When you last made a purchase or a product or service, did you ask a family member, friend or colleagues their opinion on what you were planning to buy before you did so? Most of us look for recommendations as part of the buying process - some call it social proof.

That is why testimonials and endorsements are so valuable - people get to read, see or hear what other people ‘just like them’ thought of the product.

In one social media workshop I facilitated recently, one participant had made a purchase of over €500 in value only by reading online reviews.

Andy Sernovitz, author and word of mouth expert suggests that you should place product reviews in the following places, not just on the pages of your website or blog that are your online product catalogue:

1.  Put them in your banner ads
2.  Put them on your home page
3.  Test them in different places on the page
4.  Put them on product packaging
5.  Put them in your email newsletters

Here are five other places you could place your product reviews - and do think about recording reviews not just in words on your blog or website, but in video format or audio format:

6.   On your invoice template
7.   On your business card
8.   In your podcast
9.   On your marketing brochure
10. On your banners at trade fairs.

Where else would you recommend that you put product reviews or perhaps where have you found have delivered the best results?

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

If you want to know more about word of mouth marketing, I highly recommend Andy’s book ‘Word Of Mouth Marketing’ - grab a FREE excerpt HERE.

Each week I often wish I lived in the US as there are events I want to attend. One event that would DEFINITELY be on my calendar is Andy’s workshop taking place on 4 September and the 9 October 2008 in Chicago.

This is a very practical, hands-on programme with a maximum of 50 attendees. In one intense day, you will:

• Master the five steps of word of mouth marketing
• Construct an action plan that your company can start using the very next day
• Get the same training that big corporations (Microsoft, TiVo, eBay) have received — for a fraction of what they paid
• Know how to translate word of mouth marketing into real ROI
• Participate in an active, intense day of practical brainstorming (not boring theory).

Andy promises you will learn a repeatable, proven marketing framework that is easy to execute, affordable, and provides measurable results within 60 days.

I am sharing this information not because I truly wish I could attend. and as Andy is an online friend of mine as he’s also offered any one who books using the code “weloveoneoceangroup” a US$250 discount. Now how is that for word of mouse marketing! Note I am NOT receiving an affiliate or referral fee for this - I just truly believe in Andy’s work and how word of mouth marketing will help you manage through these recessionary times.

Details of the Word of Mouth Crash Course agenda are HERE

Register to attend the Word Of Mouth Crash Course HERE - and remember to add “weloveoneoceangroup” to get your discount.

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So you have noticed a flurry of people sending you notes to connect on Facebook. But they haven’t put anything about themselves when sending you an invitation to connect.

So how do you decide who to accept as a friend on Facebook?

That’s a question  pondered a few weeks ago when looking through a list of invitations.

I always recommend that when you look to connect on Facebook or LinkedIn where you have the opportunity to customise a message to the person you are connecting with that you personalise the message based on what you know about the person and their interests.

Think about networking offline - if you make a phone call to someone who you don’t know, don’t you spend a moment or two striking up a conversation that demonstrates how you might be connected or why you want to speak with them?

But that doesn’t mean that everyone does the same when inviting you to become a member of their online social network.

When I was recently accepting Facebook friends, I decided that some of my criteria would be if there was no personal photo and instead a brand logo I would not add them - that was based on the fact that as Facebook advises, Facebook profiles are about connecting with people - Groups and Pages are where you promote your business.

Secondly if I could not access their profile or a summary profile about who they are then I usually won’t connect.

You see some people see social networking being a numbers game - the more people in the your network the better. I take a different view - learned from several years of writing a news letter for my ‘Biz Growth’ community. I would much rather have a smaller number of subscribers to my newsletter of people really interested in my articles and podcasts than a huge unresponsive community.

I also Tweeted the question to my network and asked other people how they make a decision on who to accept as a friend on Facebook.

Here are their responses:

Alex Bellinger (@alexbellinger) said that he is discriminating on Twitter but has given up on Facebook

Becky Cortino (@BeckyCortino) likes to know why someone is on Facebook by reading their profile if she accepts them as a friend on Facebook

Britrock (@britrock) mentions that he uses the rule that if he has received a greeting from the person connecting that is a deciding factor

Megan Fitzgerald (@meganfitzgerald) is more likely to accept someone as a friend if they have mutual friends - but if there are no mutual friends and no profile she probably won’t connect with the person

Luke Harvey- Palmer (@lukefrombuzzle) and Cheryl Antier (@Cheryl_Antier) liked my criteria

So what are your thoughts on who to friend on Facebook? What do you do when connecting with someone for the first time in an online social network? I’d certainly appreciate your insights.

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So you have heard about LinkedIn.

Perhaps you have even developed your own professional profile on LinkedIn.

But how do you turn your online profile and network to profits?

In this weeks episode of ‘Biz Growth Live’, I am joined by LinkedIn expert Chuck Hester who will be sharing strategies and ideas to boost your business results through LinkedIn.

He will be sharing specific actions you can take to will help you raise your profile and attract the opportunities we are looking for – be that a new client, business partner or career move.

