Are you starting to think that applying for jobs online is ineffective? Then you should change your job searching strategy and try building contacts and job leads with social media! You should start with the popular social network, LinkedIn. This particular social network was created specifically for professionals, so they would have a place to share expertise on various subjects, network, and exchange business information. If you aren’t on this social network, join now! LinkedIn allows you to upload your resume, finds work contacts who you have spoken with via Email, and lets you join professional groups.
When starting out, you should fill out your profile as much as you can. If you maintain a personal blog for sharing thoughts, expertise, and professional information, you should post the URL on your profile. If you have a personal website for the purpose of sharing the same professional information, post that as well. Make sure you fill out your previous work experiences, and include a list of all job skills you have obtained and strengthened during your time there. If you have past employers who you know would make good references for you, find them on LinkedIn. If you do find them, ask to connect with them and see if they would like to give you a LinkedIn recommendation. These recommendations can be viewed by the public, so any kind words from past employers or co-workers would be beneficial.
Once you have set up your profile and searched for existing contacts, you should then explore what type of companies and industries you are most interested in seeking employment with. Some companies offer open discussions for fellow LinkedIn users to participate in. This allows professionals the opportunity to showcase their expertise and share information that they think would be of interest to the group. If you ever have something to say that is worth sharing with professional peers, definitely take this chance to voice your opinion. Companies do monitor their social network pages and would see what you had to say. If you participate on a regular basis, you may begin to create a relationship with professionals who are also engaging in discussions and the company may view you as a trusted source.
LinkedIn is also a place where you can post slideshows, podcasts, videos and more. If you have a lot of material from past work that you would be able to post to the public, do it. By posting your past work, employers are able to see the quality of work you produce and what you have done in the past.
Events and calendars are another feature you can post. Next time you are on LinkedIn, check out whhich conferences the companies you are following are attending. If there is a conference happening near you and you know that they will be there too, think about attending yourself. You could post on their profile, “I am attending this event as well, look forward to seeing you there!” They may respond, or may not, but either way, you are getting yourself out there. If you do end up going to the event, it would be a great chance to meet some of the people you have been following online and it may initiate further conversation of topics previously discussed online.
In general, professional networking is always beneficial to your accumulation of work contacts. If you decide to use social media for job seeking, it may not guarantee you a job within the next month, but it is a step closer to making an impression on the industry you want to work in. By engaging with professionals on LinkedIn, you will be able to share expertise, gain more insight on topics and trends, and familiarize yourself with professionals and companies in that industry.
Show off your personality and expertise with your own YouTube Channel!
Try to get involved with Twitterviews!
2010 was a busy year for social media, and it seems to be the year of social media updates that catered more to the business world. Which social media updates stood out the most to Grow Socially? Check out the following!
LinkedIn recently added a “Services” tab for all company profiles. Before this addition, company pages only consisted of the company logo as the profile image, a brief description of the company or business, and a list of all of the employees that had the company name on their personal LinkedIn profile. With the new “Services” tab on a company LinkedIn profile, businesses are able to showcase what they can offer to prospects in a more detailed manner. By having these services listed on their LinkedIn profile, the tab also gives leverage to where a company appears in organic search engine results because it would have more keywords on the profile. Companies should take advantage of this new feature because it will enhance their LinkedIn Profile, give a new opportunity for connecting relevant keywords with the company’s profile page and give more information to their online audience.
Twitter has completely revamped the way their user profiles appear online. Originally, Twitter profiles were set up with a wide, side border which gave room for companies to add customized backgrounds containing company information. The new layout has slimmer side borders which seemed to alarm users because so much of their background content would no longer fit. Although this had to force companies to adjust their backgrounds, the new layout does offer great benefits that the original layout was missing. You can now click on YouTube, Flickr, iTunes, and USTREAM links and view them directly from your Twitter page. This is good for companies who want to share information online but do not want to direct traffic away from their own Twitter page. So now there are no excuses; share, share, share!
Ads are also going to begin flooding the Twitter pages in the near future. Social media is definitely a jackpot when it comes to directing ads to highly-targeted audiences, which is the reason for why social media is quickly becoming one of the most popular forms of advertising for businesses.
