9 tips to use social networking sites to enhance your business

Join fastest-growing social networking tools on the planet: Twitter. Create profiles on LinkedIn, Xing, Projo, MiGente and other professional and social networks) Interac with fellow translators, small business owners, entrepreneurs, bloggers, travelers AND OTHERS Receive updates and exchange information Allow others to l follow you Follow other great translators Link your blog/site and social network profile pages to Twitter Know that Twitter is an incredibly powerful tool that reaches millions of people in real time. 140 characters is plenty and why not use them?

Linkedin & Translators

This is an interesting article published in Translators Directory. Facebook, Twitter, Flixster, LinkedIn: They make up the fastest growing segment of the Internet. In fact, two-thirds of online users access "member communities," which include social networks and blogs, according to research conducted this year by The Nielsen Company. They have even overtaken e-mail as the fourth most popular online category, and they are growing twice as fast as any other category. “Social networking has become a fundamental part of the global online experience,” says John Burbank, CEO of Nielsen Online. “Social networking will continue to alter not just the global online landscape, but the consumer experience at large.” But are these sites just fun, and a great way to procrastinate, or are they useful in business? How are they being applied in our world of languages and localization? It turns out that the fifth most visited social network internationally, LinkedIn, is the most popular spot for localization professionals. Unlike many other networking sites, LinkedIn grew as a result of "professionals" connecting with one another more than "friends." In its first few years, it was known as an insiders approach to job seeking and job posting. But in the last couple of years it has broadened into a rich community for all types of industries. And in 2008, LinkedIn boosted its population significantly by building a strong international presence. As the "localization" of LinkedIn continues (it is currently the most popular professional network in Europe with more than five million users and is available in several European languages, but is not heavily used in Asia yet), so does its popularity among localization professionals. Within the language and localization industry, it has become a place to post news, ask questions, discuss industry trends, and conduct surveys. It is a way to educate yourself, build your connections, and get yourself and your company noticed by prospective localization users. McElroy Translation employees even introduced its new (McElroy+ Machine) Translation suite of services on LinkedIn. Have you linked up? Here are a few of the key ways you can participate. First, build a personal profile. It is free, requiring your e-mail address and a password. Once you have provided that information, you are ready to build your profile. You will get the most out of LinkedIn by completing as much of the profile as possible. That includes your current and past employment, your industry focus, your picture, and your education. LinkedIn will let you know how complete your profile is. So if you add your picture or your past work experience, it will indicate that your profile is further along. LinkedIn allows you to get recommendations as a third-party "endorsement" of your work. This is not just for folks seeking jobs—it is a way to elevate your overall profile. You can ask another LinkedIn user to provide a short recommendation that will show up on your profile. Once you have created your profile, you can always go back to edit. But most of the time you will use the home page instead, which now will be tailored to your profile. For example, if you have indicated you are in the localization industry, your home page will show upcoming localization events that have been posted by other users. It also will show interesting discussions and questions from users within your industry. Answering a question or participating in a discussion will boost your LinkedIn status and make you more visible within the industry. Remember, these types of connections can lead to all kinds of new professional opportunities. A quick view of your home page each day—no more than 15 minutes—is a great way to keep up in the industry and build your network. Next, make sure your company is LinkedIn. The company profiles on LinkedIn have become more popular in the last year, making the creating of one a great extension to your company website and/or blog. And the LinkedIn metrics that display on the company page validate your company and its employees. For example, McElroy Translation’s company page shows which McElroy employees are LinkedIn and the companies and groups they most often visit. In McElroy’s case, employees are most linked to Common Sense Advisory and the American Translator’s Association. One person from the company should create the profile and all employees should link their individual profiles to it. McElroy Translation formalized the process by having a person in charge of the company page and then reminding employees to link themselves to that page. Linking to the company page is accomplished by editing the current employer section within the individual’s profile. Once the company page is up and running, it can be edited by any linked employee (although it is best if one person is in charge of updating). Its usefulness is extended by linking to the company website or blog, or even by creating a short company blog on LinkedIn. Now that you have created personal and company profiles, join network groups. There are some fabulous localization industry networks on LinkedIn. A few of the most active networks are The Localization Professional, managed by Serge Gladkoff, with more than 3,000 members; the Localization and Globalization Fusion Society, managed by Common Sense Advisory, with more than 1,000 members; and, the Globalization and Localization Association’s new discussion group that already has almost 900 members. All of these, as well as many others, can be found by conducting a search of LinkedIn groups (through the search field on any LinkedIn page). Once you’ve joined some networks, use them effectively to meet with folks who have a common interest in business—network as you would if you were at a trade conference. You can display your industry knowledge by participating in some of the discussions. You can post news to all members of the group—maybe a new report you’ve conducted, or an article you’ve published (always provide the link). At McElroy, we recently let folks know about the new chief language officer role we have created and linked to an article about it by Don De Palma of Common Sense Advisory. You also can ask questions and get useful answers. Recently I posted a question about RFPs in the localization industry. The answers I received helped immensely as I wrote questions on RFPs for an upcoming survey from GALA. Again, limit yourself to a few minutes each day or designate one day per week when you spend 30 minutes on your groups. Like many things in life, the more you use LinkedIn, the more valuable it can become. At the same time, the more you use it, the more time you can waste! It is important to strike a balance to make sure you are taking effective advantage of networking opportunities without shortchanging other important activities. And once you have it all figured out, you can start tweeting too! (More on that another time.) -------- Source:http://www.translationdirectory.com/articles/article1970.php All rights belong to ostom, Use of this post is allowed provided this link is present at the end of the article http://getdirectclient.blogspot.com

