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LinkedIn is the Rodney Dangerfield of social media: despite having 200 million highly influential subscribers, it gets no respect. Even though it is consistently ranked among the social giants Facebook and Twitter, it doesn’t seem to get as much hype from the mainstream media. But as a tool for marketing your beauty salon business, it provides a huge edge over its more popular peers. Because unlike Facebook and Twitter, which regularly exchange cat photos, inane one-liners and political rants from nutty uncles, LinkedIn is all business.

How companies are leveraging LinkedIn

You operate a beauty salon business. Your time and energy is scarce. So why should you worry about LinkedIn? Here are a few ways your peers (there are 1.3 million small-business owners on the network) are employing it to their advantage:

1. Sharing wins: As a beauty salon business owner, you're working hard. Why not share your success stories? Promoting your accomplishments is just good marketing. And with 2 million C-level executives using the site, you might suddenly find yourself with some deep-pocketed suitors.
2. Getting referrals: LinkedIn makes it easy to get peer and client endorsements for the work you do. Best part? When someone recommends you or writes a testimonial, everyone within your network sees it in his or her activity feed. This type of social proof is the BEST way of getting new customers.
   
3. Finding new talent: If your beauty salon business keeps growing, you'll undoubtedly need to hire new employees. LinkedIn is a great place—scratch that, it’s the BEST place—to find new players to include in your team.
   
4. Promoting events: LinkedIn’s event feature is a game changer! It has never been so easy to spread the news and drum up enthusiasm about upcoming events, sales and get togethers. You can even use their service directory to find professional event planners to help you.
   
5. Boosting website traffic: A little-known secret about LinkedIn is that it’s very influential with Google; if you have a presence on LinkedIn, you’re likely to see a jump in search engine visibility, too. More clicks = more customers!
   
6. Getting answers: LinkedIn is a goldmine for information on operating a successful beauty salon business. You can uncover great advice from some of the savviest business minds in the world in LinkedIn Answers and Groups. You will discover over 2000 groups devoted to small-business and beauty salon business related topics.
   
7. Finding investors, vendors and partners: It’s a networker’s paradise. Whether you require some capital, a new accounting firm, or even a beauty salon business partner, you’re not going to find a better resource than LinkedIn. Anywhere.
   

We’re just scratching the surface here, folks. The benefits don’t end there. Pay a visit to LinkedIn, set up a page for your business and see for yourself. I know your time is scarce, but trust me, it’s worth it.

About Author:
Charlotte Howard is a Radio Host and Beauty Salon Success Coach. She specializes in beauty salon business start-up and client attraction. Contact her today for all of your burning beauty salon business questions, visit www.CharlotteHowardInfo.com

YourNight is a free social interactive site where you can connect with your friends and family. Similar to Facebook, with better functionality. You can expand the Whiteboard so it is easier to read and reply.

-With your YourNight profile, you can create up to five separate profiles, one for your friends, family, professional associates, a blogging profile, and a dating profile if you chose to do so.

-YourNight is message specific, which means, the unique thing with YourNight is when you create your "What are you doing now?" message, you can send it to only one or all of your 5 five profiles people. This means you can have your message viewed by only your friends, and your family and professional profile people will not see it, which means, better privacy. With Facebook, everyone sees what you write.

-YourNight comes with customizable widgets. With YourNight, you have a page where you can have access to your favorite sites, such as Gmail, AOL, Yahoo, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, CNN, People, Amazon, Ebay, Target, Bank of America, Wachovia, to name a few.

-YourNight is creating a shopping network where you can purchase products at major retailers at up to 20% off. Major retailers such as Best Buy, Target, Overstock.com, Expedia, Hotels.com, Walmart, and other major retailers, are partnering with YourNight.

-YourNight is a referral social site. You need to be invited by or know someone who is a member of YourNight to create your free profile. This is important, because YourNight.com is sharing in the revenues it receives with its members. YourNight needs to track who you refer, because you can receive additional income, if you chose, based on their buying habits from the shopping site and the Gold Member referral program. You can receive 1% cash back of the total purchase amount of all the people that you refer, when they purchase items through the YourNight website. Cash Back rewards can be increased to up to 2.5% if certain requirements are made.

