Now, as a disclaimer, I should point out that Integrated Alliances’s blog post was really on how to qualify a LinkedIn expert by looking at their profile and network.  This really is the only way to qualify someone without knowing them, but I want to go a little farther and assume we have more information about them.

And, as I write this post, I realize that I am also providing guidance to those who think they already are experts or would like to become experts.  Perhaps you want to try out a new feature on LinkedIn in order to realize whatever objective you might have.  I do hope this blog post provides guidelines as to what I believe the absolute essentials are in really understanding and leveraging LinkedIn.

First of all, these are the 5 main profile characteristics that I have chosen from the Integrated Alliances blog post to comment on:

• Is their Profile Complete? –> This is a given that they are using whatever space and functionality provided by LinkedIn to completely enter their profile.  However, you’d be surprised by how many people have still not completely filled out their LinkedIn profile.
• Is the Personal URL to their profile personalized? –> Once again this is another given that they have gone the extra step to personalize their URL and claim it.  If you care about your LinkedIn profile appearing on Google searches, this is a must thing to do.
• Are Jobs and Education listed all the way back with real data included? –> In addition to the required detail, I would add that does their Jobs section go back 15+ years and does their Education section include High School.  Look, if you are an expert on LinkedIn you appreciate the value in listing all of the companies and schools that you attended, and thus these are reasonable guidelines.
• Are they a member of any LinkedIn Groups? How many? More than 20? –> Once again, if you truly a LinkedIn expert, you would understand the value of LinkedIn Groups and would have maxxed out your membership to having something like close to 50 groups.  I would expect that you would be a member of at least 25 groups.
• How BIG is their Network? True LinkedIn experts cannot have small networks. –> The Integrated Alliances set a number of a minimum of 2,000 connections here in order to be considered an expert.  I would say that the number should be 6,000 connections.  Why?  Well, unless you have dealt with LinkedIn restrictions, you can’t say you are an expert.  As everyone is granted only 3,000 invitations to send, those that have double that number have obviously not only found out how to deal with LinkedIn Customer Service but have also amassed significant expertise in networking with that many connections and dealing with the issues that a large and diverse network can throw at you.

In addition to the above 5 profile features, I would additionally add the following 5 things I would be looking for in the profile of a LinkedIn expert:

• Are they Receiving Recommendations? I would expect true LinkedIn experts to both understand the value of asking for recommendations and to have had enough professional experience so that they have received at least 10.  Note that you need at least 3 to make sure that your profile is 100% complete anyway.
• Have they Started their own LinkedIn Group? How can you teach the value of Groups to others if you have not successfully started your own?
• Are they Asking and Answering Questions? Answers is one of the key functionalities that LinkedIn provides, and I would expect any LinkedIn expert to have been active at some point on the Answers boards.  I would expect them to have at least 10 Expertise Stars, regardless of subject matter.
• Have they ever Created an Event? LinkedIn Events is an amazingly viral application that any LinkedIn Expert should have experienced firsthand.  LinkedIn is a social networking application, and I expect anyone with LinkedIn expertise would of had a purpose to create an event.
• Have they ever Installed a LinkedIn Application? I don’t care which one it is, there are ten of them out there, and I am sure that every professional would find at least one of value.

Now, the negative commentary that came from the blog reader was that they felt you needed actual business experience in order to be considered a LinkedIn expert.  And, I will say it today like I did in my post yesterday, expertise is absolutely unrelated to whether or not you want to monetize your expertise.  To remind you of what I mentioned yesterday (which I will relate to LinkedIn expertise), LinkedIn (social media) experts are:

1. Recognized as being a reliable source of information and accorded authority by the public. Do they have their own blog, book, webinar, or consulting company with regards to LinkedIn?  Do others recognize them as an expert in one form or another?
2. Provide something unique that is of value beyond knowing the “mechanics” of LinkedIn (social media). What unique contribution above knowing the workings of LinkedIn have they provided to the community?
3. True LinkedIn (social media) experts are leaders and not followers. How have they showed their leadership in LinkedIn expertise?

