PeopleLinx | We make social business work.

Social Business Mythbusters

MichaelBest — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:54:16 +0000

As social business marches towards becoming a $100 BILLION industry, companies are quickly realizing the need to adopt this new and innovative way of using social networking technologies for direct sales, recruiting, marketing, business intelligence, and compliance.

However, many large companies are faced with a glaring challenge: “how on earth can we roll out a unified social business strategy to thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of employees?”

At first glance, this certainly appears to be daunting task, but we are going to help you figure out what is real, what isn’t, and what the future holds for social business. Our goal is to simplify the process and allow you to make the best decision possible by knowing the ins and outs of social business.

Below you will find a simplified matrix (not a glitzy infographic – sorry) debunking the top 3 myths we encounter working with large organizations around social business strategies.

Myth	Truth
1. We are a consumer (B2C) company – social business is not applicable to us.	Social business applies to every organization; it is about managing external relationships with vendors, distributors, prospective employees, etc. Equally important is mining these tools for market and competitive data.
2. Our employees “own” their social networking profiles – we can’t ask them to use those tools on our behalf.	Personal and corporate brands have permanently converged and most of your employees are already representing your brand online. Think about the sales manager who goes to a tradeshow (on your time and dime), connects to 95 new people and only puts 10 in your CRM. Who owns or has rights to those other 85 contacts?
3. Our customers and prospects aren’t online.	LinkedIn has over 140 Million members and is growing at a rate of 3 new users per second (over 210 M members by the end of 2013). Growth rates for other sites are equally staggering; If your clients aren’t there yet – it’s only a matter of weeks until they are.

At PeopleLinx, we believe developing and adopting an enterprise-wide social business strategy is most easily accomplished through traditional strategy frameworks and a systemic approach to education and empowerment. The first step in this process is debunking the myths that hold back even the most innovative managers and enterprises from adopting social business.

What are some other social business myths you’ve heard?

Twitter and LinkedIn: Not Chocolate and Peanut Butter?

MichaelBest — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 18:14:35 +0000

Almost two years ago, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and Twitter founder Biz Stone famously proclaimed the integration of the two sites as the perfect combination – like chocolate and peanut butter.

Ahem, well that has changed. LinkedIn announced last week a partial decoupling of the pair: they are removing the Tweets application from the home page. And some of us are a bit annoyed.

ZDnet cited low user rates as the reason behind the move.

This recent change, combined with the removal of the “Answers” application severely limits the value of the LinkedIn homepage. These were the two primary tools we used, and taught our clients to use, to make the LinkedIn homepage an integrated “dashboard” of real-time business intelligence.

When and all is said and done, I don’t think these two modifications are helping LinkedIn drive the core user metric it so desperately craves: TIME ON SITE.

PeopleLinx Hires Software Veteran Rick Genzer as Chief Operating Officer

MichaelBest — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 19:42:17 +0000

January 17, 2012 - PeopleLinx is excited to officially announce today that Richard Genzer will be joining the company full-time as Chief Operating Officer after serving in an advisory and consulting role over the last eight months.

Rick (aka Genzo) brings over 25 years of operations and technology expertise to PeopleLinx. His impressive track-record and resume includes but isn’t limited to positions as EVP and Chief Technology Officer at two successful Philadelphia’s technology start-ups, InteliHealth and Reality Online, which sold to Thompson Reuters. For the past twelve years, Rick has operated a successful management consulting practice where he advised over 30 clients, from large corporations to start-ups, in areas of due diligence, business strategy, project management, and software architecture.

Commenting on Rick’s new position at PeopleLinx, our CEO, Nathan Egan told me “Rick is a true ‘A player’ and we are proud to have him on-board fulltime. His experience, work ethic, and vision are perfectly aligned to our needs and the timing is perfect. He is a great addition to our rapidly growing team.”

Rick earned his BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park in 1986. To learn more about Genzo, check out his LinkedIn profile (which admittedly needs a little optimization now that he is a full team member )

Stay on the look out for more job postings and other exciting announcements!

