Fun LinkedIn Facts:

• LinkedIn operates the world’s largest professional network on the Internet with more than 120 million members in over 200 countries and territories.
• Professionals are signing up to join LinkedIn at a rate that is faster than two new members per second.
• LinkedIn counts executives from all 2011 Fortune 500 companies as members; its corporate hiring solutions are used by 75 of the Fortune 100 companies.

With statistics as impressive as those, can your company afford not to be utilizing LinkedIn in its marketing strategy?

I’ll admit, LinkedIn is not a service that I check several times a day like I do other social media sites. But after sitting in on our latest Virtual Partner Velocity broadcast, which fellow Channels blogger Alex Krasne hosted and moderated, I think I’ll be changing my social media tune.

During this informative broadcast, guest speaker Heather Margolis, Channel Maven Consulting President and Founder and Everything Channel contributor shared tips on how to use LinkedIn to brand yourself online, increase your network, engage with prospects, drive marketing tactics, and build your thought leadership platform.

She gave key pointers on simple things you can do today to spruce up your LinkedIn profile and how to correctly use the features the powerful platform has to offer. Then, Heather answered questions that our audience tweeted in during the broadcast.

Couldn’t tune in to the broadcast? The video replay is available now.
The replay is available on the Partner Velocity site. Look for Heather Margolis in the list of events and click “View replay” to access the On Demand broadcast.After you watch the replay, complete the event survey on the Partner Velocity site to be entered into a sweepstakes to win a social media assessment and consulting from Channel Maven Consulting (US $1800 value).

After Heather presented, we took questions the audience submitted. Keep reading to check out the useful advice Heather had. Read More »

Tags: Cisco, heather margolis, linkedin, marketing, partner, partner velocity, social media

As Andrew learned the hard way, doing your research before you make an investment pays off, whether you’re buying a car or equipment for your network.

In this episode of Partner Update, we explore total cost of ownership and why it’s the only true way to measure network costs. We also cover storytelling tips and methods learned from esteemed author and presentation expert Nancy Duarte (she created the presentation you see in Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth), our October 18 TweetChat with Nancy, our October 20 broadcast covering LinkedIn for B2B, virtualization technology news, Cisco’s own Edison Peres’ travels to speak with partners in South America, LEAP centers to help partners test out data centers, tips for solution providers, and much more. Whew!

Tune in for the latest partner news:

Keep reading for a text summary and list of links mentioned during Partner Update. Read More »

Tags: channels, Cisco, heather margolis, nancy duarte, partner update, partners, tco, virtual velocity, Westcon Group