Tips
Setting Up Your Profile
Spoke Alerts
Search Performance
Lists Management
Exporting
Spoke Web Alerts
ConnectUs E-mail
Set Target Titles
Setting Up Your Profile
Creating your Profile in Spoke exactly the way you want it!
Setting up your Professional Profile gives you the ability to augment your public information in the Spoke Network with your personal presentation of yourself. It's quick and easy to set up your Profile. Here's how:
While logged into Spoke, click on the MySpoke Tab then under the Personal Info section in the left hand column, find Edit My Profile and click on it.
Information you can add to your Member Profile includes:
- Photo & Introduction
- Professional work experience (both current and prior)
- Educational background
- Personal and/or professional interests
- Links to your favorite web resources
To add to or edit information, click Edit in each section.
Notice that after you've completed your Profile, many items in the Education, Interests, & Favorite Links sections are highlighted in blue. This means they serve as tags for the profile. Click on these links to find other Spoke members who have the same background or interests.
Spoke Alerts
Spoke E-mail Alerts
Spoke was designed for business professionals with lead generation needs. With Spoke you can receive weekly notifications of new businesspeople, companies, or prospect lists that fit your target profile. Let Spoke do the work for you by notifying you via e-mail when you have new prospects to include in your lead generation campaigns. Setting up an e-mail alert in Spoke is an easy 3 step process. Here's how:
- From the Search Tab in Spoke, enter your ideal target's profile into the search criteria fields (i.e. Title: Marketing Director + Industry: 73 + State: CA)
- Instead of clicking the Search button, click the Save As button...
- A window will pop up allowing you to name your saved search, set the number of results you would like to see per page, and to set an E-mail Alert. Make sure that the E-mail Alert box is checked or you won't receive your new prospects!!!
Search Performance
Search Performance Tips:
Spoke allows members to search the entire Spoke Open Network by various criteria based parameters. Spoke will return results in one of two formats depending upon the type of search. People searches will return a list of people who meet the specified search criteria. Company searches will return a list of companies which meet the specified search criteria. All members have the choice of using either search format. Here's how:
Searching for Companies vs. People To change the type of search, click either Find People or Find Companies just above the Name, Title, & Company search fields. Which ever is highlighted in Purple is the type of search you are performing.
People Search- Search for people using name, title, or company name; or any combination of the three. You can also use the more options functionality explained below to refine your search. (Note: you must enter a value into one of the three fields in the top section to execute a People Search)
Company Search- Search for a company by entering the company name in the field or search for a list of companies by using more search options explained below.
More Search Options- Spoke allows members to search by geographies, industries, the number of employees, or a company's annual revenue. To expand or refine your search click the "More Search Options" under the Search button and add search refining criteria such as Standard Industry Codes (SIC), annual revenue, company size, or geographies which describe the target profile of who you're trying to find.
Lists Management
Track and Manage Prospect Lists Online with Spoke
Spoke allows you to generate and store lists for sorting or tracking in just a few easy steps. Here's how:
- From the search results, select the records you would like to add to a list by clicking on the box next to the name. Then click the 'Add to List' button.
- OR you can use the 'Add All to List' to add all search results to your list. Add these contacts to a pre-existing list or choose the 'Add to New List' option to create a new list on the fly.
- Under the Lists Tab, you have the choice to view your 'List' by companies or by people. Use the drop down menu located at the top right corner of the lists section to toggle between to views. Please note that a list viewed by people shows people while a list viewed by companies will show only companies.
- You can also sort list in order to view information to your liking. To sort a list, click on the column's title. An arrow will appear after the list has been sorted indicating from which end of the list you are seeing data and what you will see if you sort the list from the opposite end.
- You can scrub your lists to remove any contacts which do not contain the contact information you require, there by eliminating exporting and paying for information you can't use. Simply click on the 'Scrub List' button. In the pop up window select the type of contact information you require by checking the box, then click 'OK'. Any contacts lacking the information you checked will be removed.
- Spoke allows each member to have up to 50 active lists at any given time. This means from the list Tab you can view up to 50 lists. However, this does not mean if you have 50 lists and want to build more you have to delete some of your existing lists. You can manage your lists using the Manage List option in the left hand column to deactivate lists and activate others. From this page you can review all your lists, which are active, how many records you have in each list, and when the list was create. Add, delete, or deactivate lists at your discretion.
Exporting
Want to Master Exporting Information from Spoke?
Here are a few quick tips on effective export management to optimize your efforts in Spoke while avoiding doubling your data by exporting a record more than once.
- Data from your lists can be exported to your SFA tool or a CSV file (Excel spreadsheet) directly from Spoke.
- Each person or company selected to 'Add to SFA' or 'Export' is recorded as an export, EVEN IF the record has been previously exported. Any contact added to a 'List' does not count as an 'Export' as the information it has not been "extracted" from Spoke.
- When selecting prospects from a list for export, note that selections are not saved from one page to the next. Select the prospects you want to export, click 'Export' or 'Add to SFA' and then move to the next page- or scroll over these buttons to export either 'All' records or 'All not previously exported' to extract your entire list at once or just those which have not been exported before.
- Spoke will keep track of exported records so long as they remain on your original 'List'. The 'Status' column will indicate if a record has been previously exported and to which system (SFA or CSV). If you remove a person you've already exported from your list Spoke will no longer track that you've exported that record if you add it back to the list. If you add the same contact to another list, Spoke will NOT track that the contact has been exported already using a different list. Be careful in how you build and organize your lists by tracking list attributes to avoid paying for the same export twice.
Spoke Web Alerts
Setting up Spoke Web Alerts will give you the edge on your competition by providing you with recently updated information in Spoke about your business targets. Use event triggers as an opening to connect and build a relationship. Setting up a Spoke Web Alert is simple and easy. When you would like to set up a Web Alert about a person in Spoke, locate the "Web Alert" button by their name and click it.
ConnectUs E-mail
With Spoke's ConnectUs e-mail service, members can now go beyond their professional network to reach and build new business relationships. Spoke's ConnectUs direct e-mail service allows members to take the first step in building a new business relationship; connecting. This service is available to all membership levels. To reach out and connect directly to your target, locate the ConnectUs e-mail button next to any person in Spoke and click on it. You will be able to compose your message and send it direct to your target via Spoke's Open Network.
Set Target Titles
Target Titles is a tool within Spoke to help you always see the types of professionals with whom you general like to connect. By setting this option, you can quickly find the right businesspeople within any company in Spoke or construct a list of these businesspeople quickly starting with a list of companies. Under the 'Search' Tab Click on the 'Set Target Titles' menu item (on the left). You can enable the pre-populated functional groups by clicking on the box or create your own custom title groups. Be sure to click the save button once you've created and selected the titles you want.