All the Best,

Mike Best

2012 Summer Internships!

MichaelBest — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:34:15 +0000

PeopleLinx is excited to launch our search for 2012 summer interns! Interns will compete for the coveted, PeopleLinx “Intern of the Year” award.

“Working at PeopleLinx was awesome! Everyone is fun to work with and made sure I had the best experience possible.” – Trina Kadakia, winner of the 2011 “Intern of the Year” award at PeopleLinx.

Check out the opportunities here. If you think you have what it takes, we look forward to hearing from you!

General Patton 2.0 – Online Leadership

MichaelBest — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 21:10:36 +0000

“Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.”

– General George S. Patton

General George Smith Patton Jr. is arguably one of the greatest American military leaders of our time. No one would question his leadership or influence.

Which of course makes me think: what would his Klout score be? How influential would he be as a blogger?

Considering he never had access to either of these mediums the obvious answers are: ZERO and NOT VERY. But if he did – how would he have faired? I don’t think the answer is actually very straight forward.

As online leadership converges with real-world leadership, three trends emerge:

1. Traditional or conventional “leaders” (those who were considered leaders BEFORE social media) who are struggling to transition their real-world leadership skills online. This seems to be especially true for leaders who thrived by controlling the supply chain of information.

2. Newer leaders, but not necessarily “young” leaders, who have developed their leadership roles in parallel with the rapid proliferation of social media (i.e. the last 4-5 years) and do not experience the same transition problem. I would also note that our society’s “new” leaders also tend to leverage transparency of information to their favor.

3. Lastly, there are the people who are not leaders at all and are using social media to promote themselves as such. These individuals neglect traditional, real-world leadership skills and “game” the system by attempting to persuade and motivate others via Tweets and blog posts. Many “bloginaires” seem to fall into this category – though some have broken the mold and developed into true leaders within their industry.

So what does it mean to be a leader today, in 2012? To me, it means you need to exhibit leadership qualities across ALL your communication outlets (digital and real), not just one or two.

Unfortunately I know and see a lot of people who claim to be “leaders” online and are real-world ZEROS.

Your thoughts?

Best,
Mike Best

I Wanna be a Bloginaire… so Freaking Bad

MichaelBest — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 22:30:55 +0000

[You]

I wanna be a Bloginaire so freaking bad
Tweeting about a life I wish I had
Uhhhh, I wanna be the most influential blogger you have ever seen
With a Klout score that rivals Guy or Chris Brog-een

[Chorus]

Oh every time I click my keys
I see my retweets in shining lights
A different follower and comment every night oh oh ohhhhhh oh yeah
I swear all my soon-to-be tweeps better prepare

Oh oooh oh oooh for when I’m a Bloginaire
Oh oooh oh oooh for when I’m a Bloginaire

Just having a little fun winding down 2011 here at PeopleLinx – have a safe and happy New Year everyone! Maybe next week we will redo Bruno’s “Lazy Song” as the Lazy (Entrepreneur) Song… NOT!

Social Holiday Best Practices

MichaelBest — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 21:10:41 +0000

First – Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! As many of us begin checking out of work mode and “checking in” to our slippers and family time, we at PeopleLinx wanted to share a few social media best practices for holidays.

#1 DO NOT status update or announce your travel plans
While “checking in” to your destination and status updating travel plans has become commonplace, it can put you, your family and your home at risk. What better way to tell the world your house is empty? Not a good idea.

#2 Make a Social New Year’s Resolution
Everyone has something they can improve on. Whether you’re spending too much time on Facebook, Tweeting your sex life or letting every Joe Shmoe into your LinkedIn network, we can all do something better. So toss that on the list.

#3 Share and spread the Holiday spirit
Donate to a charity and then status update to your friends to do the same (here is a good one: MyCharityWater.org) The reach of social media is a proven resource for doing good and spreading the word. Don’t overlook any opportunity to spread the holiday cheer – virally.

#4 Shut it all down
There is probably no better time of year to turn off your cell phone, close your laptop, and put a healthy dent in your “time on site”. Enjoy some high quality, in-person interaction with your loved ones. They’ll appreciate you not checking your cell phone and real-time status updates of every present on Christmas morning.

