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Lenders Are Screening Borrowers through Social Media

Does having a lot of friends on Facebook or being popular in certain circles constitute a creditworthy image? Apparently, some lenders think so. Some banks and lending companies think that a person’s social standing, professional connections and online reputation are important factors to consider when extending credit, particularly to someone with a poor credit history who might have trouble getting a loan.

Due to the personal data found on many social media profiles, it’s now become a trend for bankers and financial institutions to use social media accounts in screening loan applicants or borrowers for any undesirable traits or opinions. They turn to social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to look further into a borrower’s identity and creditworthiness. These social media sites have become an Intel of some sort in helping credit companies make better-informed choices.

This practice is something consumer groups and regulators have been expressing concern about. The reason it’s become alarming is due to the perception that borrowers could very well be targeted with higher interest rates and people who have missed payments would automatically be considered risky bets and denied credit entirely based on the state of their social media accounts. There are no federal laws currently in place to govern this system or to protect borrowers from unfair scrutiny.

Although this scheme appears to be limited to smaller financial institutions that provide smaller loans and operate with a larger degree of risk, it’s expected that the use of social media accounts by lenders will gain popularity in the years to come.

Bad credit happens and when it does happen, people struggle to find funding. Fortunately, there are lending companies that provide bad credit loans to those with a poor credit history in competitive interest rates without any judgment.

If you answer yes to the question “Is social media standing in the way of you getting the financial assistance you’re applying for?” then it’s time to clean up your social media profile. Social media will remain to be, well, social which means all of the information that’s freely provided by the users to the social media sites could turn out to cost them not just their stature but the financial assistance they need.

Linked In Training Sydney for CEOs Corporations Business & Government

LinkedIn has developed as a professional social media and networking site. Created in 2003 it has 3,650,000 users in Australia today. LinkedIn operates the world’s largest professional network on the Internet with more than 300 million members in over 200 countries and territories. LinkedIn was created for an older, more professional audience. If your business targets adults over thirty, then LinkedIn is tailor-made for you.

If you’re a CEO or a Manager in a corporation or government, having your entire workforce use LinkedIn could be an asset to your organization.  Start Linked In training for your staff and reap the benefits from a focused program.

Improve Employee Morale – blocking LinkedIn access send message to your employees that you don’t trust them. Online praise and recognition on LinkedIn groups are powerful rewards for great work.

Increase Brand Visibility – Employees are 70% more likely to engage with your company updates. When your employees “like” , “share” and “comment” on content, they make them visible to their contacts too.

Employees are consistent Brand Ambassadors – employee’s personal profile not only speaks of their personal brand but your company too. If you help your staffs build compelling profiles you’re sending a message about your company brand to everyone who visits their profiles or interacts with them.

Higher page ranking – companies with a greater number of employees on LinkedIn tend to have more followers on their company page. The more company page followers, the higher your page will rank in LinkedIn search results.

Understanding how the Linked In demographic differs from other social media platforms

84.4% of LinkedIn members use the free version
61% of LinkedIn users worldwide are male.
47% of B2B companies actively use LinkedIn
77% of LinkedIn members use the site to research people and companies. 69% to reconnect with past business associates and 50% to build new networks.
53% of LinkedIn users join 10 or more groups.
43% of employers use social media to recruit – of those, 88% use LinkedIn, 46% Facebook and 22% Twitter.
There are 7,610 searches on LinkedIn per minute.
65% of B2B companies report that they have acquired a customer through LinkedIn.
LinkedIn drives 9 times as many applications for employment as Facebook and 3 times as many as Twitter.
LinkedIn has the highest visitor-to-lead conversion rate (2.74%), almost 3x Twitter (.69%) and Facebook (.77%)
52.2% spend 0-2 hours on LinkedIn.

Creating a LinkedIn Profile
Your profile is your LinkedIn page that describes you: your career history, education, interests, and other related content you may want to publish.

1. Create your LinkedIn profile by going to www.linkedin.com
2. Get started by registering your First name and Last name, Email address and Password and clicking the “Join now” box.
3. Choose your country, enter your Zip code, Employment status, your company then click “Create My Profile.”
4. Confirm your account through your email address.
5. Connect with people you know in LinkedIn
6. Invite people from your contact list.
7. Connect with people who have LinkedIn account you want to stay in touch with.
8. Get the app for every device you carry.
9. Select the account that works best for you. Basic account is free
10. Edit your profile (Experience, education, photo, skills and expertise, details, see your improved profile)

Setting up a Business Page on LinkedIn
Set up a LinkedIn Company Page to raise brand awareness, promote career opportunities, add valuable back-links to your site, generate leads and connect with your target audience on LinkedIn.

Requirements:
1. Personal LinkedIn account.
2. Profile strength must be listed as Intermediate or All Star.
3. Your profile list your position in the company.
4. Company email address with unique company domain name.
5. Your personal profile must have several connections.

Set up your Business Page:
1. Log in to your LinkedIn account.
2. Click “Interest” at the top of your homepage then click “Add a Company”
3. Enter your company name and email address
4. Confirm your email address. Follow the instructions in the email to finalize the initial setup.
5. Complete the Company Page overview to set up your Business Profile. Provide your business information type, size, website URL, industry, operating status, and year founded.
6. Include a company description (250-2000 characters including spaces), and company website URL.
7. Add a banner image and logos. Image – Minimum 646 x 220 pixels, maximum 2 MB. Logo – 100 x 60 pixels, maximum 2 MB.
After you’ve filled everything out, click “publish.” Your page will now be live.

Using Linked In to stay in touch as a Group
Establishing a LinkedIn group can be a great way to stay in touch and help you connect with people in your industry.

Start discussions – use LinkedIn group to start professional group discussion with other group members.
Create subgroups – by creating subgroups you can keep your members up to date especially if you are working a project with other group members. Start new discussion visible only in this subgroup.
Connect with other members – expand your network by taking a look at the profiles of other group members and discover other people with the same field of interest. Connect with them or follow them.
Build relationship – your LinkedIn group will allow you to establish strong relationship with active members.
Group messaging – LinkedIn group allows you to send group message to people you’re connected to.

Improving your visibility on Linked In via relevant & interesting posts, comments, share & like.

Like
Like option on LinkedIn functions like a retweet in Twitter. Clicking “Like” immediately forward the update to all your 1st level connection where it will appear in their update stream on their homepage. If someone has already seen the original message, they don’t get the whole message again but just add your name at the bottom to indicate you have liked it.

Comment
Clicking the “comment” is a tried and tested way to develop a conversation. It allows you to comment on someone’s update – this sends a message back to them and pushes the comment and the initial update out to your 1st level connections.

Share
Sharing is a two stage process, it allows you to either redistribute the article as an update to your 1st level connections, post it to a group or multiple groups, or forward it in a message to your connections which then arrives at their inbox on LinkedIn.

Improve your online visibility on LinkedIn by joining groups. Join groups by simply clicking the “join” button. You can join a maximum of 50 groups join groups that your ideal clients are members of. Look for groups that have a large number of members.

If you’re a member of 50 groups and each of those groups have 1,000 members your content will go out to 50,000 people. Many groups have more than 1,000 members to your reach may be even greater. Share your content and post to a list of groups and your update will show up in the discussion area of each group. Try this and increase your visibility by sharing relevant content with enormous number of people and watch your business grow.