Probably the best way to answer these questions is the book “How to REALLY use LinkedIn“! Together with Jan Vermeiren, I wrote the second edition of this international bestseller.

With this book you will learn:

• 10 powerful ways to find new customers, employees or a new job
• 42 tips to make your profile stand out
• 11 strategies to apply LinkedIn at an organizational level
• 31 answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs)
• 30 lesser-known functions and opportunities
• Plus 53 new pages, including extra tips and timesaving tools

Discover also the free “Video & Tools Library”! It has a vast collection of how-to-videos and extra tools, including several Genius Shortcuts.

“How to REALLY use LinkedIn” is available in English, Dutch, French and Spanish. For more info check out www.how-to-really-use-linkedin.com

What most people don’t know (yet), is that Jan and I decided to

give away

1 million books

for FREE!

Why?

To actively stimulate the economy! Too many people are looking for new customers, new employees or a new job. They are hardly using LinkedIn, because they don’t know the platform well enough!

At the same time, we are raising 1 million dollar for charity! Check out our website www.how-to-really-use-linkedin.com for more info. And remember to download the book for FREE as well! (English and Dutch versions!)

To your success!

The Genius Shortcut to remember them all is “?”. When you have logged yourself into Twitter, regardless of on which page you are, just press ? See what happens…you will get the overview I am providing you below

To be honest, I am not using this interface myself, because I was not a fan of the Twitter interface before. A lot has changed in the last 12 months and I might reconsider if I hadn’t discovered HootSuite. If you want to know more about HootSuite, read this. Back to Twitter now. A lot of people have been asking me to tell them these Twitter Shortcuts, so time to share the Twitter Shortcuts with you. There are 3 categories : Actions, Navigation and Timelines. Of course, I’ll share a couple of extra hidden Twitter Shortcuts too

Actions
f : favorite
r : reply
t : retweet
m : direct message
n : new Tweet
enter : toggle details pane

Navigation
? : overview of the Twitter Shortcuts
j : next Tweet
k : previous Tweet
space : page down
/ : search
. : refresh Tweets and back to top

Timelines
g h : home
g r : replies / mentions
g p : profile
g f : favorites
g m : messages
g u : go to user

Hidden (= not mentioned on the overview)

Enter : to drill down into or close a selected tweet
Escape : to cancel a compose window, dismiss the help window
Shift+Space : to page up
. : to go to the top of the page

Have fun with Twitter! And if you need another hand, just find me and dare to ask : @bertverdonck

I discovered the EcoFont (Dutch indeed ), you know a font with holes in it to save on ink. Personally, I see that you make a statement with it, but frankly I don’t like it! With my background in communication, I support building your brand in a consistent way. And the EcoFont does not fit mine.

So, I did some research on fonts and discovered a great experiment by Matt Robinson. A selection of the most commonly used typefaces were compared for how economical they are with the amount of ink which they use at the same point size. Large scale renditions of the typefaces were drawn out with ballpoint pens, allowing the remaining ink levels to display the ink efficiency of each typeface.

Here are the results for a number of common fonts:

Now you actually see the difference! Impressive, right? I know, we can now start a discussion on our preference of Garamond over Times New Roman

Of course, the most effective way to save on ink is to print less! Do you really have to print everything? Isn’t it time to learn how to read and process info on the screen? We have come a long way and I can safely state that the Digital Era is here already, just in case you weren’t aware of it yet

What happens if you would take it one step further and visualize what your LinkedIn network really looks like? In one screen? Right!

InMaps is in fact an interactive visual representation of your professional network. You can explore and learn to understand the relationships between you and all of your LinkedIn connections. Do you have clusters and a certain structure in your network? Or not at all?

How does it work? You go to this link. Login with your LinkedIn account and it will generate your map. You notice that several colors are used. You can choose a title for each color. They represent different affiliations or groups from your professional career, such as your previous work experiences, people you have met at a conference, college classmates, or industries you have worked in.

Some people have a bigger name than others. They represent people who are the most connected within that specific cluster or group. It gets even more interesting: When you click on a contact within a circle in your InMaps you will see their profile pop up on the right, as well as lines highlighting how they are connected to your connections. Like I said, discover the relationships within your LinkedIn network.

Why is that important? If you know how you are connected to the people who are in the best position to help you reach your (networking)goals, you are getting closer to realizing your goals!

Need a video to see it? Enjoy!

Have fun with InMaps,

Bert

I used to be like this. Not any more! I found a Genius Shortcut to solve it the easy way : Habitforge.com

It takes 21 days to forge a habit. Some say it takes 30 days or more. Others say change happens in a heartbeat. Anyway, it takes quite some discipline to keep up and to stick to your plan.

How does Habitforge.com help you? What do you need to do?

Step 1 : You enroll and share a goal or desire. If you could do one thing every day that would change your life for the better, what would it be?

Step 2 : Habitforge will send you a daily email. They’ll ask you if you were successful the day before at doing that one thing. From within the email, just click “yes” or “no” and Habitforge will do the rest.

