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Thursday, January 28th, 2010Thursday, January 28th, 2010
2:00 2:00 –– 3:00 PM EST3:00 PM EST
Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI)
How to market your hotel, destination or attraction on LinkedIn
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Overview of Format and TopicOverview of Format and Topic
Webinar ModeratorFran Brasseux
Executive Vice President, HSMAI
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HSMAI University Alliance PartnersHSMAI University Alliance Partners
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POLL QUESTION #1POLL QUESTION #1How many people are participating in
this webinar at your location today?
� 1
� 2
� 3
� 4
� 5
� 6
� 7
� 8 or more
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TodayToday’’s Presenter s Presenter
� e-Commerce SEO/SEM consulting since 1999
� 20+ Years of direct hotel sales experience
� Approved vendor with Marriott, Hilton and Wyndham Hotels
� Social Media Marketing Expert
� Pay-Per-Click Management
� Online Media Planning
� Strategic Linking Services
� Search Engine Marketing Services
• Need more information?
• Call:407-909-9036
� Gordon LiametzRevenue Performancewww.RevenuePerformance.com
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LinkedIn User
� Over 43 million professionals
� Roughly 1 new sign-up per
second
� 150 industries executives
from every Fortune 500 firm
� 5.1 million students
� 37,000 college and university
alumni groups
Source: LinkedIn 1/09
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POLL QUESTION #2POLL QUESTION #2Do you use LinkedIn to find sales leads?
� Yes
� No
� That’s why I am here today
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Why LinkedIn?
� It’s a professional networking tool
� It can be leveraged to:
• Find and be found by
prospective jobseekers and
other business contacts
• Grow a referral network
• Build influence with clients
• Conduct competitive
intelligence research
• Stay in touch with people
• Heighten your corporate and
personal brand awareness
Stay inTouch
Stay inTouch
Get
Informed
Get
Informed
Lead
Generation
Lead
Generation
RevenueRevenue
Be
Found
Be
Found
FindFind
YourLinkedIn
Network
YourLinkedIn
Network
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Five Tips for Your LinkedIn Personal Profile
1. Fill out your profile to 100% completion
• Photo
• Headline
• Keyword-rich summary
• Experience
2. Join a few groups
3. Claim your custom URL
• www.linkedin.com/in/YourName
4. Request recommendations
5. Keep your profile up-to-date
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Create Company Profile
� If your company email address is not a confirmed email address on
your personal LinkedIn account, a confirmation email will be sent to
the company email address
� The email text will give you a link to log into your LinkedIn account
� Once you email address is confirmed you will be taken to the
“Create a Company” page that will allow you to enter information
about your company
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Create Company Profile
� Click on 'Create a Company' and complete the required fields
� Follow LinkedIn’s wizard for creating your company profile – you’ll be
able to add a logo, locations, etc.
� Once you’ve completed LinkedIn’s steps for getting setup, your
company profile will be available
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Create Company Profile
� The next step is getting your staff members added. Each will need
to set up a profile. When they each enter their current positions,
the company name should now appear on the drop-down menu.
� Selecting the company will tie them to the company profile.
however employees will not be linked to each other until connection
requests are sent/accepted
� When employee profiles are completed and the customized URLs are
available, you may wish to add these to the biography pages within
the your hotel or destination website
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Company Profile Checklist
� Company description
� Specialties – hotel, restaurants, etc.
� The URL for the website
� Industry (selected from a drop-down menu)
� Type of business (corporation, proprietorship)
� Number of employees
� Year started
� Locations
� Company logo (file size must be less than 100kb)
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16 hsmai.org
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Integrate LinkedIn Applications
� LinkedIn Applications enable you to enrich your profile, share
and collaborate with your network
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Using LinkedIn for Lead Generation
� Start connecting to your current and
past contacts and focus on connecting
with contacts that you have a
relationship established
� Join LinkedIn groups relevant to
meetings, event planning, etc.
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Using LinkedIn for Lead Generation
� Post relevant content on groups
� Answer questions that are relevant to your expertise or
something you're passionate about
� Group members often post questions on LinkedIn
� By answering questions and demonstrating your expertise
you will add value to the conversation
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Using LinkedIn for Lead Generation
� Create your own LinkedIn group and share relevant content. Starting
your own group gives you control over its content and reach. The
goal is to engage your audience and leverage your experience to
connect to others.