-With YourNight, you have the option to upgrade to a Gold Member for $10.00 per month, if you chose. (6.80) If you live in the UK. You can always remain as a free member of YourNight and enjoy the entertainment value of being able to socialize with friends and family, if that is your desire. There are many additional cash reward benefits for Gold Members, one of which is, you can receive $2.00 per month of all the people that you refer, with a minimum of five people who upgrade to Gold Member status. Hence, your $10.00 per month membership is paid for by your cash rewards from the $2.00 each you receive for the referrals of the five Gold Members.

-YourNight is also a charitable organization. $0.50 a month from every Gold Membership is transferred to YourNight.org, a not-for-profit sister company to YourNight. The donations are planned to be distributed within the area that they are collected from.

Those are just a few of the major benefits of creating a free profile with YourNight.com. YourNight's goal is to become the major social website on the internet. Facebook currently has over 400 million members. If YourNight surpasses that, just imagine the friends you could make, the professional connections you could make, the additional income you could make, and the monetary contributions you could create for the world!

Create your "FREE" profile today.

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Please Email the following information with your submissions to: articles@eBiznessonline.com NOTE All responses must come to email address provided. Thank you

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How I Maintain My Social Network Without Losing My Shirt

Thank you for the great collection of comments, tips and insights you are sharing on yesterday's post about making connections on Twitter. One of the themes of the comments is that, if you're not careful, Twitter and other social media become colossal time suckers with little to no return. Indie Beauty Network member Anne-Marie wrote, "It can be a bit of a black hole if I follow all the cool links that show up on people's Tweets." And Indie Beauty Network member D'Anna Catterson said, "It can be quite addicting!"

I have found these things to be true. If you don't discipline yourself in any fun social situation, you'll find yourself hopelessly unproductive. Who hasn't experienced staying at the party or talking on the phone so long that some other important detail of life or business is not tended to? We've all done that, so we all appreciate the power of using a system to ensure that our social connections are maintained while our businesses continue to thrive.

Here are my Social Media System recommendations and a little about how I incorporate social media into my business model.

1. Reserve Your Brand At Major Social Media Outlets

Using a popular social media outlet just because I or someone else says you should is a reason to at least make a note to check out the website so you can make a first impression decision about whether it might work for you. If it does not appeal to you, open a free (if available) account in your brand name anyway so that, if you decide to use it at a later date, it's available to you. This prevents others from reserving an account at that site using your name.

2. First, Observe Others

If you decide to start using the account, first watch how other seasoned users of the technology use it. There's no need to schedule this observation time. Just do it as you go throughout your week, hearing about it in blogs, the news, etc. As you learn more about it through your network of business friends and colleagues, you'll develop a framework to prioritize checking it out further.

Take your time. There's usually no need to rush. Look carefully at how the most proficient users of the technology operate. Make mental notes of what they do that is effective and efficient in terms of time. For example, if a successful Indie Tweets 5 times a day on average, and you have a business similar to his or hers, perhaps this framework is a good one for you to consider.

Similarly, if someone blogs 3 times a week, and each blog post is about 5 paragraphs long, use this as a framework for your blog. Do they use pictures? Video? There's no need to reinvent the wheel. Look at what successful people in your field are doing. Listen to what they say about the frequency and manner in which they use the technology and pattern yourself after them. You'll find that you make changes and adjustments as you go to suit your own personal style and business model

3. Use Cross-Posting Where Available

If you decide to take advantage of a new social media outlet, look for ways to syndicate or repeat your content across your different social connections. Most new social technologies are sensitive to the fact that, there are so many of them that users need to be able to do something one time and post it across multiple different networks.

For example, when I post a video to Blip, with the click of a mouse, I cross-post it to my Myspace page. When I post an Utterli audio clip, I choose the option to automatically cross-post it to my Twitter stream. When I post a Tweet, it automatically cross-posts to my Facebook page and to this website in the right column.

Cross-posting allows me to reach multiple people with one activity.

3. Set a Time Limit For Eact Activity

You're busy running a business and a home. You have to fit online social networking into your week, but you also have to set time limits. Otherwise, you'll be closing down the bar every night and waking up the next morning wondering why you have no customers, why you overslept, and why everyone else is bright-eyed a bushy tailed.

Look at your weekly schedule and schedule in time for social connections. Spend the most time at the social outlets that serve your business best. This may change over time.