If you have some holiday season social media best practices of your own, please comment or send them via email! We’re happy to expand on this list!

Cheers and see you in 2012!

Moving Update!

MichaelBest — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 19:45:19 +0000

PeopleLinx is moving into new digs at 1835 Market Street in Philadelphia on Thursday!

The new space has awesome views of the Philadelphia skyline and the Delaware River.

Now that our furniture is all assembled (you’re welcome, everyone…), we simply have to get our phone and internet setup Thursday and we can move in. So, if you see us lugging boxes down Market Street, we are not laid off workers – we are just finishing up the last details of an exciting move for PeopleLinx.

We will be finishing up the move in on Thursday, Dec. 15th. Feel free to stop by the new place and check us out starting Friday, Dec. 16th!

All the info you need is: 1835 Market Street, Suite 2705! Looking forward to sharing this exciting time at PeopleLinx with everyone and please do stop by!

Content Marketing is Internet Pollution

MichaelBest — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 20:42:33 +0000

Try to wrap your head around this scenario: you are at a trade show and you’ve just met a new prospect. The first thing you say to them is:

“Let me tell you how great I am…”

You would never do that right?

Unfortunately, you are doing exactly that on the web. All over it, all the time. Talking about yourself and polluting the once pristine web with your me-me-me content.

It isn’t your fault, the algorithms and “gurus” of the social web are encouraging you to do so. And the worst part is that your key stroke emissions are making it harder and harder for people like me (your key constituency of customers and prospects, etc) to find content of value.

Still don’t think you’re doing this? Go double check – you may not realize how you or your employees are showing up. Go scrutinize your last 40 or 50 status updates and re-read your various social “profiles” AS IF YOU WERE SOMEONE ELSE (like a potential customer).

Is that person (you) boring, irrelevant, or arrogant? Would you be interested in your own tweets or would you “unfollow” yourself because you basically update self-serving crap every 35 minutes.

Don’t get it twisted, social is an incredibly powerful distribution channel for content.

There is just one catch. To be effective and differentiate yourself in the expanding digital landfill we call the Internet, your message should be delivered the same way online as you would deliver it in person: strategically.

We could go on and on, you need to be “authentic” too (which basically means if you are a prick in the real-world, you have permission to be prick online as well)…

And the bottom line is this: PLEASE STOP LITTERING. If your LinkedIn profile requires killing a tree to print it out, it is way way too long (TMI). Put your trash in the trash before you hit the share button.

Back in the day, creating content for an audience was a “right” that you earned (or purchased). Today, for better or for worse – everyone has a right to broadcast their content. Content is king? We don’t think so. Great content is king and only if delivered in a meaningful way.

*Disclaimer: My name is Michael Best so technically I can say I am the Best when I meet people for the first time.

Big Companies Bet BIG on Social

MichaelBest — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:13:24 +0000

Recent headlines have us pumped up at PeopleLinx. We heard last week through the “webvine” that SAP is in talks to buy social business collaboration company Jive Software.

Not long ago, Morgan Stanley invested $7 million in a leading social compliance company called SocialWare.

In terms of validation, both Morgan Stanley and SAP decided to invest and acquire these companies AFTER using them as vendor / suppliers… how legit is that?

The Jive deal is really significant because it comes only months after it filed for a $100 million IPO, which many are now valuing closer to $1 billion. Hopefully Jive won’t pull a Groupon (Note to Jive CEO Tony Zingale: take the money)

You can “follow” the social media buying spree on the acquisitions page of the popular social media blog: Social Networking Watch. If you click through you can also see that companies like Facebook and LinkedIn are living in their own sort of “cyber Monday” with several key buys over the last few months.

I spoke with our CEO, Nathan Egan, to share his thoughts on the trend: “Obviously this is all great news. We love to see activity like this in the space – it really validates Social Business as an industry – something we saw coming three to four years ago. Even if the deal doesn’t go through, congratulations to Tony Zingale and his team at Jive.”

Until next blog.

-Michael Best