� Integrate LinkedIn Into Your Marketing - Anytime you do a a trade
show or event, invite your audience to network with you or join
your group. You can also notify all the members of your group about
an upcoming promotion or event.
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Using LinkedIn for Lead Generation
The goal is simple:
� Engage an audience and
build a network
� Demonstrate your expertise
and leadership
� Don't sell your hotel
� Drive people to relevant
content on your site that
adds value
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Google Command Secret:
� site:www.linkedin.
com title: meeting
planner chicago
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LinkedIn Answers
� By monitoring the questions within your network, LinkedIn
Answers offers companies the opportunity to share their
knowledge and experience, positioning them as experts in their
industries
� Plus, it can be used as a tool to connect with other businesses,
potential job candidates and develop new prospects
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LinkedIn Groups
� There are thousands of groups in LinkedIn ranging from a few members
to thousands.
� Groups are broken out by type to make it easier to find. These include
alumni, corporate, conference, networking, non-profit, professional
and other.
� To search for a group, click on the Groups link on the left navigation
bar. A list of current groups you belong to (if any) will appear.
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LinkedIn Groups
� You may wish to create a group that clients or prospects can join
� You may also find groups that many of your clients are current
members - join these groups to follow discussion strands
� One benefit of group membership: you can use the advanced
search feature to look for group members within a specific
company - this gives you a way to get a contact name for business
leads
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LinkedIn Groups
� LinkedIn Business Groups are used to collaborate with members,
share related articles and information and to conduct discussions
about the topic at hand, as well as share job opportunities
� Members of these groups will receive email updates related to the
group activity
� Companies should use these groups to share valuable information,
events and news, as well as join other industry-related groups to
stay on top of what’s happening in their industry
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LinkedIn Groups
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LinkedIn & SEO
� LinkedIn is one of the few social networking sites still offering
PageRank that do not contain “no follow” tags
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LinkedIn & SEO Checklist
1. Create your own URL - View your profile, and change the custom URL -
Change it to your full name or your company name
2. Link to your websites using anchor text - Linking to your website will not
only give Linkedin users more insight about you, but you’ll also be
improving your website’s SEO - Anchor text links that contain relevant
keywords are something Google looks for when ranking your website
3. Modify your headline - Your headline is the tagline that appears right under
your name in LinkedIn searches and on your profile - Instead of just writing
your position, include more information about what you do, using keyword-
rich descriptions
4. Use keywords throughout your profile - There are several other places you
can use keywords: summary, job descriptions, and interests - Put keywords
in your job title; instead of just including your title
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Add the iPhone app if you have an iPhone and add the LinkedIn Badge to your website and email signature line
hsmai.org
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Free Account vs. Paid Account
� My membership is at the basic level as the the additional
features of the paid account are not central to my needs
� Upgrade, if you’d like to:
� Send InMail – to directly contact other members that are not
“in” your network
� See who is looking at your profile
� Get “more” results when you search
� Send more simultaneous requests for introductions
� Work with LinkedIn customer support
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Summary: Key Takeaways
1. Personal Profile
2. Company Profile
3. LinkedIn Applications
4. Lead Generation
5. Google Command Secret
6. LinkedIn Answers
7. LinkedIn Groups
8. LinkedIn & SEO
9. Free Account vs. Paid Account
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Revenue Performance Inc.8615 Commodity Circle – Unit 8
Orlando, FL 32819
407-909-9036
Questions?
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Don’t miss these upcoming webinars – learn more and register at www.hsmaiuniversity.org
February 2 – Forecasting in Uncertain Times, with Jan D. Freitag, VP, Global Development, Smith Travel Research, and Mark Woodworth, Exec. VP, PKF Consulting, Inc.
10-part Revenue Management webinar series beginning February 23.
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EvaluationEvaluation
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� Be sure to click on “Submit” when you have completed the evaluation to send us your responses.
� Your comments & suggestions are very important to us, and they help us to provide you with quality programming.
TodayToday ’’s webinar is copyright 2010 by the Hospitality Sale s & Marketings webinar is copyright 2010 by the Hospitality Sale s & MarketingAssociation International with All Rights Reserved.Association International with All Rights Reserved.