Step 3 : Succeed for 21 days in a row. Do that one thing you’ve committed to doing. Skip a day before succeeding for 21 days straight, and Habitforge will start you back at day one (oh yes!). Succeed for 21 days in a row, and you can enter monitoring mode. But by that point the action should seem second nature, right?

Did I mention Habitforge is FREE?

Wishing you all the best with changing you life for the better and forge a new habit that makes you happy!

“˙˙˙uǝǝɹɔs ǝɥʇ pǝuɹnʇ ɹo pɐǝɥ ɹnoʎ uo ƃuıpuɐʇs ɹǝɥʇıǝ ǝɹɐ noʎ ‘sıɥʇ pɐǝɹ uɐɔ noʎ ɟı”

Isn’t that great? I like it!

Now, how did I do it? Well, there is a Genius Shortcut for writing upside down. Typeupsidedown.com

Typeupsidedown.com is an easy website with 2 textboxes. You fill out the first one with your message. Simultaneously it will create your text upside down in the second box. Now you can easily copy and paste the upside down text to other applications and have fun with it!

What can you use it for? Fun! Ok, I admit, I haven’t found a serious application for it yet. I use it to update my LinkedIn-status, Twitter or on Facebook. I even put it in my LinkedIn Profile and  I sure some people will want to know more about it

Have fun too, always,

Bert

Well, there is a Genius Shortcut to create a movie about yourself in no time! How? Just simply go to Pummelvision.com.

What is it? Pummelvision flashes your life before your eyes using photos from Facebook, Flickr, or Tumblr. Of course you need to have an account and some pictures on one of these platforms.

How does it work? Well, in 3 little steps, you’ll create your movie!

1. Decide where Pummelvision can grab photos for you : Facebook, Flickr or Tumblr.  Authorize your account.
2. Decide where Pummelvision can blast the video to : Vimeo or YouTube. Authorize your account.
3. If you want to be notified, type your mail address in the box. Click on the “Make My Video” -button.

That’s it!

Here are a couple of examples of Pummelvision: Justin Ouellette and Jacco Van Giessen. Enjoy and share!

What can you do to have a 100% profile? Watch this YouTube clip and implement it.

Oh, one more thing. You are the only one who can actually see how high your percentage is. Don’t worry, people won’t know, but they might notice. How? Well, if you don’t fill out your profile with your education, your recent position(s) or you don’t even have a photo, how would you look? Exactly, not interesting enough! Whatever opportunity may have come your way will not happen…for a reason.

Then, HootSuite is the perfect Twitter tool for you! I’ve using this tool now for more than 1 year and I can honestly say : Wow! Hootsuite rocks! Of course, we all know Tweetdeck and the like, but I tell you, HootSuite has some particular additional assets that might suit you as well!

Like what?

1. Handling multiple Twitter accounts. I personally am using 4.
2. Direct integration with Facebook, Facebook Page, MySpace, LinkedIn, Foursquare and WordPress!
3. Integration with Ping.fm (therefor with a wide variety of social media . Read more about Ping.fm!)
4. URLshortener ow.ly : Instead of posting your long web addresses, it provides you a build in URL shortener.
5. Easy to track the number of clicks and get statistical overviews of how people are using your Twitter-account
6. Ability to schedule tweets. I stopped using Tweetlater/Socialoomph.
7. Link up to 5 RSS feeds to your HootSuite account
8. You can have multiple people managing your HootSuite accounts. Very interesting for business accounts! Oh, assigning tasks included!
9. There’s an iPhone and Android version available too
10. Did I mention it is a FREE tool? Of course, I invite you be generous and donate to the developers.

You see, 10 great reasons for using HootSuite. Even if only 1 or 2 fit your situation, it’s probably more effective than your current way of working (if you are doing everything manually!).

So, after Ping.fm and now this HootSuite, there are no more excuses left for not updating your status on any Social Media! And keep me posted too

Have fun, always,

Bert

There must be a shortcut, right? Ping.fm is the Genius Shortcut you are looking for! Ping.fm is active in the social network aggregation space and lets you update your status on several sites at once.

I sometimes get remarks from friends that I am so active on Facebook while it has been nearly 2 weeks since I went there…but because my status is updated regularly, most people think I am present and following up in (nearly) realtime. So, now you know that I am using tools on top of those platforms to stay up-to-date and of course I an saving heaps of time!

So, how does Ping.fm actually work? Easy, let me explain in 3 steps:

1. Go to Ping.fm and sing up for an account.

2. Login and add the various Social Media or platforms you want your status to be updated. This is also called “syndication” of your status. You can actually choose from more than 30 sites, including WordPress, Blogger, Typepad, Yammer, Posterous, Flickr and Delicious!

3. Start broadcasting your updates!

Of course, I need to give you a disadvantage as well : Ping.fm was created with the idea that people want to get their updates out. It is not a tool to follow up on the conversation that happens afterwards. There are other tools perfectly suitable for that (one of the next blogs )!

I am aware that several tools are providing similar services as Ping.fm. Hellotxt.com and AOL Lifestream to name a few.

So, what are you waiting for to update all your Social Networks at once?