The last three points are crucial, and while being slightly rhetorical, true LinkedIn experts are not those that have monetized their experience but are those that are true Thought Leaders on the subject.

What is your definition of a LinkedIn expert?

A recent LA Times article outlined some of the radical pricing policies that fast food companies are trying.

• Taco Bell has its Why Pay More” menu of 79-to-99-cent items.
• El Pollo Loco has taken it one step lower — 69-cent tacos, with a limit of 10.
• Wendy’s has its “3conomics” campaign offering three sandwiches at 99 cents each.
• And of course Burger King, McDonald’s and everyone else has a $1 Value Menu.

With one exception, these restaurants are may be doing more harm than good as they focus on price and neglect the brand.

For example, Burger King recently announced that starting in June it will significantly increase its price message.  Burger King will be spending two thirds of its ad budget on value meal products, like its BK Shots and $1 Whopper Jr.  Cheap, Cheap, Cheap.

“The current marketplace is demanding value and the company is being responsive to that consumer-driven demand,” Russ Klein, Burger King’s president of global marketing strategy and innovation, said in an email.

But is low cost and low quality really what Americans are looking for?  McDonald’s has taken the exact opposite approach.  McDonald’s is boosting its support for higher priced/higher margin products.  According to an Ad Age article:

“In the last eight months, we have placed greater emphasis on flagship-quality products,” McDonald’s USA CMO Neil Golden said in an interview. “And it’s making a difference. These are the products consumers love and feel good about enjoying on a regular basis, and it’s been a very successful part of our business.”

By paring price promotion with a strong quality message, McDonald’s boosts margins and continues to strengthen its core brand platform.   And increased sales of higher margin items results in more marketing dollars to support the brand.  So just when Burger King is trying to raise sales from its Value Menu, McDonald’s is seeing the percentage of sales from their Value Menu decline.  Whose strategy is right?  In the past 12 months:

• Burger King’s stock is down over 40%
• Wendy’s stock is down about 40%
• McDonald’s stock is up about 3%

This doesn’t mean that you can’t promote based on price.  It just means that price promotion without reinforcing core brand strengths is self defeating.  You can sell a lot of tacos for $.69, but if they taste so bad only a 15 year old boy would eat them, you’re just going to dig yourself deeper into a hole.

As a result, the size of your social network stays about the same.

People might like to think they have control over whom they choose as friends, but social networks could also be influenced by the context in which we meet one another. Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst ofUtrecht University in the Netherlands was interested in finding out exactly how much our networks are shaped by social context or by personal preference.

He conducted a survey of 1,007 people ages 18 to 65, and then contacted the participants seven years later. From the original group, 604 people were re-interviewed. The survey contained questions such as: Who do you talk with, regarding personal issues? Who helps you with DIY in your home? Who do you pop by to see? Where did you get to know that person? And where do you meet that person now?

The results showed that personal network sizes remained stable, but that many members of the network were new. About 30 percent of discussion partners and practical helpers had the same position in a typical subject’s network seven years later. And only 48 percent were still part of the network. This finding goes against previous research which had showed that social network sizes are shrinking.

Mollenhorst also established that networks were not formed based on personal choices alone. Our friend choices are limited by the opportunities to meet. He saw that people frequently choose friends from a context in which they have previously chosen a friend. Also, whether or not our friends know each other strongly depends on the context under which people meet.

Mollenhorst’s research is part of the project “Where friends are made. Context, Contacts, Consequences,” set up by Beate Völker.

