How to designate a "best answer" on LinkedIn

"How do you pick a best answer on LinkedIn?"  the man asked me.

I'd answered his LinkedIn question.  He wrote to tell me how he'd decided to use the information that answerers like me had given him.  I reminded him that people liked the "best answer" badges, and that somebody would appreciate it if he chose their answer as "best."  So he wanted to know how to do that.

And, you know, I couldn't find anything in the help guides about it.

This morning I've closed my very first LinkedIn question.  I can tell you authoritatively how to designate the best answer to your question.

• Go to My Q&A.
• Select the question.
• Click "close question."  When you do that, LinkedIn will ask:

• Close Question: Select Good Answers
• Select all of the answers that are “good.” If you choose just one, that answer will also be marked “best.”

If one of the responses is clearly outstanding, mark it as the "best."  That person will get an "expert" badge on her or his profile. 
 
If you have useful information from several people, mark each of those answers as "good." They don't get badges, but they do know how much you appreciated their contributions. 
 
When you choose several good answers and click "close question" LinkedIn will ask again

• Below are the answers you marked as “good.” Please select one as the best answer.

 Go ahead, I say.  Choose a best answer.  Make someone's day.

 

 

 

 

 

Site Templates Are Your Friends

When you start your first website, you probably don't need a lot of fancy features.  You need to get comfortable putting your message on the interwebs--you can always change it up later.

Templates are your friends.  They give you a variety of looks for your site--maybe not as much variety as you want, but still.  If you decide it's really not you, press a button and it's gone.

If you have a blog, you already know how templates work.  Was I surprised that setting up a "real" website is just as easy.

So find a template you like and concentrate on the more important issues: what you want to say, and your domain name.  I'm happy to help you with both, of course.  But I want you to learn how to update your site yourself, so that you can keep it fresh and keep readers (both human and search engines) coming back for more.

FYI, I created my own website, KatharineHadow.com, using a template. :)

Stress One Now

To continue on the topic of automated answering systems, you may enjoy the chapter "Stress One Now" from Whoopi Goldberg's 2010 book Is It Just Me? Or Is It Nuts Out There?

If you are a current customer, say 'yes.'"
"No."
"So, to confirm, you are a current customer, correct? If so, say yes."
"No."
"Good. I'll connect you to current customer relations. Your wait time is approximately...horty-hoo inutes."

(I find that yelling "Operator...assistance...human being." into the phone connects me to the right department about 15% of the time.)

Goldberg's other chapters include "Louder, They Can't Hear You in the Lobby," and "Road Rude."  She says some unkind things about bloggers, but I'll overlook them, since I agree with her on many points.

I'm a little surprised that even though she's a famous star Goldberg knows about office nuisances like people leaving science projects in the fridge, and not refilling the photocopy paper.  I assume she has assistants to research things like that.

Price

The next big decision our cookbook committee faces is the price.

This book is a fundraiser, after all. It doesn’t serve the organization to think small. And let’s not forget that cookbooks are the second-best selling book genre after mysteries. (Have you noticed how many mysteries feature recipes at the end? Coincidence? I think not.)

Some people are timid about the price, recalling another cookbook 30 years ago. “We had trouble getting rid of all the copies.” 

That’s backward. The question should be “What was the return on investment?” Before they scrapped the remainders, how much money did the book make? 

Here’s why this project is different:

•  It’s not your ordinary community cookbook. The cookbook has delicious recipes like sachertorte. It also offers offbeat ones like “goo on rice,” inspiring witty prose, if I do say so myself.
• Many people don’t read cookbooks for the recipes, but for the text that sets the recipes in the local culture. We have a lot of that, as well as pictures, not of the food, but of the community.
• The text doesn’t center around the church, but around the community, Summit, NJ, which should trigger wider demand.
• Yeah, yeah, we should be asking what recent local cookbooks sell for, but I don't think you can compare a collection of recipes to our value-added production.  Honestly, if Tabasco still offered its community cookbook award, we'd enter this book, after making sure we had quite a few recipes with Tabasco in them.
• Besides me, the committee has experienced marketers with retail experience. We know how to push and pull, but do we know how to price? We’ll find out soon enough. Advance orders will be available next month, after our pricing meeting.

 

Balzac's Ghost

On the web, constant revisions are good. In print, they’re not.

French novelist Honoré de Balzac exasperated his editors by constantly updating his books, even when the type was already set. The printer charged him for each new set of proofs, so Balzac indebted himself thanks to his constant revisions.

When all type is composed on the computer, the deadline seems fluid. I’m working on a cookbook with a terrific committee. We made such a concerted push for recipes that now, months later, people ask if they can still submit their favorites. It seems like no big deal, right? Nothing’s gone to the printer yet. Just toss a few more words into the file, like salting a soup before serving.

In fact, it’ll still take time to organize the recipes and weave them into a coherent book. At some point we can’t accept any more contributions.

I’m starting to feel like Balzac’s editor, one with 21st century tools. I told the committee that if anyone else offered them a recipe they could call me on their cell phones. I’d shriek and gibber loudly enough that the would-be donor would put down the recipe and back away slowly.

By all means, update your online content as often as possible. For print, though, you have to be able to say, “This is as good as it’s going to get,” and mean it, or it’ll never get into print.

This cookbook, and the recipes, will be pretty darn good. Advance orders are available starting next month.

Of course I read your source code

 
Of course I read your source code--you leave it visible.

 

The question is, why don’t you? If you’re taking the time to update the content, update your meta-information, too. As long as you’re already in the source code, add a few keywords. If you want to do a great job it can take longer, but a decent job takes two minutes a page. Just pick relevant search terms that match the text on the page. Even doing it by guess and by golly is better than

• leaving the meta-information blank
• using unrelated keywords
• or using the same ones on every page

The search engines don’t weigh the tags as highly as they used to, but they’re still important, and they cost next to nothing. Relevant tags stop gawkers like me from opening up your source code and asking, “What were they thinking? Were they thinking?”

More on organic SEO.

 

This blog ain’t big enough for the both of us

POSTED: No huntin', fishin' or hackin'

This here’s my domain. Get yer own blog. Don’t hack mine so you can insert videos into my innocent posts.

I changed my password. I deleted yer videos. A course I didn’t watch ‘em.

If you ever come back I’m roundin’ up a posse.