Here are the details of the Masterclass:

DATE OF THE LINKEDIN MASTERCLASS: Monday 4 August 2008

TIME OF THE LINKEDIN MASTERCLASS: 6pm Dublin and London/ 1pm ET/10am PT

INVESTMENT: FREE

HOW TO LISTEN

• Join us live by dialling into ‘Biz Growth Live Blog Talk Radio Show’ (it’s a US number). Call-in Number:  +1 347 633-9467
• Access the live streaming audio of this weeks at ‘Biz Growth Live’ Blog Talk Radio
• Subscribe to the show through our ‘Biz Growth Live’ Podcast feed and you will receive an update when the recording of the show is available
• Subscribe to the show on iTunes - see the link on our ‘Biz Growth Live’ BlogTalk Radio page

SOME OF THE QUESTIONS WE WILL BE COVERING

• What makes LinkedIn stand out as a social network for business
• 5 key actions we should take to ensure that our personal profile in LinkedIn reflects a professional personal brand
• How to attract new clients and business opportunities through LinkedIn especially at times when there is a slow down in the economy
• How Chuck himself found his own current role through LinkedIn
• How to use the LinkedIn Questions/Answers facility – how it works and how you can use it to best effect so that you are not seen as a nuisance to your network

If you have questions for us you can ask them by posting them here or on our live questions page or to our FriendFeed room.

If you want to get the low down on LinkedIn for professional business networking make sure that you thrive not just survive during recessionary times, don’t miss this Masterclass - and remember it’s free to join us.

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It’s always a great honour to be asked to be a guest on a podcast or teleseminar so I was thrilled to be a guest on Zane Safrit’s Blog Talk Radio show where he talks about social media and employee engagement.

I first heard of Zane some years ago when I him online through Debbie Weil’s blog - he was previously CEO of Conference Calls Unlimited, the bridge line sponsors of the 2007 Personal Branding Summit which I chaired last November.

We had the opportunity to talk about social media, personal branding and employer branding and you can listen to the show recording HERE.

Zane was a generous host and allowed me to talk - I hope you will find the podcast of assistance if you are looking to further develop your personal brand for professional success and your employer brand to attract and retain talent.

SHOW NOTES

00:00     Introduction to the show by Zane

06:16     So just what is a personal brand

14:24     What we can do to develop our personal brand and sustain it and how social media can expand our global reach

24:40     What’s the most important lesson I’ve learned on my personal journey

29:00     The importance of mentoring and playing to our strengths

32:40     My biggest learning in personal development and career success

37:40     Action steps you can take do to develop your personal brand

48:10     LinkedIn for developing your business network

51:45     What’s an employer brand vs a personal brand and why’s it important for companies

60:00     Forthcoming projects including PodCamp Ireland and the 2008 Personal Branding Summit

62:00     One thing to remember about personal branding for professional and personal success to thrive not just survive through a recession

73:00     Show close

ADDITONAL RESOURCES

While we talked a little about Linkedin as a business social netowrk we were not able to go into a great depth. If you want to know more about how to use LinkedIn for business, you can join me with my guest an expert in Linkedin for business, Chuck Hester on my ‘Biz Growth Live’ programme.

The show is taking place at 1pm ET/6pm Ireland on monday 4 August 2008 and you can join us FREE HERE.

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Here is a summary of news and articles from around the web that has caught my attention in this week’s social media digest.

• The convergence of traditional broadcast media and communication in a Web 2.0 world seems to be further developing with the announcement that the BBC’s Newsnight editor Peter Barron is to leave the BBC to join Google as head of communications and public affairs for the UK, Ireland and Benelux regions
• Andy Dickinson writes a review of how the Financial Times is integrating online video into it’s offerings. Andy has also done a review for the  UK Times and Telegraph
• An article about Arianna Huffington and how she is challenging American political media with the website the Huffington Post but challenging the long term value of this approach
• Technobabble provides a current list of analysts on Twitter
• Pro-blogger Darren Rowse was today banned from the social bookmarking site StumbleUpon - but then through actions he tok and the support of his social networking followers got unbanned in just 1 hour and 44 minutes. Find out how he did it HERE incase something similar ever happens to you
• The fluent simplicity blog has started a list of brands that are Twittering
  
• Alltop have added a new agregator for blogs about branding
• Talking about Twitter, Recruit Ireland are the first Irish recruitment company to start to connect with candidates and companies through Twitter
• And it’s great to see that there is a new corporate blog - in fact as I believe this is the first corporate blog in Ireland (tell me if you know differents - an I’m not including business blogs by small companies, recruiters. consultants or entrepreneurs) - from low cost insurers No Nonsense.

ADDITIONAL ARTICLES AND PODCASTS BY KRISHNA

This week’s PodCamp Ireland show includes an interview with the Director of Cathy Fitzgerald of Artlinks.ie and we discuss how they are embracing social media to support their community of artists. Access the show notes, how to listen to the podcast and provide us with feedback HERE.

And if you are looking to encourage more comments to your blog why not consider adding CommentLuv - see my article about this plugin HERE.

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