Marketing Yourself Socially – Social Media Strategy

I read an interesting article today from the folks over at Higher Bracket (a Canadian Job Board that advertises $100k + jobs) about cover letters.  Much of what they talked about is basic marketing – which is hook, pitch and call to action.

About 15-20 years ago you responded to a job posting by quoting the newspaper you saw the posting on, the date it was posted and the job title.

Things have changed.

You don’t see a lot of job postings in the news paper anymore, instead you will find them on job boards – but those are only a small percentage.  Many recruitment companies are using things like Twitter to find candidates.  Twitter is not the only option, as others even use FaceBook — in fact, job hunting has quickly become an adventure in social networking.

The job search has become an adventure, you can’t expect to throw your resume up anywhere and expect people to find you – you have to be found and one of the key methods is through social networking.  You make use of services like Twitter by following individuals and having others follow you; but also by interacting with others — and it’s not an easy task!

Yahoo! Research has published a study called “Who Says What to Whom on Twitter”, here is an bstract of that study:

“We study several longstanding questions in media communications research, in the context of the microblogging service Twitter, regarding the production, flow, and consumption of information. To do so, we exploit a recently introduced feature of Twitter—known as Twitter lists—to distinguish between elite users, by which we mean specifically celebrities, bloggers, and representatives of media outlets and other formal organizations, and ordinary users. Based on this classification, we find a striking concentration of attention on Twitter—roughly 50% of tweets consumed are generated by just 20K elite users—where the media produces the most information, but celebrities are the most followed. We also find significant homophily within categories: celebrities listen to celebrities, while bloggers listen to bloggers etc; however, bloggers in general rebroadcast more information than the other categories. Next we re-examine the classical “two-step flow” theory of communications, finding considerable support for it on Twitter, but also some interesting differences. Third, we find that URLs broadcast by different categories of users or containing different types of content exhibit systematically different lifespans. And finally, we examine the attention paid by the different user categories to different news topics.”

The study is pretty interesting, and worth reading – yes, it is a free download from the Yahoo! Research site.

I found another site where Tony@ThePopulation talked about segmentation of Twitter users.  He came up with this – keep this in perspective, as these are his thoughts from 2009 and his blog (on Blogger) has not been updated in several years:

1. The Replacements – Those twitterers who have replaced a more traditional form of communication called talking with 140 characters or less of every thought, comment or announcement that enters their mind. These twitterers tend to skew towards the @reply functionality.
2. The Giver’s – Those that are so fast to tweet a link to the latest piece of industry information published, that they can practically claim it as their own. Lots of tinyurl’s are seen in their tweets. Those that just miss being first to announce often use the RT function.
3. The Takers – Those that selfishly take more than they give from Twitter. These people (me included in this group!) like to follow the random thoughts of random people and send minimal & uninteresting tweets (usually after a few drinks!).
4. The Profilers – Twitter has become both a replacement and a nightmare for publicists amongst those that have a public profile. And we all now feel closer to the ones we look up to and know more about what’s going on in their heads. And if their tweets are missed online, you can usually catch them in the glossies or sunday gossip sections.
5. The Robots – The segment we all hate, but in the end they dont care because they are machines! I also put the fakes in this segment as they tend to be disliked as well.
6. The WTF’s – This segment skews to those who have no followers and only 1 update. They are not sure what the hell twitter is and why people think it’s great. And they are proud to publicly announce it.

No doubt things have changed since this post was made, but I don’t imagine by much.

So how do you get noticed?

First off – if you are a professional; and depending on your level you probably want to be on LinkedIn.  It is the worlds largest social network for professionals, unfortunately it also attracts the newbie Internet Marketers who think that they’ve got an open invitation to spam you — but that’s another story.  By connecting to others on LinkedIn and participating in the various (hundreds or thousands) of groups and answering questions, you can rise to the top so that you are noticed — but this is never a guarantee that you’ll get calls out of the blue, but it certainly helps to strengthen your brand.

Next is Twitter.  Like LinkedIn, the key is to attract like minded Twitter users to follow you and also to follow like minded Twitter users — but it’s also important to not limit yourself to specific categories of users as you never know where your next opportunity will come from.  You should be smart about following and weed out the crap/spammers from those that genuinely give back to the Twitterverse.

