention about using it for traveling purposes. Honestly, I myself have never scanned those promotional QR codes. I find it is most interesting and useful to use QR codes when traveling. Today, many airlines offer QR codes for boarding pass, and many airports provide QR scanners as well. I can use airlines' mobile app to check-in and download a QR code as my boarding pass right on my smartphone. I do not need to wait in line at the counter or kiosk at the airports to print out the paper boarding pass. Another thing I find interesting is the use of QR codes at museums or any kind of exhibits.  For example, when you walk through an art museum, you can use your smartphone with a QR reader to scan the QR code next to a painting and learn all about the painting, the genre, the artist, his/her contemporaries, etc.

Rather than a coupon or promotion, the QR code as use for traveling is such a convenience tool for travelers.  It would make for a much more informative and enjoyable time at the museum.  The QR code is a tool that can greatly enhance the consumers' experience, it is not simply a new technology.  However, there are still some disadvantages to QR codes.  Sometimes it takes longer to be scanned because there are many QR generators and many different kinds of smartphones or QR readers; and not all of them work well together.  For example, one time I had to step aside at an airport boarding gate and yield to other people to go first because the airport bar-code reader could not read my QR boarding pass.  Also, not every airports is equip with QR readers, so paper boarding pass is still necessary.  However, overall, QR codes help our lives by taking us one step closer to a paperless future, and having every conceivable information at the tip of our fingers.

Social Networking Security or Lack of When Promoting Your Brand

When discussing advertising on social networking, it is hard to miss the saga of General Motors pulling their advertising account from Facebook, just a few days before the big Facebook Initial Public Offering (IPO), then returning to Facebook after one year absent. If we think social media is good place to promote brand, then why GM withdrew their advertising? In May of 2012, General Motors announced that they would stop advertising on Facebook, claiming that it was ineffective to selling their cars.  The announcement caused a big stir in the media and caused a lot of speculation about whether advertising on Facebook is effective.  This was a big problem for Facebook as it gets most of its income from advertising.  A few days after the GM's announcement, Facebook IPO went off as a big disappointment.  The stock price dropped almost 30% at the close of its first week on the stock market.  There were a numbers of issues that analysts claim were the reason for the disappointing IPO, but could the move by GM also contributed to the disappointing IPO?

                                                       Picture from Forbes.com

In April of 2013, General Motors announced that they would return to advertise on Facebook.  They stated that they want to do an all-mobile advertising campaign for their new Chevrolet Sonic car.  Some analyst suspect that the reason GM pulled their ads in the first place was because of the lack of tracking by Facebook on how effective the advertisement on Facebook is. They were not worry about the social networking security or lack of when promoting their brand. Then at their returning to Facebook, GM tried to leverage their account to get Facebook to do more to track the effectiveness of the ads. However, other car companies stay with Facebook because they think Facebook reached many people, so they might think there is no need to concern about the effectiveness of advertisement. 

Furthermore, if a social media outlet set itself up as a medium for advertising, it needs to show its customers (the companies that will buy space to advertise) that it is effective, that it can track progresses, etc.  Just like how TV is selling time slot to companies for advertising.  For a time during a show with few viewers, the cost of that time slot is less than a time slot during a show that a lot of people watch, like the Super Bowl.  Even with advertising on a billboard by the side of the road, the ones on a road that has a lot of traffic will reach more people, whereas the billboard on some empty street will not be seen by many people.  Seems like with advertising on a social media like Facebook, the customers pay for a billboard, then Facebook decides where to put that billboard, it could be on a very busy traffic street or it is out in the country side somewhere.

In conclusion, when promoting your brand, there is no need to worry much about the social networking security. It is rather to focus on how social media promotes your brand and if it is effective.