The innovative social media site, Facebook, seems to make a big change on a monthly basis; it is the pioneer of social media after all. Two Facebook updates we have enjoyed seeing this year are the addition of Facebook Places and its newly revamped Profile layout. Facebook Places may have not been the most original idea since there are many location-based sites, such as FourSquare, but it sure is convenient! Some people may have never used FourSquare and other similar applications because their friends may not have jumped on that bandwagon. You also have to sync it up to your other social media profiles, which may seem like a burden to some. With Facebook Places, you are probably already a loyal, active user of the site, and the Places feature is so easy to use on your smart phone. Once you find the location you are in, you just add a comment, check-in, and Facebook automatically posts your check-in onto your NewsFeed! Simple as that.
Facebook’s new layout may have come as an inconvenient surprise to many at first, since it was a bit different to navigate through compared to the previous layout. However, it is definitely an improvement. Facebook now groups particular information together with other similar content so it is easier for people to navigate through. Major Facebook links are now in the left-hand column rather than on the top banner and Facebook has enlarged status icons so it is easier for people to know how to post a video, picture, link, or message. When viewing someone’s profile page, you can now read a brief summary of the person’s employment, education, where they live, marital status, hometown and birth date. Facebook has also added a photo display feature to everyone’s profile so you can view recent pictures while checking out a user’s wall. If you are working on specific projects, you can now share that information and tag people who are working with you on that project as well. It seemed like Facebook’s goal was to provide more information to a user with less time and effort, and we believe they accomplished this.
Social media will always be evolving, which makes it exciting to see how far it has come and where it will go. We still remember when Facebook’s NewsFeed was their next big, controversial change. Now the NewsFeed seems to be Facebook’s best feature. Five years ago, Facebook seemed to just be a popular site used by college kids to post the past weekend’s pictures on. Since then, it has inspired an era of social media marketing. What 2011 will bring to social media is something we can only imagine; but we are sure everyone can expect to be amazed with what the future holds.
To improve your YouTube videos, add YouTube Annotations to them.
Check out how social media improves customer service!
Everyone knows about the post-holiday blizzard that struck the Northeast the day after Christmas. It resulted in over 2,000 flight cancellations and left thousands of travelers stranded at the airports. Although flight cancellations happen many times every year, they always seem to cause stress, frustration, and unhappiness for travelers due to the lack of information from airlines. In my case, I was stuck in South Carolina due to a canceled flight that would have brought me back to New England. Since this was my first time encountering a canceled flight, I was very confused, frustrated and disappointed with how airlines mismanage such a common occurrence.
My first frustration was how I heard about my flight being canceled. I had to either go to the airline’s website or download their mobile app to check on my flight status. Even though the airline had my E-mail address from when I booked the flight, it never sent me an automated E-mail telling me about this cancellation. Also, when I did look up my flight and saw that it had been canceled, there was no link next to “Canceled” for what to do next. A helpful link that said something like, “Need to re-book?” would have been a great way to ease my stress for what to do next.
My second frustration was the lack of contact information. It was a Sunday and the day after Christmas, so all of the ticket offices at the airports and airlines were closed. It felt like the airports were not only canceling the flights, but sending their employees home. Every page that contained contact information gave me the same 1-800 number, which simply led me to the automated message, “”Due to the overwhelming volume of calls, we are unable to answer. Please visit our website or call back later”. I felt like I was going in a circle of dead ends.
Finally, I was able to find a new number which directed me to a live person after almost an hour of waiting, but if I hadn’t found that number, then what would have happened? My flight was two connecting flights with only one being canceled. Would I have had to take the first flight and wait at the connecting airport? Would I have to buy another plane ticket from Point A to B? Why was there no information on refunds, delayed/canceled flights, and special numbers for these type of emergencies?
Here are my thoughts on how airlines can improve the system. When booking the flight, make sure you get a person’s cell phone number and E-mail address for contact information for emergencies like this. If a flight is canceled, send an automated text message and E-mail giving the person a specific link for booking the next available flight out. Keep your social media pages active so the airline can answer any customer service questions people may have, as well as having more contact numbers available so people can talk to a live person more quickly. Also, have a section on your website specifically for these types of emergencies. Give a detailed explanation of how soon you should rebook your flight, your policy on refunds, etc. If you want to get even more specialized with customer service, create a live chat feature on your website so people can instant message live customer representatives directly from their computer.
Communication is one of the great benefits of the Internet and social media, let’s use it to our advantage and not leave stranded passengers in the dark!
Read more about how social media improves customer services and how you can interact with your online audience.
Want to learn a new way to create innovative, entertaining, and interactive YouTube videos? Take a look at YouTube Annotations! They are little pop-up bubbles that can appear at any designated time of your YouTube video. Why should you use them? You can add additional content, comments, and links to other relevant YouTube videos.
