via blog.nielsen.com
Monday, May 21, 2012
Friday, May 18, 2012
Need More Inbound Links to Your B2B Blog? | Resumebear Online Resume #SoulcialMe
If you’re a B2B blogger, you know that links are the currency of SEO. Building credible, authoritative and relevant links back to your blog is an excellent way in which to tell the search engines that your blog is valuable to their many customers (i.e. searchers) and needs to be ranked accordingly.
But you also know that link building is not an exact science. Despite the fact that they work through algorithms constructed by meticulous geeks, search engines tend to be flaky and subjective when it comes to compiling their rankings, and keeping up with their ever-changing tweaks can be quite a task.
The following tips and ideas will help ensure that your link building strategy doesn’t run aground.
1. Remember, quality trumps quantity
As with any business endeavor, and most things in life, you’re better off focusing on building a few, high value links than trying to pepper the web with as many links as you can create. In the world of search engines, status is everything, so take time targeting a handful of sites that you know to be influential.2. Find out who’s linking to your competitors
If you’re a serious blogger, you will know who you’re up against – who’s blogging to the same audience as you? Who’s trying to hog your subject spotlight? Then find out who is helping them by identifying links to their blogs (go to yahoo and type ‘links:’ followed by the URL for a list). These sites will likely be easy targets for your own links.3. Become a guest blogger
By finding complementary sites and offering your expertise as a blogger in exchange for a link, you will be building your own blog’s profile as a leader in the sector. Be sure to provide a reciprocal link to reinforce your blog’s relationships in the eyes of the search engines.4. Register with blog directories
While the quantity of blog directories has exploded over the past few years, the quality has really floundered. This means that finding directories that are worth registering with requires a bit of digging, but this remains an important element of a link building strategy.5. Request links where you probably deserve them
If you’ve gone to the trouble of reviewing someone’s product or blogging about their event, take the time to drop them an email asking them to link to your post from their website.6. Use article marketing
Rewrite some of your blog posts into articles for free article submission sites. Many of these allow links and some can be well optimized.7. Publish something unique and newsworthy
Create a survey or an index and invite an online news site to run the story with a link to your blog. This might be hard work, but it does tend to pay off as these are links that your competitors will struggle to imitate.8. Offer awards
Create a badge that links back to your blog, and award it to top achievers in your target field. This is a win-win situation: they get recognized for their hard work, while you get your link.9. Pick up the phone
So many B2B marketers forget about the old fashioned dog-and-bone. If you’ve identified a website that holds some authority in your sector call the webmaster and ask what it takes to get a link. You’ll probably be surprised at how receptive they are to being approached in this manner.10. Make your blog worth linking to
If your content is super and your blog meets a need that no other blog even comes close to, you’ll find webmasters, journalists and the Twitterati simply won’t be able to resist linking to it. This is, of course, a best case scenario, but one to aim for.What are some other strategies you have used to build links to your B2B blog?
By Heather Baker
No related posts.
Friday, May 11, 2012
Social media for entrepreneurs: how to find the contacts your new business needs | Manchester Evening News - menmedia.co.uk #SoulcialMe
A social media presence can be a huge asset for small companies and those starting out in business on their own. Not only will social media sites help you to drive custom towards your enterprise, they can also be an invaluable networking opportunity helping you increase your market awareness and engage with customers while building a portfolio of contacts in the industry.If your start-up is registered on sites such as Twitter and Facebook, you are already on your way to developing the strength of your business brand. If carried out correctly, marketing through social media can increase revenue and help you glean knowledge from experts in your field. If your business experiences rapid growth, you may need to review any business insurance quotes to ensure that your cover meets your ongoing needs.
According to new research by eMarketer*, over 1.2 billion people across the globe now use social networking sites at least once a month. This figure is set to grow over the course of 2012 to an estimated 1.5 billion internet users.
To help grow your corporate contact list, try maximising your use of social media sites in the following ways:
Set up a Facebook page
Setting up a Facebook page will allow you to gather a solid base of customer and business contacts. As these people become ‘fans’ and forward the page link on to others in the industry it can only contribute to your market profile. Many SMEs are even using it as an additional tool to recruit staff.
Increase your Edgerank
Each item posted on your Facebook page has an Edgerank, and those that are low in this ranking may not appear in your top newsfeeds. Make more use of interactivity to increase an item’s Edgerank. Posts that encourage a “call to action”, such as trivia questions, or those that spark a discussion, such as questions on a current debate, will help to drive natural traffic to your page.