Facebook is something nobody can be without, but in my opinion to make Facebook work you need to keep your personal profile separate from your professional profile.  The easiest way to do this?  Multiple accounts.  I do have a Facebook account that I share with friends, and family and have recently started a professional account but it is not yet ready for prime time.

The tough thing is to manage, and monitor multiple accounts — that’s where tools like HootSuite, and having a portable device like an iPad, iPhone, Samsung Galaxy Tab or other device can come in handy.  I won’t be talking about any applications in this post or devices.  I will save that for later.

As you contribute content to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn you do get noticed.  On LinkedIn your thoughtful responses to questions could earn you Expertise status in various categories.  As you also optimize your LinkedIn profile and target keywords for your industry you will also see an increase in who has viewed your profile.  The end result of more people viewing your profile, and your profile being found on search results is that the opportunities for HR firms to contact you increases.

On Twitter and Facebook it’s not as easy, you’re going to really have to work hard to get fans, likes and followers.  Again it all comes back to thoughtful and interesting tweets and information on Facebook.

Social media strategy is also much more than just Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn – but these are the top three.

Reading an excellent article on CIO.COM a survey by Jobvite found that companies that use social networking to recruit use the following methods:

1. LinkedIn @ 78%
2. Facebook @ 54%
3. Twitter @ 44%
4. Blog @ 18%

The rest of the items in their list drop from 12% (YouTube) to 4% for MySpace.  There were 14% that said they will use none.  They are the minority.

You need to be on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.  Having a blog also helps.

A link to the post is provided below.  You should also check out the JobVite site for some great career information.

Resources:

• http://mashable.com/2010/03/08/job-seeker-results/
• http://www.keppiecareers.com/2011/05/05/social-networking-advice-for-job-seekers-and-business-owners/
• http://www.baselinemag.com/c/a/Intelligence/10-Social-Networking-Tips-for-JobSeekers-762757/
• http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/social-networking-redefines-landscape-for-job-seekers-around-the-world-nasdaq-kelya-1510005.htm
• http://windmillnetworking.com/2011/02/25/tips-integrating-social-media-linkedin-job-search-2011/
• http://www.cio.com/article/598151/Social_Networking_Ever_More_Critical_to_Job_Search_Success

If you have any resources you would like to share – or one of your own, please comment on this post an we will love to link to you.

If you found this information useful, please consider RETWEETING it.  You can find the RETWEET button at the top of this post – thanks in advance!

Your Guide To LinkedIn Invitations

I have to admit, I’ve never customized outbound LinkedIn invitations nor have I consistently sent “Thank You” notes when someone chooses to link to me.  However one of my goals this year is to ensure when I send out an invitation, or respond to an invite either from an individual or group that I send a customized note.

With internet communications what they are – such as Twitter, or SMS (from your phone) we have all slowly gotten used to short and quick replies.  Long gone are the days when we actually wrote letters (thankfully – though I enjoy writing, I’ve never enjoyed writing letters… yes even to my wife in the days before SMS I hated writing letters).

Today we rely much more on Twitter to send out short bursts of thoughts, and we have quickly learned to abbreviate or create codes for common words or feelings – you know them, LOL, WTF, ROTFL and there are more. 

Check out…

• SMS Dictionary at http://www.funsms.net/sms_dictionary.htm
• Another SMS Dictionary at http://www.smsdictionary.co.uk/
• Lingo2Word at http://www.lingo2word.com/
• http://www.gaarde.org/acronyms/
• http://www.netlingo.com/acronyms.php
• http://www.urbandictionary.com/

Yah, there are quite a few short-hand dictionaries out there.

With that in mind, there is a time and place for real communications.  Actually thanking people or politely asking for something. 

With LinkedIn being the defacto social network for business people, it should be on everyones radar to meet and greet the right way.  Consider this if you were to go to a networking event, how would you meet and greet someone?  Would you use a generic greeting?  Probably not - you’d customize it as much as you could with what information you had available to you.

