Tips

• Advanced Search Tips
• Setting Up Your Profile
• Saving Contacts to a List
• Setting up Alerts
• Exporting
• Target Titles
• How to Send a SpokeMail
• Managing Your Membership
• How to get Support

Advanced Search Tips

Search Performance Tips

Spoke allows members to search Spoke using 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 that meet the specified search criteria. All members have the choice of using either search format.

It’s easy to execute a search from anywhere in Spoke. Simply locate the side search bar located on the left-hand side of the screen or use the search options located at the top of any page in Spoke, and then begin searching. Here's how:

Searching for Companies vs. People

Choose from the dropdown to change the type of search in the Quick Find box. Or, click the “advanced search” link and click either Find People or Find Companies just above the Name, Title, & Company search fields. Which ever is NOT highlighted in green 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 use the side search bar on the search results page or advanced search to refine your search. (Note: you must enter a value into one of the three fields with a red dot to execute a People Search).

Company Search

Search for a company by entering the company name in the Quick Find box, or used advanced search to search for a list of companies by using other criteria.

Advanced Search Options

Spoke allows members to search by geography, industry, the number of employees, or a company's annual revenue. To refine your search, 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. Simply click on the criteria category you’re using to see the available ranges.

Profile Editing

Creating your Profile in Spoke exactly the way you want it!

Setting up your Professional Profile gives you the ability to augment information others have contributed to Spoke about you with your personal presentation of yourself. Customizing your profile is a great way to make thousands of first impressions. It's quick and easy to set up your Profile. Here's how:

When you login to Spoke, click on the Profile link in the top navigation. Or, in the QuickLinks box on the right, click on your name or the Profile completion bar.

To customize your Profile, simply locate the area you would like to customize and click the green Edit button. Once you’ve completed your customizations, click on the links below your picture to see how your Profile looks to others.

Here are the areas you can customize:

1. Photo
2. Contact information
3. Favorite links
4. Biography
5. Tags
6. Professional work experience (both current and prior)
7. Educational background
8. Contact and profile preferences

What You’ll Find in a Business Person’s Profile

When you view the details of a business person’s profile you are presented with a wealth of valuable information for connecting with them, including professional information, contact information, educational background and other ways you can connect with them.

1. Professional Information
   1. Name
   2. Title
   3. Job History
2. Contact Information
   1. Corporate HQ Address & Phone Number
   2. Private Contact info – if you have it
3. Educational Background
4. Ways to Connect
   1. SpokeMail
   2. Colleagues

Saving Contacts to Lists

Lists are a great tool for profiling and organizing business people with similar attributes such as titles, industries, or locations.

Spoke allows you to generate and store lists for sorting or tracking in just a few easy steps. Here's how:

1. 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 'Save to List' button.
2. Add these contacts to a pre-existing list or create a new list on the fly.

When using ‘Lists’, Spoke offers several tools to make managing of the information easier and more useful. Here are some examples:

1. When viewing a ‘List’, you have the choice to view your 'List' by companies or by people. Please note that a list viewed by people shows people while a list viewed by companies will show only companies.
2. You can also sort a ‘List’. Locate the Sort dropdown menu to select the parameter you’d like to use to sort your list.
3. You can scrub your lists to remove any contacts that do not contain the contact information you require. 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.

Setting up Alerts

Spoke was designed for business professionals who want to make connecting with other business people easier. With Spoke you can receive weekly notifications of new business people or companies that fit your target profiles. Let Spoke do the work for you by notifying you via e-mail when new people or companies meet your search criteria. Setting up an e-mail alert in Spoke is an easy 3-step process. Here's how:

1. Use the Quick Find or Side Search Bar in Spoke, enter your ideal target's profile into the search criteria fields (e.g. Title: Marketing Director)
2. Next to the search results description click ‘save search as…”
3. A window will pop up allowing you to name your saved search and set an email notification. Make sure the notification box is checked or you won't receive your new email alerts!!!

Exporting

Want to Master Exporting Information from Spoke?