1. Build an account and immediate start using Twitter Search to listen for your name, your competitor’s names, words that relate to your space. (Listening always comes first.)
2. Add a picture. ( Shel reminds us of this.) We want to see you.
3. Talk to people about THEIR interests, too. I know this doesn’t sell more widgets, but it shows us you’re human.
4. Point out interesting things in your space, not just about you.
5. Share links to neat things in your community. ( @wholefoods does this well).
6. Don’t get stuck in the apology loop. Be helpful instead. ( @jetblue gives travel tips.)
7. Be wary of always pimping your stuff. Your fans will love it. Others will tune out.
8. Promote your employees’ outside-of-work stories. ( @TheHomeDepot does it well.)
9. Throw in a few humans, like RichardAtDELL, LionelAtDELL, etc.
10. Talk about non-business, too, like @astrout and @jstorerj from Mzinga.

Ideas About WHAT to Tweet

1. Instead of answering the question, “What are you doing?”, answer the question, “What has your attention?”
2. Have more than one twitterer at the company. People can quit. People take vacations. It’s nice to have a variety.
3. When promoting a blog post, ask a question or explain what’s coming next, instead of just dumping a link.
4. Ask questions. Twitter is GREAT for getting opinions.
5. Follow interesting people. If you find someone who tweets interesting things, see who she follows, and follow her.
6. Tweet about other people’s stuff. Again, doesn’t directly impact your business, but makes us feel like you’re not “that guy.”
7. When you DO talk about your stuff, make it useful. Give advice, blog posts, pictures, etc.
8. Share the human side of your company. If you’re bothering to tweet, it means you believe social media has value for human connections. Point us to pictures and other human things.
9. Don’t toot your own horn too much. (Man, I can’t believe I’m saying this. I do it all the time. – Side note: I’ve gotta stop tooting my own horn).
10. Or, if you do, try to balance it out by promoting the heck out of others, too.

Some Sanity For You

1. You don’t have to read every tweet.
2. You don’t have to reply to every @ tweet directed to you (try to reply to some, but don’t feel guilty).
3. Use direct messages for 1-to-1 conversations if you feel there’s no value to Twitter at large to hear the conversation ( got this from @pistachio).
4. Use services like Twitter Search to make sure you see if someone’s talking about you. Try to participate where it makes sense.
5. 3rd party clients like Tweetdeck and Twhirl make it a lot easier to manage Twitter.
6. If you tweet all day while your coworkers are busy, you’re going to hear about it.
7. If you’re representing clients and billing hours, and tweeting all the time, you might hear about it.
8. Learn quickly to use the URL shortening tools like TinyURL and all the variants. It helps tidy up your tweets.
9. If someone says you’re using twitter wrong, forget it. It’s an opt out society. They can unfollow if they don’t like how you use it.
10. Commenting on others’ tweets, and retweeting what others have posted is a great way to build community.

The Negatives People Will Throw At You

1. Twitter takes up time.
2. Twitter takes you away from other productive work.
3. Without a strategy, it’s just typing.
4. There are other ways to do this.
5. As Frank hears often, Twitter doesn’t replace customer service (Frank is@comcastcares and is a superhero for what he’s started.)
6. Twitter is buggy and not enterprise-ready.
7. Twitter is just for technonerds.
8. Twitter’s only a few million people. (only)
9. Twitter doesn’t replace direct email marketing.
10. Twitter opens the company up to more criticism and griping.

Some Positives to Throw Back

1. Twitter helps one organize great, instant meetups (tweetups).
2. Twitter works swell as an opinion poll.
3. Twitter can help direct people’s attention to good things.
4. Twitter at events helps people build an instant “backchannel.”
5. Twitter breaks news faster than other sources, often (especially if the news impacts online denizens).
6. Twitter gives businesses a glimpse at what status messaging can do for an organization. Remember presence in the 1990s?
7. Twitter brings great minds together, and gives you daily opportunities to learn (if you look for it, and/or if you follow the right folks).
8. Twitter gives your critics a forum, but that means you can study them.
9. Twitter helps with business development, if your prospects are online (mine are).
10. Twitter can augment customer service. (but see above)

FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER @scottsmith34