travel Archives - Page 13 of 20 -

How to use Linkedin like a Pro – My 10 Secrets

Linkedin has now amassed over 380 million followers and still takes the reigns when it comes to the top social media platform for professionals.

Add to this a 3 x higher lead conversion than Facebook and Twitter and a built in business blog, and we pretty much have surpassed all the alternative social media platforms when it comes to engagement and direct targeting.

But first of all we need to learn all the features and benefits to ensure we have the best chance of securing that sale and promoting our brand. So take a look at my 8 Linkedin secrets as used by the pros.

My 10 Linkedin Secrets

Keep Linkedin blog posts to under 700 words. Less is always more

The majority of Linkedin users check their profiles in the mornings 5 days a week with 1-3 PM and 5-6PM being the key times to post.

Posting 20 status updates a month will increase your engagement by up to 60%!

Including a link with your post increases engagement by 200%

Including an image in your post increase engagement by 98%

Adding a professional photo of you results in 14 x more profile views

COMPLETE you profile. The search engines will bring up profiles with 100% complete first of all. Make sure you’re above your competitors! Need assistance?

Your profile is 5 x more likely to be viewed if you are part of a group or community

Use a background photo of your team/ product or service. Differentiate yourself from your competition and add personality!

Would you like an expert to complete your Linkedin profile and update your CV for you? Are you using Linkedin to the best of it’s ability? Contact us at DesignatedPA and let us create a winning profile for you!

The Top 5 Twitter Follow/Unfollow Apps!

Twitter can be an incredibly successful marketing tool once used in the correct way. Knowing which times to post, the best hashtags to use for ultimate exposure and following the top influencers are all vital in creating a strong following.

The thing is, it’s impossible to remember who is following you back unless you go through each account one by one. A tedious and time consuming activity for most start ups and small businesses. So take a look at my top 5 handy twitter tools that will simplify your daily activity!

Tweepi – With over 1 million users, Tweepi offers a wide range of features to manage your account. For unfollowing your non-followers, you can use Geeky Flush. This means that all your non followers will be ‘flushed away’ in one hit.

Follower Filter – This app goes one step further by allowing you to view your unfollowers last activity. With over 430 MILLION inactive users, it’s important not to waste that precious ‘follow’ on an account where the last activity was over a year ago!

Crowdfire App – Crowdfire is one of the best free tools to use to manage your unfollowers and also one of the most popular. Where as most apps will charge you to unfollow, Crowdfire will give you 100 unfollows a day. Add to that the instagram option, the great ‘copy followers’ feature and you’re onto a winner!

Manage Flitter – With over 3 million users, Manage Flitter has also been featured in top social media blogs. One of its best features is the ability to shedule a tweet when most of your followers are online! Add to the mix the Twitter analytics and you have a simple and effective app.

Friend Or Follow – It’s very simple to use and allows you to manage multiple social media accounts such as Instagram and Tumblr. You also have the ability to download all of your non followers on a CSV sheet. The only issue I have is that it doesn’t have any extra features and it can be quite time consuming clicking individually on each unfollower.

Rafting The WORLDS Highest WATERFALL- NZ

Oh beautiful New Zealand….the land of extremities. Extreme landscapes, mountains, rivers, giant ferns and extreme sports. But the thing is, I’m not really an extreme person.

I’m pretty much scared of everything. Spiders, heights, the sea, the dark….. So it always stuns me when I come out with these crazy ideas. Like getting ridiculously lost on a mountain for 5 hours in Courchevel and eating snow wasn’t enough. (It wasn’t yellow.)

Or climbing Mount cooks glacier with the hangover from hell. ( I think I was still intoxicated )

So in 2007 we decided to descend down one of New Zealand’s highest commercially rafted Waterfalls, Kaituna falls situated in Rotorua.

More commonly known by tourists for its thermal springs and healing volcanic mud, how ironic this serene destination is also home to a 22ft waterfall. That’s a whopping 7 meters!

We duly signed our lives away with an extreme tour company called Raftabout and joined another couple of trembling tourists as we boarded our life raft ( Literally )

The guides were great fun and playfully teased us as they took us through a series of safety checks and what to do if the raft overturned (apart from panic, we had to regroup UNDER the raft for our own safety from what I can only imagine are other tourists falling out of THEIR rafts)

After a failed attempt at the first few rapids and nearly tumbling head first out of the raft, the guides decided Id be the first to fall out. Oh joy.

We did get a chance in the calm before the storm to admire our Jurassic parkesque landscape of giant ferns and gentle rapids, working together to become a team before the final decent was upon us.

As we carefully approached the falls we watched in stunned apprehension, waiting in turn as the raft in front of us tipped over the precipice in a crescendo of man screams, prayers and then…….Silence.
‘OK we’re up!’ proclaimed the guide happily, bringing me out of my terrified stupor, knuckles whitening as I gripped my paddle tighter and nearly cried out over the impending doom that lay ahead.

‘Ok team, Let’s go!’ Did I mention that because of weight distribution they had decided to place me at the front? I cursed my previous 8 months of NZ travel living on a diet of sickly bourbon & coke cans as we made our way towards the drop off. And then, in an instant, we were over. A flash of the drop, awareness of other rafters watching from below, the raging waters rushing up to consume me before we hit the breath sucking, icy water with tremendous force and completely submerged.

Before we knew it, we were on the surface again completely upright! What should have been a stunned sense of elation was quickly dismissed when the guides told me that’s not the actual drop, we have the bigger one coming up.

It was only when safely on dry land a few minutes later I realised they were winding me up and I was jelly legged and ecstatic over my achievement. The highlight had to be the tour groups photographer who captured the fall. In my terror I was photographed laughing like a mad women whilst the male, jesting companion behind me screamed like a girl.

Epic.