Facebook ‘likes’ are quickly turning into currency for credibility. The more ‘likes’ your business has, the more seriously consumers will perceive your company. Extra bonus: every time someone ‘likes’ your page, each of your updates shows up in their news feed, thereby providing them constant reminders of your brand.

So how can you pump up your ‘likes’ to Apple Inc. and Gap levels (2.7 million and 1.4 million, respectively)? Follow these tips and you’ll soon be on your way.

Tag, Tag, Tag
 

In late January, Jill Homiak, founder of Presenza, a wrap top designer in Alexandria, Virginia, posted this to her company’s Facebook wall: ‘Who else is excited that Sofia Vergara is the new CoverGirl?!?!’ She tagged the word CoverGirl by putting an @ before the ‘c’, thereby alerting CoverGirl to the post. Her plan worked; it not only caught the attention of the cosmetics brand, but the brand ended up ‘liking’ her comment.

“By ‘liking’ my comment, it showed up on their Facebook page, which is ‘liked’ by more than 1.7 million people,” says Homiak. “It gave us huge visibility and we attracted more ‘likes’ in the process.”

Donate to Charity
 

PaySimple, a cloud-based accounts receivable provider out of Denver, Colorado is taking a touchy-feely approach to attracting ‘likes.’

“We are taking part in a month-long philanthropy campaign where, for every ‘like’ we receive, we will donate $1 to Kids Are Heroes, a non-profit that inspires volunteerism in children,” says Sarah Jordan, the company’s director of marketing, adding that the company is hoping to bring in around 200 likes and, so far, is up 40 from last month.

If you’re inspired to try this but aren’t sure what charity will resonate with your customers, Jordan recommends the trial and error method to see what brings about the most interest.

Host a Giveaway/Contest
 

On New Year’s Day 2011, Marc Joseph’s Facebook business page had around 3,200 ‘likes.’ Today, it has more than 42,000.

How’d he do it?

“I’ve been doing giveaways every month since January 2011 on Facebook and it has worked beautifully,” says Joseph, CEO and president of DollarDays International, Inc., a wholesale distributor out of Scottsdale, Arizona. “In addition, we really engage with our customers online and ask them what kinds of giveaways they want, which inspires even more attention and comments.”

Contests are also great ‘like’ drivers. Just before Christmas, Brina Bujkovsky, founder of The Younique Boutique in San Marcos, California, offered a free hanging quilt as the prize of a contest asking followers to describe their happiest holiday memories on her business’s Facebook page. The contest worked—her ‘likes’ went from 100 to more than 800 in just two weeks, she selected the winner at random and then asked them to post photos of the quilt once they received it—attracting even more ‘likes.’

Create a Splash Page
 

A splash page is a gate to one's Facebook wall and usually contains colorful graphics describing a company, promoting products or sales. Louis Hernandez, Jr., CEO of The Motor Bookstore, a car manual retailer in DeBary, Fla., uses his splash page to capture ‘likes.’

“A splash page asks the visitor to ‘like’ your page before seeing your wall contents,” he says. “You can bypass this, but the majority of visitors will follow instructions.”

Reward re-posts
 

In an effort to get the word out about her harp performance business, Merry Miller turned to Facebook in a creative way: she asked followers to do the work for her.

“I inspired my base to re-post a link to my love CD by offering to play a wedding for free to the person who got the most likes on my link,” she says. “I captured 100 likes in the first day.”

Get personal
 

Facebook users hate a hard sell. Endear your business to followers by posting on personal topics such a popular sports games and how you feel about the weather. Michael D. Haaren, co-founder of Rat Race Rebellion, a work-from-home job board out of Annandale, Virginia, posts about his obsession with Nutella and gets tons of feedback as well as ‘likes.’

Bottom line: remember to put the ‘social’ in social media; don’t talk at your consumers. They will just tune out.

via openforum.com

In my opinion, the most powerful social media profile you can use is the LinkedIn profile.

Most powerful that is, if you are looking to do more business and/or achieve your professional goals.

There’s a certain mindset LinkedIn members have when they spend time there.

