Binary Perspectives and Media Bytes – Jacobv.com
The best time to Job-Hunt is when you have a Job. Twitter 101 for non-marketing types.
O.k., by that, I don’t mean you have to be spending your workday on monster, workopolis, craigslist etc. Instead, leverage job stability to invest some time building connections, to land your next job…if you ever need to. Sacrifice a few minutes of TV time perhaps?
Social media platforms like twitter, facebook etc. allow you to network, more discretely than ever…without falling afoul of the most suspicious boss. Most of these platforms can be accessed on your mobile phone/device making it all the more convenient. Previously, I wrote about building your online presence around your personal brand. Now lets explore one practical way to do it.
Passive job hunting via twitter.
Twitter is probably the platform, in terms of convenience, that can augment your passive job-hunt while you are still employed. It can be a great way to find people with similar interests or to network with people who are in a career/job that you are looking for an inroad into.
Unlike on facebook, it’s a bit easier to see what others are up to without their permission (unless their tweets are protected/private).
There’s also that liberating feeling to be able to connect with people without subjecting them to your family photo albums 
and vice-versa.
You simply follow people you are interested in. If they think you are interesting they may follow you back. You can then see the tweets of all the people, you follow, in your time-line.
Then what?
Next, comes the actual work. Cultivating relationships. Here are some tips, distilled by a process of trial and error/s (definitely, a lot of the latter ), to give you a good start.
1) Bio: One of the first things people do before deciding to follow you, or not, is read your bio. Be you, like it’s said, there’s only one of you. Now think of the specific niche are that you are interested in and mention it. You can keep refining it as you understand more about yourself, or the industry/career you are trying to break into.
2) Participate and Learn: Read the tweets of those who you have followed. Follow their blog posts, leave comments. Retweet interesting tweets. Add your interpretation/comment to the retweet.
3) Connect: Once in a while, ask questions. Empathize. Even if you do not receive answers…it’s ok. Stay the course.
Time-crunched?
Since you already have a job, you have the luxury of putting as much or as little time into this as you like. While at it, you not only are connecting/networking but are also learning from all the content that is being shared. Learning more about the career you want, the main players in the niche, etc.
Over time, your network will grow while you gain credibility. As you get more comfortable with the platform, you can even implement some of the tips mentioned here – Brogan’s 50 Power Tips.
Pushing it a step further, launch your own blog (or if lacking time, submit articles to one of the many online publications). Then use twitter as an outpost, directing people to your main hub (blog/online posting). Throw facebook and Linkedin into the mix as additional outposts. You now have the beginnings of a strong personal brand, which will not only outlive all the successes and failures of your current job, it may also help you get unsolicited offers for a much better one.
Easy, no? Ready? Join me on twitter @jacobvar.
Easy, no?
Average Joe/Jane Can Make Themselves More Employable with Social Media.
Have you ever read the wonderful things about social media, in the news, and thought ‘I don’t get it’ ‘What a waste of time!’ etc.?
You probably concluded that it’s primarily a tool for narcissistic personalities. That may even be right, if you believe this study.
I just have a regular Joe/Jane job.
The popularity of social media has spawned groups of marketing geniuses, who quickly figured out a way to leverage use of these new media tools and make money doing it. While establishing themselves as ‘thought-leaders’, they also shared information on how others can emulate their success. We now have a growing breed of entrepreneurs, businesses, internet marketing experts/gurus, etc. who use these tools to generate and grow income.
On the flip side, all the talk of ‘branding’ and ‘marketing’ has made it seem like if you have a regular Joe/Jane job, these tools really cannot do much for your career. You may want to reconsider.
The last time I described how these tools are being widely used and even legitimized for employee usage. What we can take for granted is that the use of social media platforms is going to be even more widespread in the near future. This presents every individual with an opportunity to build their digital presence and reputation, to help achieve career and/or employment goals.
How can you use easily available tools, to stand out from the competition?
Let’s put this into context by using a couple of real world, regular joe/jane jobs as examples:
Executive assistant – Usually the information available in a resume and/or cover-letter is used to shortlist candidates. Suppose one of the candidates also provides a blog and a twitter account as part of the application. The employer now has more information to make a hiring decision with. At the least, the content and conversations on the blog and on twitter, gives the employer a better idea of the candidate’s communication abilities. A positive appraisal of the candidate’s presence on these platforms may well give this candidate an upper hand over the competition. More so, if the employer uses, or plans to use social media strategies, as part of their marketing/outreach campaigns.
Customer Service agent – Similarly, a blog and/or activities on social media platforms like twitter or facebook are great ways to give prospective employers examples of your abilities to communicate, process and structure information. It also shows your relationship-building skills.