I receive note regularly from Indie Beauty Network members who say they are tracking new business directly from Twitter through a blog, and then to an e-commerce site. I would say these people need to keep blogging and Tweeting a certain amount each week, and devote smaller amounts of time to other avenues. But again, because business and technology are fluid, not to mention people are fickle, always be on the lookout to change the balance for a good reason.

4. Focus On 3 Social Media Outlets That Work Well For You

As I said earlier, it's important to defend your brand on line, including registering it as a trademark and using it in so many places that the incentive for someone else to do so is significantly diminished.

Having said that, once you're registered for 25 social networking accounts, you can't possibly use them at once unless you hire people to help you. This is a good option if you can afford it, and if you need it, but if not, carefully choose the spaces where you'll invest the most time, and make sure you're getting as much out of it as you're putting into it. Then use other times as available, for other social networks.

For example, you may have found that your blog, your e-commerce website and your Twitter stream form a triple header for you. This is the case for many startup Indies. You Tweet your new blog posts and people comment on them. You comment back to create community at your blog. While your readers are commenting and engaging with you, they also naturally discover links to your shopping cart, so they head on over there with a credit card. Focus on your website, blog and Twitter stream if that works for you.

This is the method I recommend for most Indie Beauty Businesses selling products. As your business expands, add other social outlets that seem feasible and which you can predict hold the most promise of a return. Again, take your cues from your successful industry colleagues.

What I Do

1. Each weekday morning (well, mostly each), I post a short Utterli audio feed to my Utterli page, and cross-post it to Twitter. I sometimes cross-post it to this blog as well, and now and then, I add it to my newsletter (but I have to do that manually so it doesn't happen very often).
2. Each Monday, I publish a newsletter. This is not exactly social networking, but since I have contests and other ways for my readers to respond to it, it's sort of interactive.
3. When I load a new blog post, I Tweet it.
4. Each Monday, I host the Indie Business Radio Show. People can call in their questions live. After the show, streaming and MP3 links are made available so people can enjoy the show, discuss it and share it with others.
5. I Tweet 15 to 20 times a day. This is greatly reduced from when I first started using Twitter, when I Tweeted far more than that. It was not pretty. But I have found my footing at last I think. The only time I may Tweet more frequently in a day than 15 or 20 times is when I'm at a conference, in which case I Tweet more to share helpful business tips with those not in attendance. I also share pictures, audio and video, time permitting.) I use my Tweets for my Utterli post, maybe a blog post of mine, Retweets of other people's blot posts and responses to other people's Tweets. (You can't sit at the cocktail table and just talk. You also must respond to others, yes?) I also Tweet helpful news articles, YouTube videos, etc., that are of interest to people who keep up with me on Twitter.
6. I usually cross-post my blog posts at a few Ning groups such as Twittermoms and Black Business Women Online. I also update and socialize at Facebook, LinkedIn and Myspace when I have time, when I have something helpful to contribute or when something new and interesting catches my attention there. Finally, I invest time commenting at other people's blogs, Indie Beauty Network member and blogs in particular. Because I am the founder and president of the Indie Beauty Network, many of my Tweets deal with starting a small cosmetics business. The rest generally deal with business issues that any Indie Business owner can benefit from.

I vary these activities depending on everything from the work load on any particular day, to the volume of interesting and helpful things I discover and want to share with others.

Just Be Helpful!

At the end of the day, connecting with others is all about being helpful. Sure, I do my fair share of Tweeting about a new service I am launching or my next radio show, but the vast majority of my social networking is designed to help others. And I like to connect with people who share my philosophy of using technology to enhance people's lives.

Ask yourself whether the next social media activity you plan to do will help someone else. If it will, chances are it's a good investment of your time. If not, just as you would at a cocktail party, keep your mouth shut and wait for the next opportunity to help another person.

What do you think?

Whatever you do, don't let being a social butterfly interfere with making a profit in your business. On the other hand, in order to be profitable, you have to interact socially. You can't just set up a store or website and wait for people to come to you. You've got to get out there and meet people, right?!

Do you have a system? Feel free to share it in the comments section below.

If you don't have a system and this post is inspiring you to create one, please let me know that too. I want to know whether my articles are helpful to you!

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