Tag

Marijean Jaggers

Mar 14
Love0

Jaggers Communications Offers Social Media Workshop for Professionals; Managing the Professional and the Personal

By Jaggers Communications News

*MEDIA ALERT*

For more information, contact:

Marijean Jaggers
434.973.0645

mjaggers@jaggerscommunications.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Jaggers Communications Offers Social Media Workshop for Professionals

WHAT: A hands-on workshop containing critical information for marketers, business owners and job seekers. Participants will learn how to create and optimize social profiles to achieve business goals. Workshop content will focus on teaching attendees to manage being human in the online space by making business personal, without sharing what’s private.

 

Laptops recommended but not required.

 

Participants will:

  • Establish personal brand statements
  • Create optimized biographies
  • Develop social profiles that are consistent and fully fleshed out
  • Learn how to manage personal and professional profiles with balance and intent

WHEN: Thursday, March 17, 2011, 9:00a.m. to 11:00a.m. Fee: $39/participant.

Register online:  http://professionalonline.eventbrite.com/ UPDATE: THIS WORKSHOP HAS BEEN CANCELLED.

WHERE: OpenSpace in The Conference Studio, 455 Second Street SE, Suite 100,Charlottesville, VA 22902, phone: 434.566.0880, http://getopenspace.com/

###

About Jaggers Communications

Jaggers Communications is a strategic communications firm that provides organizations in the health care, education, manufacturing, travel and tourism industries with social media consulting, public relations support and reputation management strategy. The firm was founded in 2011 to serve businesses and nonprofits with a need for cost-effective, strategic communications with effective reach. www.jaggerscommunications.com

 

Mar 10
Love0

While You’re on their Website, the Phone Rings (The Call is Coming from inside the Internet)

By Social Media

Photo credit: A National Acrobat

Last night, my husband began planning some yard work for the spring. In calculating what we spend on fertilizer and seed, he began to wonder just how much more it could possibly be to hire a lawn service.

He went online (as we do for absolutely everything in our house) and entered some basic information into a well-known lawn service’s website, including his e-mail address as his preferred method of contact. Since he didn’t want a phone call, he did not share our phone number with the company.

While he was still on the site, the phone rang. I glanced at the caller ID and told him the lawn care company was calling.

Well he just came unglued — understandably, I thought.  I’ve had similar scenarios come up when I’ve been visiting a web page and while I don’t like it, it doesn’t fire me up as much as it did my husband.

What do you think of this aggressive type of web + phone marketing? I am less inclined to work with a business that contacts me in a way other than how I’ve requested they do so — and in fact, this company has so thoroughly disgusted my husband that they’ve permanently lost us as prospective customers.

Has this ever happened to you? What was your reaction?

Mar 04
Love0

Building the Business: How you can Help

By Communications

My friend Jennifer asked me a great non-social media question yesterday. She said, “What can I do to help?” She’s lovely and kind and just the sort of friend we should all have. We were talking about business, specifically my new business, which I just launched in January, 2011.

Business is going well and I’m busy, but I am looking for new clients and opportunities (so often we forget to let people know that we’re eager for more or new business — wouldn’t it be terrible if everyone assumed I was too busy to take on new work?)

Jennifer was genuinely interested in the kind of business I hope to gain, so I thought I’d share my answer with the broader audience of my social network.

First, to clarify (someone called me a publicist yesterday and I openly grimaced), Jaggers Communications helps businesses and nonprofits reach their business goals through strategic marketing, content creation, public relations and social media.

Experience is concentrated serving clients in:

  • Life sciences and other science-based business
  • Clean energy
  • Health care
  • Education (institutions and products/services that support learning)
  • Travel and tourism
  • Small to medium-sized business to consumer companies

I’m so appreciative to all the community members who have already helped with referrals and endorsements. As a “connector” it give me great pleasure to connect others to opportunities as well, so don’t ever hesitate to ask.

Feb 28
Love0

LinkedIn: When to Ignore a Request to Connect

By Communications

My friend John posed this question via Twitter, “Say you don’t know someone and they send you a LinkedIn invite. I usually summarily reject. Are there cases where I shouldn’t?”

It’s a good question, and I know that people have differing opinions on this one. There are two schools of thought, as in most things, one is “white hat” the other a more “black hat” or not-so-ethical approach. I am steadfastly white hat; that’s what you get from someone with a background in professional communications, public relations and reputation management.

That being said, I believe in preserving the sanctity of what LinkedIn has set out to do; create business networks of people who actually know one another. I will extend this to fairly loose connections and relationships — I don’t have to know you in person or have worked directly with you to connect with you on LinkedIn. I do, however, need to have context that indicates our commonality — where we met, a common group or community to which we belong. I speak to large audiences frequently and sometimes am invited to connect to someone who I met during that speaking engagement. I often accept these, if I’m given that context and made a personal connection with that person at that event.

This leads to how we send those invitations to connect with others. Several years ago I received an invitation to connect that was so well-written, I have cleaned it up, generalized it, and used it as a best practice example ever since. A good invitation to connect looks something like this:

As you may know, I resigned my position as [TITLE & COMPANY]. It was a rich experience and I value the privilege of access to a very high level of thought leadership during my years there.

Recently, I have begun to work with the [COMPANY] to [DETAILS OF JOB AND INDUSTRY] We are [MORE DETAILS OF THE WORK BEING DONE, RELATIONSHIPS BEING BUILT].

As I value our relationship and appreciate the depth of experience you bring to your profession, please join my network so we can stay in touch on this and more.

Warm regards,

It’s helpful, when you reach out to someone to connect, to give them context — the when and where of your meeting or interaction. Some of us meet and work with many people and our memories are not as clear as we’d like. I may have simply forgotten your name, and if your note says only “I’d like to add you to my network on LinkedIn” that doesn’t do anything to differentiate you from the guy who is just trying to build his numbers.

That brings me back to the concept of the black hat social networker — occasionally you will get invitations from people who are so far outside your network you can’t even figure out why the invitation has arrived. There are people simply playing a numbers game; don’t be tempted to join this tribe or contribute to it by accepting. It devalues the network and the strength of the relationships in it.

What do you think? When do you ignore a request to connect on LinkedIn?