I tried to log in to my LinkedIn account as I do every day and to my surprise I read “Your LinkedIn Profile Has Been Suspended”.  Oh my god!

My account, my contacts, my groups, my business and my marketing are all suspended.  Yes, I do a lot of business on LinkedIn and use it every single day. How what?  What happened? Did I do something wrong? Can this happen to you? YES!

Immediately I visited the FAQ in LinkedIn and under “suspended accounts” I read every single question and answer.  No, I did not send unrequested emails or invitations, no, I did not spam, no, I did not do anything wrong.  What happened?

After reading the FAQ portion I quickly submitted an email through the web form in the suspended account section of the professional social network.  I waited 2 days and nothing.  No account and no response.  Now I visited the social network again and read all pertinent information I could find.  Finally, I found a customer service email.  I quickly send an email explaining my situation and asking for clarification, an explanation or any response.  Even apologizing for whatever unintentionally I could have done to merit a suspended account.

Next day I received a response and my account was activated.   What happened? 

New Rule!  You may only use the “First Name” and “Last Name” section of your LinkedIn profile for your first name and last name.  You can’t add anything else.  What does this mean?  Well, as a marketing tool I wrote clever messages after my last name on my profile. This is a marketing headline strategy to get more attention, more click-troughs and more exposure.  This is what I had:

Jorge Olson - Just Published a Beverage Book

When you do a search on the site for “beverage”, or “book” my name always came up. Furthermore when someone invited me to join their network or just browned my name they would know I just published a beverage book.  I did this by simply going into my profile and writing the text after my last name.  Now LinkedIn does not permit any messages at all; just your name. 

How can this affect you? Simple, you can’t use this strategy anymore. It also affects “open networkers”, the people who accept all invitations and want to expand their network as they can’t announce they are open networkers anymore. May people belong to groups like LION or TopLinked and other groups of open networkers who require you write their name after you last name; you can’t do it anymore.  Many more of you might write your email after your name to invite people to network, remove it.  These are some of the common uses of your profile name that are being cracked down:

Jorge Olson - jorge@ jorgeolson.com

Jorge Olson - LION

Jorge Olson - TopLinked

Jorge Olson - Phone: (619) 852 6942

Jorge Olson - Any marketing message

If you have something after your last name remove it today before you get a surprise next time you log in to your profile.

”Would You Like to be a LinkedIn Marketing Star? Don’t forget to sign up for our LinkedIn For Marketing Newsletter to get free videos, audios and strategy once per week”

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Learn how to create a group on LinkedIn and how to use it to interact with people, to promote yourself, your products and your business and how to add more people to your LinkedIn network with groups.LinkedIn is the social network for professionals, executives and entrepreneurs. You can use LinkedIn to find a job, connect with other executives and professional networking.

If you are on LinkedIn and do not have a group you are missing out on 50% of the value of LinkedIn. Groups will allow you to find a job, add thousands of people to your network, position yourself as an industry expert, and much more.
LinkedIn for Marketing Teleseminar - Radio Show Details

February 26 at 3 PM PST 6 PM EST

Listen on the Web:
www.BlogTalkRadio.com/LinkedInForMarketing  

Listen over the Phone:
Phone: (646) 200-4444
Show ID: 422973

If you decide to listen over the web you will be able to ask question as we have a chat tool!

Don’t forget to sign up for our LinkedIn For Marketing Newsletter to get free videos, audios and strategy once per week.

# # #

Good News, we finally have a radio show for using LinkedIn for Sales and Marketing. It’s on Blog Talk Radio and it’s on today.

The teleseminar is dedicated t using LinkedIn for sales, marketing and self promotion. Learn how to use LinkedIn to promote yourself and your company, to find a job now or in the future or to expand your network exponentially.
LinkedIn for Marketing Teleseminar - Radio Show Details

February 12 at  3 PM PST 6 PM EST

Listen on the Web:
www.BlogTalkRadio.com/LinkedInForMarketing

Listen over the Phone:
Phone: (646) 200-4444
Show ID: 422973

If you decide to listen over the web you will be able to ask question as we have a chat tool!

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Have you ever seen “I’m an open networker” and wondered “what is that?” Especially after you see it 5, 10, even 20 times on LinkedIn.

So what is the big deal with open networkers? What is an open networker?

