Why Linked In?

I now require my MBA students to create and promote their Linked In profiles as part of the mandatory requirements for completing the Marketing Management course at the Ateneo Graduate School of Business.

In a way, this is a higher level version of the traditional "Introduce yourself to your classmates and to the professor" activity at the start of every class. A student recently asked why there was no formal introduction by coach on the first day of the trimester- this is why.

More importantly, this exercise is an immediate and practical application of marketing in the real world to the most important brand in the world for you - the brand with your name on it. So why not use effective marketing principles that we learn in class to promote your personal brand and get higher returns for doing so? Why confine your brand to the classroom when you can get a google result at the top of the google page with your name on it, for free?  Why let other people determine what others see on the web about you when you can have relative control over it (as my marketing class will learn later in the course, this is your brand identity- what you say to the world vs. brand image- what the world thinks of you).

Want proof? Do a google search of my family name- "de ungria", what do you see? Try other search engines- yahoo, bing, and what do you see? Then do a  google search for your "family name"  or even of your "whole name", and what do you get? I rest my case, or in this example, I rest my link...

Here's how to create an effective Linked In profile:
Creating the Professional You via Linked In

View more presentations from Remigio Joseph DeUngria.

Hypermarketing2 MBA Students:

This is an example of a correct submission of this personal brand-building assignment.

http://www.facebook.com/groups/AteneoPIPOL/permalink/374545619257430/

This is a snapshot of the correct post. 

Note the following key elements: (1) recent, smiling, colored picture (2) customized url or weblink (3) one word descriptor (“vcoach”) and (4) elevator speech. The details of what all these mean are in the explanatory powerpoint below (Creating the Professional You via Linked In)

Once you make your profile,  you have to do 4  things:

(1) post the url to Facebook page with the ff. link…

http://www.facebook.com/groups/AteneoPIPOL/

(To be able to post on this page, you have to apply as a member of the group)

(2) post a link to twitter with 2 hashtags #hypermarketing2   #linkedinatenista

(3) While in Linkedin, export the file as a pdf, then email the pdf to vcoach.serves@gmail.com. Here is a snapshot of how to export your profile as pdf. Simply click on the down arrow beside "Edit" as shown below.

(4) Post a comment by clicking on the following link:
http://www.hypermarketing2.com/2010/12/why-linked-in-vcoach-bong-de-ungria.html#comment-form

This is the comment portion  at the bottom of this blog. Include the following elements in your comment: your name, your 1 word descriptor and elevator speech.

Here is how it looks:

Pls. follow the submission deadline as there is an automatic 0.5 grade deduction for late emails and posting. (The deduction increases over time!).

A lot of correct and incorrect examples are on the Primus InterPares Online page on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/groups/AteneoPIPOL/). 

Here's why joining Linked In is a great idea.




What should be in your linked in profile?


What is linked in?


Here's a sarcastic take on why not to join...



New User? Here's a User's Guide