Here are a few quick tips on effective export management to optimize your efforts.

• Data from your lists can be exported to a CSV file (Excel spreadsheet) directly from Spoke.
• Each person or company selected to '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 since the information has not been extracted from Spoke.
• When selecting business people from a list for export, note that selections are not saved from one page to the next. Select the people you want to export, click 'Export' 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 by showing 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 to avoid paying for the same export twice.

Target Titles

Target Titles is a tool within Spoke to help you quickly find the types of professionals you want to connect with. By setting this option, you can quickly find the right business people within any company in Spoke or construct a list of these business people starting with a list of companies. Click the 'Settings' link and click on the 'Set Target Titles' menu item. From there you can enable the pre-populated functional groups by clicking on the box or create your own custom title groups at the bottom. Be sure to click the save button once you've created and selected the titles you want.

How to Send a SpokeMail

Spoke offers a great way to reach other business people in Spoke called SpokeMail. Using SpokeMail, any member can have an e-mail sent by Spoke on their behalf to anyone found in Spoke. If the e-mail doesn’t make it, Spoke will credit you one SpokeMail so you can try again. Sending SpokeMails is easy. Here’s how:

1. When viewing a person’s details or a list of people returned in a search result, locate the SpokeMail icon next to their name or under their picture and click it.

   (If you are attempting to send a SpokeMail from search results make sure to select the corresponding person or people by checking the box. You can also choose the ‘E-mail Selected’ option found at the top of search results.)



2. Begin composing your e-mail and don’t forget to include an eye-catching subject line. If you are sending a SpokeMail to multiple people at once, be sure to review your message to make sure it is relevant to all the recipients. If it is not, we recommend you send individual SpokeMails to each recipient with a personalized message.



3. Send your SpokeMail by clicking the Send button. If the recipient chooses to respond to you via e-mail you will receive the e-mail response in the account you used to sign up for Spoke. (i.e. if you registered for Spoke with a Hotmail.com account, the response will be viewable in your Hotmail.com account)
4. Manage your SpokeMails, their status, and get more by clicking on the SpokeMail link in the top navigation.

For more information about SpokeMail click here.

Managing Your Membership

Spoke has membership management tools to help you manage your account. By clicking on the ‘Settings’ link in the top navigation you can access this area of Spoke to:

1. Change your Spoke username (which is the same as your email address)
2. Change your Password
3. Edit your Alternate E-mail Addresses (helps to automatically map your job history by comparing existing data in Spoke to your email account history)
4. Manage your SpokeMail subscription status (Opt in, or out, from receiving these communications from other members)
5. Define your Target Titles
6. Manage your Auto-Login – (directly login to your Spoke dashboard when you visit Spoke.com)
7. Install Spoke Outlook Toolbar
8. Manage and purchase more Exports
9. Manage your subscription and billing info

How to get Support

Spoke is a business connection utility allowing members to reach any included business person. Deployed as a hosted service, Spoke is committed to your success as a business person and thus provides you with all the resources you need to achieve success using Spoke.

Most important to getting the support you request is how you request it, or taking action yourself. For most Spoke support requests, members are given functionality to manage the issue themselves. The following are examples of areas members can manage without the assistance of Spoke Support.

• Change a login or username
• Change a password (proactively)
• Manage billing subscriptions or membership levels
• Monitor usage of SpokeMails or Exports
• Suppress your information from public view
• Update, edit, or correct information about you or another person found in Spoke

Topics which do require direct interaction with Spoke Support include:

• Permanent cancelation of membership
• Forgotten password requests
• Features broken or not performing as expected
• Specialized training requests
• Specific billing questions

In order to address your request in the most efficient manor possible, Spoke offers several resources at your finger tips to expedite your needs. Resources are made available to members only. For self managed situations, members should log into Spoke and click the Help button in the upper right hand corner to access the Spoke Support Site & Knowledge base. Included in this resource are several tools designed to provide Spoke members with the assistance they need to manage their Spoke membership.