An open network on LinkedIn or any other social network is someone that is willing to accept your invitation if you send one. Yes, even if they don’t know you and or know someone you know they will accept your invitation.

Why would anyone accept all invitation?

If you accept all invitations and are an open network you want to grow your network as fast as possible. Many people really don’t understand why you should expand your network in this way and I’ve received many emails asking “why should anyone accept people in their network if they don’t know them”.

Expanding your network is not difficult and I think not the real question. The real question is “what can you do with your network once you have 7,000 in it?”

I spoke with 5 people last week that have more than 3,000 and don’t know what to do next. This is s typical problem, it is one thing to accept all invitations and expand your network and it is another to leverage them.

If you are not super marketing savvy chances are you don’t have a funnel to point your network. You don’t have a blog, or a newsletter or a way to get people from your linkedin.com network to your own private network.

What is the key? They key is value! The key is “Unselfish Promotion”. If you add value to your network you will easily get them to subscribe to your blogs or newsletters and down the line offer you a job, or buy your products or whatever you are promoting.

Some important advice, adding value does not mean telling people about your great products or letting them know about what incredible features and benefits your products carry. That’s advertising, not unselfish promotion.

You need to create value with real, usable, free information and yes, at the end feel free to plug your website, job, product or company.

Don’t forget to sign up for our LinkedIn For Marketing Newsletter to get free videos, audios and strategy once per week.

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Are you using the internet to market yourself, your products and your company? Is your strategy based on value and not advertising? Do you follow up weekly with customers, leads, end users and partners? I’ve been interviewed a few times for blogs and radio stations on the subject of social media, networking, web 2.0 and LinkedIn and now on Success Magazine.

The article talks about how to use the new generation of technology and the internet to market and sell yourself and your products and to stay relevant and keep your business in front of the competition and to make relationships with your prospects, leads and customers.

“Entrepreneur, author and speaker Jorge Olson says such online resources can help a salesperson add a few hundred leads to their database every month. After reading a few articles or case studies by the salesperson, these potential customers tend to qualify themselves by pursuing more information from the salesperson if they’re interested.  After that initial qualification, “you’ll have leads that consider you an authority on the subject,” Olson says. ”

If you don’t subscribe to Success Magazine you can read the article online at their website http://www.successmagazine.com/Connecting-the-World-/PARAMS/article/566/channel/16#  

Don’t forget to check out my new book, “The Unselfish Guide to Self Promotion” available at Amazon.com and book stores.

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New Group “LinkedIn For Marketing” Teaches How to Use LinkedIn For Sales, Marketing and Sales Promotion   Are you using LinkedIn for sales, marketing and sales promotion? Are you getting thousands of visitors to your blog and closing new leads everyday using LinkedIn?

Start networking with people that are using LinkedIn For Marketing and join the LinkedIn For Marketing Group on LinkedIn. The purpose of the group is to network and learn from each other on how to use LinkedIn for promotion, PR, sales and marketing.

Let’s all learn about how to use this social network for promotion and advancement. The value of the network is that every member is a high earning well educated executive. I always like to say that it’s like an internet within an internet. An internet just for executives. The other advantage is that you can find people and information easily as everyone has their details in their profile. Who they are, where they work, what they do there, what they want and what they can offer. Wow, this is a lot of great information.

The problem is how to get connect and communicate with all those people. Maybe not with all 30 million but let’s say with 200,000 of them, or 500,000 of them. Or why not, even one million.

This is why the group is here. To help you communicate and traverse the social network for professionals called linkedin.com.

Start networking with people that are using LinkedIn For Marketing and join the LinkedIn For Marketing Group on LinkedIn.

Join the group at http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1788316

Don’t forget to sign up for our LinkedIn For Marketing Newsletter to get free videos, audios and strategy once per week.

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Join the LinkedIn Group here: http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/977707

The GON LinkedIn group is the center of all Open Networks Groups on LinkedIn. You will be up to date on all other open network groups and open networkers so you can get the most out of your LinkedIn Professional Network.

This is an Open Network on LinkedIn for people who want to fill up their network and learn how to use LinkedIn for business and marketing.

What is an Open Network?
An open network on LinkedIn is filled with members who are open to all invitations. Members of this group will not refuse or say they don’t know a member. If you as a member choose not to accept a specific connection just “archive it” and you are done.

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