The New LinkedIn Share Button

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You may or may not have noticed a new additional button below the normal tweet button. As of this past week, LinkedIn (finally) released a share button for its users to share professional content from the web (white papers, trade articles, presentations) with their business connections.

Though we do have a very active Twitter presence, the majority of our blog subscribers aren't heavy Twitter users. However, almost all of them are on LinkedIn. What else would you expect from a B2B audience?

The new feature should help build upon the rapidly growing social graph of the B2B world. Staying on top of industry trends is a priority of any serious business person. Several top sites like Bloomberg and the Huffington Post are already integrating this new feature. Want to have your own sharing option? Just click here and copy and paste the code provided.

If sharing isn't your thing, then there's always our free weekly roundup. Are you on board?

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The Future of Incentives: Digital

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In the early days of digital marketing and social media, brand advocacy online was more or less a volunteer effort. Early adopting tech users with good (and bad) consumer experiences with brands took the time to talk about that brand in their own social feeds. The early days were also exciting in the fact that social media opened up this new door for consumers to be able to interact with brands. Marketing was no longer (well in theory anyway) a one-sided conversation where the brands controlled all the messages. Consumers could now be part of that marketing conversation.

It was - and still is - an exciting time. The winds are changing though. The initial thrill of being able to talk to a brand is wearing off. Social media usage is growing exponentially and not all the users want to be part of brand advocacy for kicks. There has to be something in it for them. Companies now have to not just rely on the "yay social media" wave but come up with effective ways to keep the consumer base engaged in conversation about their brand.

That's where incentives and loyalty programs come in.

Incentive and loyalty companies (in theory anyway) are masters in modifying behavior. We typically see this in the form of employee motivation, helping company workers take the necessary to achieve and even excel certain goals. Incentive programs should be designed to drive a certain behavior from a group and reward them accordingly for participating in those behaviors.

Tapping into digital loyalty is a huge opportunity for our industry. Using our knowledge and capabilities to help drive consumer behavior will be huge in the digital space. So a company wants consumers to talk more about their brand online....talk about in what ways? Do they want more Twitter mentions? Foursquare or Facebook place checkins? Completed activities on SCVNGR? If they do these things, what's in it for them? How will they be motivated to take part in those behaviors desired by your company/brand.

Digital media and loyalty is going to be part of the incentive industry's future. Loyalty programs will play a much bigger role in successful digital marketing efforts.  What do you think? What other ways will incentives play a part in the future of digital marketing?

LinkedIn's New Company Page Features

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In an attempt to become more interactive, LinkedIn has rolled out a few additional features on their Company profile pages. What used to be a purely static feature with no opportunity for interaction, company pages now have a couple of other features: recent tweets and a "Products and Services" tab. What do these features provide? More importantly - how are we using them here at Hinda?

Recent Tweets

This is mainly an addendum to the already existing blog tab toward the bottom of the Company page. Is a company on Twitter? What are they talking about? With the exception of @ replies, this new tab shows up-to-date tweets from the company. On our page, you can see how we are contributing to the conversation online. By taking a look at what we - or another compay - are saying, viewers can judge whether or not we're not only worth the company follow on LinkedIn but also worth a Twitter follow. The recent tweets tab also gives insight to the personality and thought sharing on part of the company.

Products and Services

This is most likely the biggest addition to the company page. Companies now have the ability to feature any key products or services of there business to their profile page. On the surface this only appears as just another traditional marketing medium (which it sort of is) but it comes with a twist:

Recommendations.

Is there a LinkedIn connection or company follower that has used one of those featured products or services? This is where the interaction comes into play. Those users can personally endorse one of those products and give testimony to the effectiveness or awesome-ness of that product. Social marketing gets its traction from what third party users are saying about a company and this new LinkedIn feature definitely taps into that concept effectively. Why simply take the company's word for that product or service when you can easily see what others are saying about it?

How are we using the new feature?

We have recently added two of our featured services - the Warehouse Dash and Custom Packaging - to our list of services. Both service pages include short and fun YouTube videos elaborating on the features of those services. Feel free to check them out! If you have experienced any of these services, feel free to let people know about your experience while on the page.

What do you all think of the new company feature? Is it a good addition for LinkedIn?

A More "Social" 2010 Motivation Show

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Our booth in actionWhat a whirlwind of a week last week was.

Participating yet again in the Motivation Show at McCormick Place, we brought not one but two booths to the show this year. In addition to our recognizable conference area seen at the show the last couple of years, we also brought to the table a merchandise booth, showing off some of the hottest new trends in merchandise programs this year.

We also had the good fortune of being able to be positioned near Helping Hand Rewards, a socially responsible initiative founded by our current CEO Michael Arkes. Michael has done a lot of great work getting HHR off the ground the last couple of years, so it was a thrill to see him recognized by the IMA with a Circle of Excellence 'Social Responsibility' Award. Running HHR as a completely separate entity from Hinda, he's done a lot using his business know-how to help positively impact those less fortunate. Paul Hebert, managing director of I2I, even featured HHR on his monthly Influence Insiders monthly podcast. 

Social at the Show

We blogged a couple of weeks ago here about seeing social media at the show. In comparison to lastGiving the legs a breather year, there was definitely a great increase in participation through social channels and the Twitter hashtag #moti. Us along with Helping Hand Rewards initiated a geolocation effort, setting up Foursquare check-ins for our respective booths. Others also used Foursquare to check into the Motivation Show itself, resulting in a fierce competition for mayorship between @drewhawkins and @incentintel.

This year we tried to emphasize more sharing than marketing. We shared pictures of the show on Twitter and Helping Hand Rewards even uploaded some viral video of the show through YouTube, marking each video with the #moti hashtag. Others even shared learnings from keynotes and sessions on Twitter for those of us who may not have been able to attend. Though there were probably only around 20 people actively sharing, it showed a giant leap in our industry's adaptation of social media.

All in all we had a great time at the show this year. Of those of you that attended, what did you think of the show?