Networking Tips for Freelance translators

I found a good article on networking. Read and use it for your benefit-\Ostom This Article gives a little insight into the mechanism of onlinenetworks and their benefits for self-promotion and marketing offreelancers and small businesses. This is an edited reprint of an article written for babelport.com, theTranslation Industry Information and Project Portal, andnakedtranslation.com, Céline Graciets excellent Translation web-log.The article offers a little insight into techniques of virtualself-promotion and networking for freelancers and small companies,especially in the translation industry. As a self-employed programmerand project manager I’ve had my share of experience in this but still Iam far from being an expert. Nonetheless, here’s my compacted knowledgeof what networking means and how networks are created, maintained, andextended. What is networking? Technically, a network is a collection of interconnected uniqueentities allowing for and generating multilateral transfers withredundant ways and strategies of interaction. Translating thistechie-jibberish: a network is made up of individuals communicatingwith each other. To use an analogy: like a spider in his web you can gofrom one spot to another using the paths that connect the individualpositions: The more connections are established in a web the morestable it is. In fact, personal and business networks very muchresemble the web of a spider. Through networks, new contacts are made: Imagine, your best friend’sfriend introduces you to one of her acquaintances who will at a laterpoint introduce you to your future chess club fellow whose cousin willturn out to become your wife/husband/friend - or may be a new client.There is a theory, called The Six degrees of Separation (moreinformation) which basically says that you only have to know sevenpeople who know seven others and so forth to know everybody on thisplanet. By making use of personal contacts you create and maintainnetworks daily. In real life everybody has social networks: your family, your friends,your business partners etc. Networks are the most valuable resources wehave - not only in business. When it comes down to business, however,it is vital to understand that you cannot have enough of them. As aprofessional in your specific field you are most likely alreadynetworking daily: Making sales contacts, calling colleagues, showing upregularly at your local professional association meetings, knowing yourlinks to the Chamber of Commerce etc. Through this, you certainly havegotten most of your jobs so far and will in the future. If you areexperienced in this kind of networking you may also be a member of abusiness group, which usually only allow a small number of eachprofession to join. This is real life networking you are mostexperienced with if you have not just started freelancing yesterday. This article will concentrate more specifically on on-line marketing orself-promotion instead of repeating what everybody most likely knows.On-line self-promotion works along the same principles as itsreal-world sibling: You need to create networks, leave positive firstimpressions, and make sure your connections are redundant. In order togo into detail, however, it is necessary to have an idea about userbehaviour and of how search engines work. Search engines and your virtual self Search engines gather addresses from header information sent bybrowsers when user point their browsers to Google and Co, as well asfrom threads in Usenet groups, news services, and, of course, web sitesthey have previously indexed. These addresses are stored into databasesand spiders or robots, little programmes that browse these sitesautomatically, are sent to these websites regularly. My own site, forinstance, is indexed by robots daily for new content (1.000 views perday) and every 5 or 6 weeks completely (25.000-40.000 views per day). When indexing websites robots usually call pages more than oncedepending on the number of internal links. In that sense, a website isits own little network. Search engines distinguish between internal,incoming, and outgoing links. Internal links help to evaluate the‘weight’ of the single page and its content, outgoing links arerelatively unimportant for the evaluation of the site itself butrepresent incoming links for the sites linked to. Incoming links,however, represent the most important factor, apart from content, ofcourse. The more incoming links a website gets the more valuable itbecomes: it is represented in Google’s internal database and robotswill index it more frequently. Like an introvert in real life a websitewithout incoming links is practically isolated and virtually unable tonetwork, hence it becomes vital for a business website to get as manyincoming links as possible. Apart from links a major factor that helps to promote your website -your virtual self - is well represented content. Search engines buildtheir catalogues of key words from textual information you offer andcombine them with the number of incoming links registered for yourwebsite. Of course, the information about you, your experience,expertise, products, services, and prices represent the core content.But surplus you offer on-line may be the key for virtual success. Anews section, a web-log, or a glossary of your expertise representssuch additional information. Larger companies offer forums, references,dictionaries etc. The important fact is that the content needs to beoriginal - continuously reprinting is rather harmful. Blogs are goodexamples: Many offer little original content apart from copying textsfound elsewhere; others, however, paraphrase and comment on recentpublications, news, and events - thus, they create a surplus ofinformation - an expertise. Remember, robots index your contentregularly. It pays off to regularly provide up-to-date surplusinformation since more content will get your site being linked to morekeywords in search engines. Another way to easily produce a little bit of content is integratingnews feeds. Some websites offer xml-based or javascript-generated newsspecific to your