LinkedIn Endorsements

On LinkedIn, you have many smart, talented, and skilled professional connections. In September 2012, Endorsements made their debut onto the LinkedIn platform. Endorsements are a new feature that makes it easier to recognize LinkedIn users for their skills and expertise. With just one click, you can now endorse your connections for a skill they have listed on their profile or recommend one they have not added yet.

Do you think your connection is great at programming or project management or selling? Let them know!

More importantly, let them know with an Endorsement, so everyone else will know too!

This is how you can make a LinkedIn Endorsement. This is truly easy!

• Scroll down a LinkedIn connection’s profile, you will see the Skills & Expertise section for that LinkedIn user.
• To endorse, simply click on the skill (shaded in gray) you intend to endorse. That's it!
• You can suggest additional skills as well, and LinkedIn will often suggest one or two skills for which you can be the first to offer an Endorsement.

Here is what my Endorsement section looks like. This shows me--and more importantly shows any LinkedIn viewers--a quick snapshot of what OTHERS think I am good at. When a recruiter or hiring manager stumbles by this page, I have a ready-to-go assembly of networked contacts confirming my skills.

This is powerful stuff!

Do you need or want practice? Just click on the image and you will be at my profile.

Want to see who has endorsed you? LinkedIn will notify you via email and on LinkedIn whenever you are endorsed. You can scroll to the bottom of your profile page under Skills & Expertise to see the faces of people who think you are great at what you do. You can also accept any new skills recommended by your peers that you may not have thought to include on your profile.

Here is a fantastic video explaining how to endorse your LinkedIn connections from Marc Miller at Career Pivot. Marc knows the value of this LinkedIn feature. Stop by his website at www.careerpivot.com or send him a thank you tweet at @careerpivot. I know he will appreciate it.

So go Endorse, my friends. It will improve your connectivity to your network, and unquestionably help out others too.

Facebook, the World's 3rd Largest Country

Some mind-blowing data concerning Facebook: In Autumn 2012, Facebook surpassed the  1,000,000,000 user milestone.

Facebook would be the world's third largest country, with a GDP of $3.71 billion. (You would think its leader afford more than a T-shirt.)

Social Media & Restaurants: The Leaders

Curious how your favorite restaurant or coffee haunt handles Social Media? This quick glance confirms what you have been thinking: These brands are putting enormous efforts into Social Media.

Personally, I am AMAZED at how much Starbucks has distanced itself from its peers on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest. Astonishing!

They are definitely listening. Drop any of these brands a line in a Social Media channel and see what happens.

Restaurant Social Media Top 10 [Infographic]

Compliments of QSRweb.com and Foodservice Social Media Universe

How I feel about Internet Explorer...

...and my apologies and sympathies to those of you who have no other choice at work.

E-Mail Blunders You Don't Want To Make

I think I have done all of these at one point or another.

Borrowing material from the fine folks at Rackspace, who have put together 3 minutes worth of humorous and frighteningly familiar e-mail blunders.

My personal favorites (or pet peeves, as the case may be)

• Don't E-Mail Angry

And

• Don't Reply All

Any other favorites in there? Or better yet, any great stories of e-mail nightmares?

How To Add a Twitter Photo Header

Must must must give a shoutout to Courtney Doman, one of my fantastic Spredfast colleagues and fellow Michigan hailer, on some new Twitter features.

The quick news on what's new at Twitter: Twitter announced two main changes: new header photos and updates to background images. So you can be more creative and more expressive than ever with your own Twitter page.

Lots more detail, some step-by-step instructions, and a fine example of a great upgrade to the Spredfast page is waiting for you here:

http://www.spredfast.com/2012/09/21/heads-up-how-to-add-a-twitter-header-photo/

Go check it out, and let's see some sweet new Twitter pages.

Facebook updates... to Photos

News coming from the universe of Facebook with regard to photos. In this case, I think these features are pretty cool, but they could leave you searching for some photo options that you were previously used to seeing right away.

There is one major surprise, along with some cool features, coming to Facebook Photos.

First, the surprise...

• Facebook will no longer present albums first but rather tagged pictures of you or the friend whose profile you're looking at.

If you are a world-class organizer, carefully and faithfully filing your photos into Albums, those are still present, but Facebook is going to surface photos of you or of your friend first. Not to worry, the Albums feature is still a click away.

When you land at the Photos page, you will start with Photos of You and see something like this masthead near the top of your Photos page. If you need to look at all of your photos, just click Photos. And to see your super-organized Albums, just click Albums to see your traditional Album view.

And now the new cool features....

• The new Photos section will let users highlight their favorite pictures, making them four times larger than other photos. 

To highlight a photo, just click the Highlight (star) icon in the corner of the photo. Facebook will grow the photo right before your eyes with a slick animation that shuffles your photos slightly, but remarkably leaves them in the same order.

In the example here, the Highlight (star) icon will appear once you hover over the photo. 

I

Once you click that Highlight (star) icon, the photo grows to 4 times its original size and shuffles other photos to make way for your now prized masterpiece. Show off those great photos and moments of your life by Highlighting those photos.

And that's not all...

• You can now issue Likes and Comments right from the Photos page. Again, hovering is the key. Just hover over the photo and you will automatically spot the Like and Comment buttons come into view. Your Likes and Comments will register right from these views without need to detour into a different Facebook page first. Nice to make some quick comments without surfing all over Facebook.

So some pretty cool stuff. And you are in the driver's seat of knowing what happened and how to navigate it. You're so smart!