Think of LinkedIn the same way, except that with LinkedIn you know significantly more about the person you are about to connect with.  Since you have so much informtion about them, why not take the extra few minutes to do a proper introduction (yes I know that they can also see your profile - but we are talking about etiquette).  It doesn’t have to be difficult. 

Here is something that I put together in about 15 minutes.  You can save this as a “swipe file” on your netbook/laptop/tablet:

[Name],

Thanks for linking with me, if there is anything that I can do or help you with please let me know.

I see that you are [read their profile and insert appropriate comments] and I hope that I can learn from you.

You can contact me several ways:

• on LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/in/mbhimji
• Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/mohamedbhimji
• Personal e-mail address – mohamed @ mohamedbhimji . com (gotta becareful of the bots, donchaknow)
• Blog – http://www.mohamedbhimji.com
• Quora – http://www.quora.com/mohamed-bhimji

Have a great week!

Regards,

Mohamed Bhimji
Call/Contact Center & Operations Professional

It doesn’t need to be fancy, and this is only something that I quickly put together you probably want to spend a little more time at this than 15 minutes but the point is that you should customize your request and response just as you would when applying for a job.

I’ve found a few resources that you can use to help you learn more about creating customized LinkedIn invitation and Thank You responses to an LinkedIn invite.  I don’t necessarily agree with what these individuals may say about who they connect with, but each person has their own opinions and I respect theirs.

• http://interviewangel.com/5-guidelines-for-linkedin-invitations-2
• http://www.techforluddites.com/2009/02/the-etiquette-of-linkedin-invitations.html
• http://www.mpdailyfix.com/the-best-linkedin-invitation-ive-ever-received/
• http://linkedintelligence.com/writing-great-linkedin-invitations/ – I couldn’t see the post, and had to look at the cached content
• http://www.manager-tools.com/2011/01/linkedin-invitations
• http://timsstrategy.com/best-practices-in-writing-linkedin-invitations-whats-in-it-for-me/

OK so these are only a few, if you would like to be listed here simply comment on this post with the full URL of your post and I will moderate it.

By sending out and responding to invitations with custom notes you are not only showing the person you want to connect with that you’ve thought about the request, but you are helping build your brand and reputation with those individuals.

If you have a great LinkedIn invitation that you would like to share, comment on this post to your blogs URL with the invitation or just cut and paste your invitation for others to see and learn from.

Personal Email Address vs Gmail/Yahoo

Supposed you run a landscaping business, what would look more professional if you provide potential customers/clients with your business card:

joesprofessionallandscaping@hotmail.com

or

joe@professionallandscaping.com

Maybe you’re the CEO of a company and want people to connect to you at a personal address:

mrceo@yahoo.com

or

ceo@mohamedbhimji.com (as an example)

I hope that the answer is a no brainer and you said the second one in both cases.

Unfortunately for a lot of people, they opt the cheap route and pick the first.

Folks – NEWS FLASH.  Domain names are CHEAP.

You can pick-up a domain name for under $10 or $15 through GoDaddy.

Once you have that, it’s simple to setup domain e-mail hosting.  In fact there is a company called FuseMail (through a quick search on Google) that offers domain e-mail hosting for $2.00 per month per account!  This company is more geared towards business e-mail hosting so you have to spend a minimum of $10.00 per month but get 100gb per e-mail account (which I suspect you would never use).

If you would not rather shop around, just register your domain name at GoDaddy (I like them, and have several dozen domain names registered through GoDaddy) and at the same time pick-up a personal, deluxe or unlimited personal domain e-mail hosting from as low as CDN $1.13/mo to CDN $2.84/month or just get a MS Exchange account – professional e-mail at a low cost.

Pretty damn cheap.

Next check out their hosted MS Exchange e-mail plans. Finally corporate-class e-mail that you can afford.

Running your business with a @yahoo, @hotmail or even @gmail address does not look cool. Look professional, get a domain name that is you (your name), connect that with a very inexpensive MS Exchange e-mail domain hosting from GoDaddy and you are all set.

You have invested a lot to get you where you are today, are you really going to skimp, and nickle and dime yourself for a domain name, and e-mail hosting? Jeez, I hope not.

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