industry. Babelport.com, for instance, offers a NewsFeed for the translation industry that can be configured according toyour needs. Babelport.com News Feed covers topics including translationmarkets, workshops & events, news about CAT-Tools and PC-Securityrelevant information up to six times a week. Using the Configurator youcan generate html/php/javascript code that allows to integrate new andup-to-date content on your website easily and according to yourlayout-needs. Content is best represented as text in plain html, with a well-done butsimple design. Company websites should not have the most fancy design -in fact this may influence your ranking negatively. Flash drivenwebsites are more difficult to index and don’t forget that many usersdisabled such features. Also robots only index plain html-links nopopup, javascript, or flash-based links (See Google for moreinformation how search engines index sites). Furthermore, as in reallife a positive initial impression is everything: Users not getting theimportant information immediately will turn elsewhere - don’t expectthem to spend minutes searching. Now that Google & Co havesomething to index you need to make sure they will findA your virtualself. Here networking and on-line self-promotion starts. Creating networks online If incoming links are so important to your site - how do ensure you getthem? First, by regularly providing content: if you provide valuableinformation visitors will link to your site. Second, virtual businessnetworks allow you to create profiles and get promoted for free orlittle money. Third, find means to demonstrate your special knowledge:engage in expert exchange forums, publish articles about your area ofexpertise on portals like babelport.com, etc.. Whatever you do makesure you provide your unique signature and your URL. Thus people willremember you more easily and you also become more visible (and yoursearch engine rankings are improved). Moreover, put a tagline to your signature in emails, forum posts, etc:A short but catchy slogan that represents what you do and how you feelabout the kind of work you do. For some good examples you may have alook at the user profiles visible at babelport.com. Make sure, however,you don’t put superlatives in there - calling your self the fastest,most reliable, or best begs a challenge to this claim. Joining business organisations and business portals is another majorkeys to successful virtual networking, whether you wish to bid for jobsor not. There are some out there addressing translators (includingbabelport.com) and some excellent general ones (e.g. www.openbc.com).Apart from the direct benefits of such platforms (creating personalnetworks, getting access to information, and, possibly, a job) you canonly profit from signing up with such business portals. The reason issimple: Due to the amount of content, keywords, and incoming linksportals like these are more frequently indexed than the website of asmall business or freelancer. If you have a profile page on theseportals, participate in forum discussions, or publish articles thAereyour name, profile, résumé, tagline, and your URL will be indexed everytime robots crawl the site completely. Lastly, ensure a steady visibility on business platforms. Beingadvertised as featured member for only a day creates additionalincoming links valid for some weeks if a robots indexes the page duringthat time (remember the daily indexing by robots). This will have moreeffect than paying for keywords on Google or banner ads in generalweb-directories. Also, the more articles and forum threads you post themore incoming links are generated for your own website. Redundancy onlyhelps to strengthen your virtual networks (remember the spideranalogy?): Be listed and engage in more than just one business portal.By creating profiles on and actively participating in multipleplatforms your virtual self will be ranked higher in search engineresults and connected to more keywords. Continuous investment As in real life, maintaining virtual networks is time and, sometimes,money consuming. You do not need to provide original content daily -but do it regularly. Give yourself at least three hours per week towrite some content for your website and to participate in onlineforums. If you have gathered unique information in your business, orwritten essays on translation, tips for freelancers, or wish to publishnew linguistic research results, contact our administrators who willput them online for free at babelport.com. Doing this you gainexpertise and reputation directly and add to your virtual network atthe same time. Joining business portals does not need to cost money - there are manybenefits you get for free. Investing in annual member fees for two orthree portals, however, may cost you a couple of hundred Euros peryear, but remember it is investing into your business and may earn youmore reputation than spending the same money in printed newspaperadvertisemenAt. It certainly creates more lasting links immediately andpays off in the long run. Especially if you are running a business withglobal reach - and as a freelance translator you most likely are - youwill need to promote yourself as heavily internationally as locally.Business portals offer great opportunities for this. Creating, maintaining, and extending your personal and virtual businessdemands continuous engagement and investment with success often notimmediately visible. The benefits, however, will be measurable insteadily increasing website-traffic in the long run. Sourcehttp://www.popupkillers.org/popup-com/virtual-networking-101-for-freelance-translators-and-small-translation-agencies

Tips for enhancing social skills

Top 10 Tips for Improving Your Social 1. Create your own emotions. 2.It’s not so much about the logical stuff. 3. Three things you are better off avoiding. 4. What is most important? 5. Focus outward, not inward. 6. Take control of your emotions. 7. No, they are not holding you back. 8. So, what’s in it for me? 9. How to win an argument Read the whole article at http://www.scribd.com/docinfo/2198718?access_key=key-1orzn4x7mnt8a16tcsvv