What’s another great plus about YouTube Annotations? They are so easy to use! Below is a step –by-step process.
1- Go to “My Videos” once you are logged into your YouTube account. You can find this link by going to the upper-right-hand corner of the screen. Then, click the drop-down menu that is attached to your username, which is located next to the “Sign Out” link.
2- Go to Upload, in the left-hand column, in order to choose which video you would like to add annotations to.
3- Once you choose the desired video, click on the “Down-Arrow” button, and you will see “Annotations” in the drop-down menu.
Once you have opened up “Annotations”, you have the option of which type of annotation you want. Here are your options:
Speech Bubble: To add commentary to what people may be saying or thinking.
Note: To add additional content to the subject matter.
Title: If you would like to put a title on your video.
Spotlight: If you would like a certain area of the video to have additional content about it.
Pause: It gives the viewer a chance to pause the video for a certain amount of time.
Once you have selected which type of annotation you prefer, you are able to then add in whatever text you want. Try to keep it short and sweet, you don’t want text taking up a large portion of the video screen. YouTube Annotations also allows you to place the text where ever on the video screen you prefer along with offering options of font colors and sizes. Give some interaction abilities to your videos by adding links to them. You can find this option below the area where you customize your annotation text.
To see a humorous example of the use of YouTube Annotations, check out this video of our CEO, John Foley, competing with an interlinkONE colleague in a ping-pong match. If you do not have a YouTube Channel, learn why you should get one.
Visit the Annotation Page on YouTube for more information!
Grow Socially would like to give a big congratulations to our CEO, John Foley, and interlinkONE’s Sales Executive, Karen Sheehey, for being declared as two of 2010′s Top 50 Most Influential People in Sales Lead Management.
5,810 votes were cast for 99 nominees by 3,786 people (each voter could choose up to three nominees).
Obermayer said, “The winning 50 men and women are creators of wealth and the voters have recognized their contributions in this increasingly important field of managing sales leads.”
Susan Campanale, VP of Marketing for the SLMA said, “The SLMA has assumed the cheerleader’s role in promoting the importance of all facets of managing sales leads. These people are recognized by their peers as extreme players in the pursuit of ROI for marketing expenditures.”
Some people believe, “If my business is not on social media, then it would be impossible for it to receive bad reviews from the public.” This is 100% false because people are still going to talk whether or not your company has a social media profile. The only way you can solve the problem of people complaining about your business online is by joining in on the conversation! Setting up social media profiles has so many benefits, and one of them is that you are able to listen to what your online audience is saying about you.
For Facebook, if people are giving your company bad reviews or complaints on the page, address the issue publicly for everyone to see the apology and an explanation for why something may have gone wrong. If it needs more specified attention, simply message the distressed customer and ask if there is any way you can solve the problem.
Here is a great example of the popular retail store, Express, addressing customer complaints publicly on their Facebook page.
Customer: “I ordered last week and now I received a shipment update and only half of my items are in the basket? Called customer service and they just said that they were sorry because the items were sold out? I placed my order last week Express.”
Express: “Hi Minh, sorry to hear your items were out of stock. If you’d like to replace for other items we’d be happy to help. 1-888-EXP-1980.”
They acknowledged the customer, apologized, and offered a solution to the problem at hand. This shows viewers that they accept the fact that issues come up, but that they do not hesitate to turn a negative customer experience into a good one. Having a Facebook page also opens up a window of communication for customers who are confused about where to go for the answer to their question.
Twitter is also a great venue for viewing what people have to say about your business. By searching in Twitter’s search box, you can type in your company’s name and then every tweet that has those words in it will come up. It’s a fantastic filter to use when combing through a lot of information.
Here are three different examples of how searching tweets on Twitter can improve customer service:
Customer 1: “At best buy right now and met with Karl a GM who turned a bad customer experience into a GR8 one, thanks again!”
via Twitter for iPhone
Customer 2: “Very, very, very, very, VERY upset with Apple and AT&T. If anyone is thinking of buying iPhone 4 I suggest you wait until they fix it.
via Twitter for iPhone
Business 1: “@________, very sorry to hear you had a bad experience w/ our customer care. Please let me know if I can help.”
via Twitter
From all of these examples, we learn that sharing is good, even in the public eye. When people have a great customer experience, they share it and give the deserved ones credit. When they have a poor experience, they are also likely to share it. When the negative tweets do occur, take that as an opportunity to reach out immediately with customer care. Your help and generosity will also appear to the public eye, and people will see that your business cares about solving customer problems and fulfilling their needs. Just like what the third example did, they recognized the problem, apologized, and offered assistance. Simple gestures such as that will make the distressed customer’s day better and it will show your audience that your business cares about them.