The list goes on and on. In tough economic times it becomes all the more important to stand out from the increasing number of job-seekers. Can you afford to be a candidate without an online personal brand to showcase?
Now you may say ‘Wait a minute! How can a frivolous status update or family album help an employer appraise my application? Will it not actually hamper my chances?’
Well that’s a great question to ask. The occasional joke and/or family pictures only demonstrate that you are human. Consistently questionable behavior obviously demonstrates something else. You are in control of your social media presence. Now this may be common sense but there’s more where it comes from.
Don’t know what to blog about? How does twitter work? Well, this is a good time to start. Take baby steps. Start by just commenting (adding value) on interesting blogs, facebook posts etc. Join twitter and follow a few people. See how you can work the platforms and over time, build and consolidate your personal brand. Remember, your online personal brand will probably outlive any job you may have. In fact, it may even help your career growth and unearth hidden talents. So proceed diligently.
Rule to remember: Effective use of social media platforms is not only about broadcasting information.
Any positive social media presence is not about simply pushing out information about what you do and how you do it. It is about building relationships. Even if you are continuously pushing a worthy non-profit cause, I may not be able to connect unless you invest in an online relationship with me first. Becoming a facebook friend or twitter follower is only the first step.
Similar issues are tackled by social media marketing gurus like (amongst others) Chris Brogan, Aaron Strout and my hometown Montreals own Mitch Joel. Though they mostly discuss branding and marketing, a lot of what they say can be applied towards personal brand building and career consolidation too.
We will discuss some of these topics as we go along. However, I end this post with a great tip from Chris Brogan (also validated by others), a great way to build two way relationships AND a good philosophy for living as well.
“Promoting your own stuff over and over again is lame. Promote others 12x to every 1x of your own stuff.”
Questions? Feel free to ask.
Social Media Tools Can Help Your Career, or not (if you ignore them).
A few weeks ago, a young MBA friend was informed by his employer that he would be more valuable (as an employee), if he started using social media tools to build his ‘brand’. I should mention that this individual, apart from an MBA, had considerable software development experience under his belt. His firm’s vision was to sell services at a higher premium, via the credibility (‘personal brand’) that the employees, were to create using social media platforms like facebook and twitter. Not just on Linkedin, which is the average persons idea of an accepted social network platform for career matters.
Then a few days ago, I was discussing the needs of a company hiring a new webmaster. In the past, their requirements for the position was based on technical competency. However, it was now clear to them that besides the technical aspects, the person would also need to be able to engage customers via newer forms of communication like facebook and twitter. The new hire would, ideally, actively drive the online media outreach efforts. They would, at the least, expect the new hire to know how these tools could be used to build an online community.
What was clear from both these situations was that, with the widespread usage of social media platforms, businesses are beginning to place more value on employees who can also engage customers using all the ‘conversational’ new media tools that go into what we call web 2.0.
For the uninitiated: in web 1.0, the flow of information was uni-directional. That is, mainly AT the target audience. In Web 2.0 – Facebook, twitter along with a bunch of up-and-coming platforms, allow deeper conversations and relationships, WITH your target audience. The easy access to and the mass adoption of these platforms have enabled businesses to engage with their audiences like never before.
This creates tremendous opportunities not only for businesses to connect with customers, but also for individual employees who can use these tools to advance their own careers. These new media tools are freely available to use with almost no training required. Of course, that does not mean every one is using them effectively.
I’m coming into Social Media networking a bit late (relatively speaking). I’ve not been using tools like twitter and facebook in a professional context, until a year or so ago. Later still, have been my efforts (now growing) at using web 2.0 tools as a personal tool to engage audiences. I see that a majority of relatives, friends and clients, still view facebook, twitter etc. as optional tools, mainly for entertainment. This post and the others that will follow, are primarily addressed to those with similar mindsets.
For those skeptical, a reminder that not too long ago, knowledge of e-mail, word and excel was not an absolute requirement for an office job. It may not be difficult for facebook (or third party app developers…a million strong the last I heard) to integrate tools like company chat/storage/file exchange modules etc., that could offer productivity enhancements. Even without these, companies are debating the benefits of allowing employees access to facebook and twitter. Business softwares like salesforce.com are integrating components (e.g.: chatter) inspired by these new media tools. Indeed, news like this may well become the norm: B.C. government approves Facebook, Twitter use for employees
I think every single individual out there CAN use these tools to enhance their career prospects. In an era where accomplished CEOs like Steve Jobs use web 2.0 to communicate directly with their customers, is it realistic to expect any vertical mobility in your career, if you ignore these tools?
Don’t know how to apply these tools to help your career? Let’s discuss.
Are you happy to use only Linkedin for your career? You still think facebook and twitter are ‘fads’? Can your career afford to sit it out?
What do you think?
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