With over 45 million users representing more than 130 different industries around the world, LinkedIn is one of the fastest growing networking sites on the web. The best part about the site is that it enables users to build their professional profile and expand their network by making strategic connections, seeking recommendations from colleagues and participating in interactive polls and discussions.

As traffic on LinkedIn continues to rise, it becomes increasingly clear that the site will become a necessary tool for even the most passive job seekers and networkers. To help promote the existence of your profile and make it easier to connect with colleagues, contacts, industry leaders, clients and potential prospects or employers, follow these simple steps to learn how to insert a LinkedIn button into your personal email signature.

Step 1- Log-in to your LinkedIn Account

Step 2- Go to your “Accounts and Settings” option

Step 3- Click on your “Public Profile” (Halfway down the “Accounts and Settings” page)

Step 4- Under the “Public Profile” go to “Promote Public Profile” and click on “Customized Buttons”

Step 5- Copy the entire code for this button

Step 6- Open Notepad on your computer and paste the code into the document

Step 7- Under “Save As”, save the file name as “LinkedIn.html”, and change file type to “All Files”

Step 8- Open Outlook, go to “Tools” and click on “Options”

Step 9- Go to “Mail Format” and click on “Signatures”

Step 10- Click on “New”

Step 11- Click on “Use this file as template,” then select your saved file. Next, add your contact details as you would like them to read over your LinkedIn button.

Now you are done!!

We would like to know how inserting a LinkedIn button to your email has helped increase your connections on LinkedIn or otherwise helped to get you noticed. Please share your success stories.

-Brie Bellefeuille

One of the most adverse domino effects of our current economic situation has to be the distressing troubles currently afflicting the advertising and marketing industries. Because of companies’ fiscal obligations and their deteriorating bottom lines, executives have shown little restraint in slashing their ad budgets and downsizing any of their prior plans for monumental, traditional campaigns.

The situation is incredibly dreary for most marketing professionals, who are now left with the difficult tasks of justifying their worth to their clients by developing, or pitching, campaigns that are explicitly responsible and cost-effective. 

So…how should marketers weather the recession? 

The answer is quite clear; move the pivotal focus of your campaign onto the web and harness the power of social media.  Social media, particularly over the past year, has proven to be an inexpensive, but lucrative tool for online lead generation, providing a positive return on your client’s investments. Amidst the current market, and with marketing budgets slimming to a shoe string, social media presents a more personal and engaging option that can correctly target the proper demographics and audiences in a word-of-mouth fashion.

Tools such as Facebook, Twitter and blogs allow users to connect and share and publish their most personal ideas, thoughts and opinions with old friends or even perfect strangers. The beauty of these interactions lies in the implicitness of the information to appear creditable because of its word-of-mouth nature. Social media users recognize the messages they receive to be more relevant and natural, and not stretched or warped by the stigma of paid advertisements.

But social media users still need to gain the trusts of their peers. Once this goal is attained, the passing along of communications becomes socially accepted as useful, helpful and credible.

The power to share information on these sites can help to bolster a company’s profile, if it is accomplished in a responsible and trustful way. By managing many of the social media channels that they have at their disposal by dedicating the right resources and employees, corporations will recognize the ability of social media to serve as a next-generational inbound marketing tool. Over time, connections made, like in the real world, can generate new leads, clients, and revenue without any of the costs of more traditional business lead generation methods.

When U.S Airways Flight 1549 crashed into the icy waters of the Hudson River last week, witnesses watched from their high-rise buildings, trying to decipher what had just taken place. The jetliner with 155 people on board had lost power in both engines after hitting a flock of birds’ shortly after departing from La Guardia Airport. Now national hero, Pilot Chesley B. Sullenberger, landed the plane safely (miraculously) in the river avoiding a disaster and saving the life of every passenger and flight attendant on board.

News of the crash spread instantaneously over the micro-blogging site Twitter, by New York City-based users witnessing the crash live. They were sharing pictures and first-hand accounts well before any TV networks were on-site. The first Twitter feed was a post by Janis Krums of Sarasota, Florida who had arrived to the scene on ferry just a few minutes after the jetliner had plunged into the Hudson. He had posted a picture on TwitPic (a tool that allows you to share photos on Twitter) just ten minutes after the crash, with a caption reading, “There’s a plane in the Hudson. I’m on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy.” It was one of the first photos posted about the incident and has now been viewed by over 90,000 people.

Janis Krums' Photo of US Airways Flight 1549 in The Hudson River

The power of social media continues to connect people, media and technology. By embracing this power, sites like Twitter and Facebook are becoming an essential part of modern society and communication, and are playing a role in the diminished usage and relevancy of more traditional media outlets.

The Hudson crash is yet another example of social media out-performing traditional media.

Over the past two years, retailers have morphed their infamous shopping day into a new tradition: Cyber Monday. According to Fast Company, “Cyber Monday sales totaled $687 million” in 2006. Since the majority of consumers’ online purchases are made during business hours anyways, retailers learned to apply this trend to revitalize our holiday shopping experience.

We now have the best of both the materialistic and affectionate worlds during the holiday season: we can enjoy quality time with our family and friends and still purchase our “must have” items. The only fall back is that consumer’s now spend Monday scanning the Internet at work looking for great gift ideas instead of focusing on their normal everyday responsibilities and tasks. Crossing our fingers that our boss won’t catch us! But this change in pace has also caused a seismic shift in the advertising world. Budgets for print and broadband ads are being redistributed into interactive/digital campaigns. The alteration in distribution channels has clients fighting for their banners and skyscrapers to run during this crucial timeline. But marketers have embraced this change. The interactive switch gives them the in the opportunity to create promotional campaigns that will generate a larger database of qualified sales leads and a more accurate account and understanding of their target market.

Consumers shopping habits are evolving and simultaneously, the advertising world must follow suit. Seasons greetings from new media!