Learn how to interact with your online audience or see how Twitter can help you reach new audiences.
Graham just posted the latest episode of the Grow Socially Podcast on iTunes. Check it out, subscribe and let us know what you think!
GrowSociallyPodcastE01
Yesterday was the last of the 3-part webinar series that we sponsored with WhatTheyThink. All of the webinars were focused on social media, how they help your company, and they all featured commentary from various social media experts and marketers. The 3rd series was a fantastic hour-packed discussion of how 3 experts use social media and how it helps their businesses. The three experts in this last webinar were:
- Brett Olszewski, Chief Marketing, KP Corporation
- Scott Dubois, Vice President of Cross-Media Services and Marketing, Reynolds DeWalt
- Margie Dana, Founder, Printer Buyers International
They all provided great feedback on how social media has helped them with sharing information, checking customer services, and creating brand awareness online for their business. They also provided helpful “do’s and don’ts” of social media, which can benefit everyone who listens. If you have time, listen to the recording of “Social Media in Action: The Printer’s Perspective”. It is only an hour long and is very informative!
Afterwards, please feel free to participate in a survey regarding the webinar
If you would like to see the tweets that took place on Twitter during the webinar, the hashtag is “#GSWebinar”.
In case you missed the first two webinars of the 3-part series, you can listen to them here:
“The Ultimate Social Media Primer”
“Social Media in Action: The Marketer’s Perspective”
For more information on how social media can help you, check out ways to interact with your online audience or how to use Twitter as a marketing tool.
Grow Socially is pleased to announced that they have been nominated for an award. Our CEO, John Foley, has been nominated for 2 awards as well. Below, there is information on all 3 of our nominations. We would love to have your vote!
Grow Socially is up for the National/lnternational B2B Services Company Award and John Foley is up for the B2B Boss Tweet Personality Award!
It’s easy! All you have to do is briefly explain why you think Grow Socially and John Foley deserve the awards and just click submit.
While you are there, check out their Q & A’s on each of the voting pages to hear how and why each of the nominees use Twitter!
SLMA is giving you the chance to vote for 3 people who you believe are one of the 50 most influential people in Sales Lead Management for 2010! If you think John Foley is one of the best out there, give him your vote!
Listen to John explain why social media helps sales lead generation on SLMA Radio!
Read how John used a Twitterview to create sales lead generation.
Get ready for our next free webinar happening Novemeber 17th with WhatTheyThink!
This third in a series of social media webinars features printers who have successfully incorporated social media into their business practices. Attendees will gain insight into their strategies as well as what they have gained, or expect to gain, from their participation in the world of social media.
Take a look at this webinar’s panel of social media experts!
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Brett Olszewski, Chief Marketing Officer, KP Corporation
Working with KP since 1993, As KP’s Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, Brett is responsible for driving overall company revenue and directs both KP’s national sales team and marketing operations. He is also responsible for steering KP’s manufacturing and technology offerings to meet the market’s ever-changing needs. As CMO, Brett oversees all facets of KP’s marketing efforts, including market analysis, segmentation, offering definition, company branding, multi-channel campaign management, and public relations activities. |
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Margie Dana, Blogger for PIWorld.com, Buyer columnist for Printing Impressions.
Margie is the founder of Print Buyers International (PBI), a company dedicated to serving print customers worldwide through education, content development, and event production. She also founded Boston Print Buyers, a Division of Print Buyers International. It is a professional group that brings networking and educational opportunities to New England professionals who purchase or influence the purchase of print and other media. She has produced annual PBI conferences since 2006. |
| Scott Dubois – Vice President, Cross-Media Services & Marketing
As the Vice President of Cross-Media Services & Marketing, Scott works closely with Reynolds DeWalt’s account managers and clients to provide innovative methods of communication. Once cross-media projects are underway, Scott stays involved from concept to completion, ensuring that everything proceeds as designed. With an extensive background in information technology, he provides insight and innovative ideas on cutting-edge content delivery methods. Be sure to check out some of the webinars we have done in the past as well! Social Marketing and Your Company |
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