They don’t browse through pictures and videos of their friends.

They don’t go there to share 140 characters of their current status.

And they don’t go there to watch panda bears sneeze or talking dogs say “I love you”.

Although other social networking sites have their place and purpose, none of them have the professionally directed power of LinkedIn.
LinkedIn means business!

Your LinkedIn profile says everything about who you are professionally.

And since it tends to rank well on Google for your name, people will read your LinkedIn profile when they want to do research on you, your product, service, or company.

In other words, what you say on your profile will have an impact on the amount of business you do on LinkedIn.

Here are 7 ways to enhance the copy on your profile to ensure that you get everything you want from LinkedIn:
1. It’s all about the headline

Headlines are everything in newspapers, magazines, and on blogs.

They are just as important on your LinkedIn profile, because the headline the first thing that shows up anytime someone does a search online. A simple way to ensure your headline doesn’t suck is to follow a simple formula.

Tell people specifically:

Who you are
Who you help, and
How you help them

Tell them in the fewest words possible. Make your headline compelling and you’ll increase your chances of more meaningful profile views.
2. Get personal

Although LinkedIn is the “professional” social networking site, you want to reserve the first part of your “Summary” to add a personal note about yourself.

People don’t want to look at a resume with bullet points of past sales achievements (barf!), they want to know a little bit about your background. They want to know who you are.

To achieve this, add a personal intro about your goals, what you’re passionate about, and what you love to do in life.

This small touch of transparency will help you connect on a personal level with anyone who views your profile.
3. Spell check. And then check again.

You probably have no clue how many deals are happening day in and day out on LinkedIn.

I hear success stories all of the time about people landing their dream job, getting hired for a major consulting deal, finding 7 figure investors, receiving major sponsorships, selling out tickets to live events, and more.

The potential for what you can accomplish on LinkedIn is nearly unlimited.

However, I also hear about people who are completely turned off by a prospect with a bare-bones profile, or worse — spelling mistakes. Make sure to spell check everything and have others review it to give you their feedback.

This small step could make all the difference in your interactions on LinkedIn. You know what they say about those first impressions.
4. Make a call to action

One of the biggest mistakes you can make is not having a call to action on your LinkedIn profile.

If you spend all of this time crafting a great message but don’t lead the viewer anywhere, all your work will have been for nothing.

In your “Summary”, or in your LinkedIn welcome video make sure to tell people what site they should go to for more information, what number to call to get a free consultation, or the best way to email you.

Don’t leave your potential customers and clients hanging. Give them a place to go next (and a reason to go there).
5. Social proof is powerful proof

Social proof helps influence others into making a “buying” decision.

LinkedIn makes this step easy by providing 3 primary sections to add social proof:

Education. Adding the college or university you attended provides your education credentials, and increases the value of your personal brand.
Awards. This section is the one place you can brag about yourself a little. Include any past accomplishments or industry awards you can think of that will increase the value of your profile.
Recommendations. The more recommendations you have on your profile the better. This is the best form of social proof, as it conveys credibility and authority. The best way to receive recommendations is to give them first.

6. Improve your search rankings

If you want to get more leads and sales, then the easiest thing you can do is become easily found on LinkedIn for keywords in your niche.

Think about what people would be searching for on Google to find your business, service, or product (for example, mine would be “sports” or “LinkedIn Tips”). Make sure you add your keywords throughout your LinkedIn profile in five main places.

Learn more about where to include your keywords and increase your LinkedIn SEO here.
7. Stand out from the crowd

With close to 130 million LinkedIn profiles, many of them look the same.

Don’t join the herd of boring “glamour shot” profiles. Instead, do something creative in your copy to market yourself on LinkedIn, stand out, and keep people coming back for more.

Add LinkedIn’s blog application, sync it with your twitter updates, or include other advanced applications to help your profile stand out from the rest.
Take your profile to the next level

As LinkedIn continues to grow in numbers and gain more media attention, it will prove to add more value to your brand and business.

If you want to get the most out of your efforts with LinkedIn, take the time right now to implement these 7 steps and watch your profile take off.