Use Twitter to promote your brand
If you have been unable to get hold of key players in business over the phone, you may be able to reach them more easily through Twitter. Start by sending them an email asking them to follow you, and then use Tweets to update contacts about developments in your business that others may be keen to invest in.
Increase your pool of contacts in an instant
LinkedIn will calculate your ‘degrees of separation’ between other contacts, allowing you to use common connections to forge new contacts. The site is also ideal for generating B2B links, especially on the site’s forums. There are numerous industry groups on LinkedIn, and these can be found by browsing the site’s ‘Groups Directory’ or the ‘Groups You May Like’ facility.
Making good use of social media sites will invariably boost the presence of your business, helping to give you a competitive edge in the market. While Social Media may help to generate revenue, it’s important however to consider the latest legal obligations for using these sites, and check to see whether you are covered by your business insurance or professional indemnity insurance.
Sources
via menmedia.co.uk
Skype - The Big Blog - Skype to acquire Qik #SoulcialMe
President, Skype division, Microsoft. I'm responsible for overseeing the direction and strategy and am ultimately responsible for its performance.Tony BatesSkype to acquire Qik
I’m happy to announce that we’ve entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Qik, a provider of mobile video software and services that let people capture, instantly share and preserve great moments on video from anywhere. Qik has 60 employees, and is headquartered in Redwood City, California and has an office in Moscow, Russia. We expect to close the transaction in January 2011.
Qik is available on over 200 mobile phones running Android, iOS, Symbian, BlackBerry OS and Windows Mobile, and comes preloaded on a wide variety of mobile handsets through partnerships with handset manufacturers and mobile networks.
Skype and Qik share a common purpose of enriching communications with video, and the acquisition of Qik will help to accelerate our leadership in video by adding recording, sharing and storing capabilities to our product portfolio.
Through this acquisition, we’ll also be able to take advantage of the engineering expertise that is behind Qik’s Smart Streaming technology, which optimizes video transmission over wireless networks.
Together, we’ll focus on providing great products that will allow people around the world to share experiences in real-time video across different platforms, as well as storing those moments so they can be viewed later.
Posted to: Corporategwen.lamb commented Friday, Jan 7
Real time communication has moved up the ladder! I look forward to great improvements to Qik.
pankaj.sharma0135 commented Friday, Jan 7
Congrats!! i hope Skype user will have great experience after this deal.
http://thetechbytes.comiogames commented Saturday, Jan 8
Wow! 2 of my favorite companies in 1... it's like a dream come true... am I look happy?
cullenfluffyjennings commented Sunday, Jan 9
Hilarious that the video blog announcing a QiK acquisition was announced using youtube.
stephinge commented Monday, Jan 10
Huge fan of Skype and I am very excited about the integration of Skype & Qik. Look forward to great things and sharing live videos with family and friends.
flufner commented Wednesday, Jan 12
congratulations to the Qik team! I have worked together with some of your developers before they joined Qik and they have great talent. Looking forward to a unified integrated video calling solution for all my mobile and stationary devices
via blogs.skype.com
Woo Hoo
Monday, May 7, 2012
Do You Use Social Media? [POLL] #SoulcialMe
Over 900 million people are on the social networking giant Facebook. Are you one of them? These days it’s odd to run into someone who doesn’t have Facebook. Even my grandmother is on Facebook from time to time. Social media is everywhere. I personally use it all the time. My top sites are Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. KFYO even has their own presence on Facebook and Twitter in case you didn’t know.
Just how popular is Facebook? Just wait for their IPO. According to Bloomberg:
Facebook Inc. (FB)’s $11.8 billion initial public offering will cement the status of 27-year-old Mark Zuckerberg as one of the world’s richest men and put his social network among the highest-valued companies in the U.S.
Facebook is offering about 337.4 million shares for $28 to $35 each, according to a regulatory filing yesterday.
Like I said earlier, Facebook is a giant. So what about you? Do you use social media? Let us know in today’s LFN Poll of the Day.
via kfyo.com
Friday, May 4, 2012
Which Social Network Makes The Most Business Sense? - The BrainYard - InformationWeek #SoulcialMe
Facebook? Twitter? Google+? Pinterest? Here's how to ensure you dedicate resources to the right platforms for your business.
A friend on Facebook recently shared a cartoon from Noise to Signal showing a pair of work associates pondering their social strategy: "So we poured our budget into a Foursquare strategy, which we abandoned to pursue an Instagram strategy, which we dropped to pursue a Pinterest strategy. I'm starting to think what we really need is a strategy strategy," the cartoon's caption says.
I thought the cartoon, by Rob Cottingham, nailed a problem that many organizations are facing today: With so many social networking platforms out there, and with new "it" platforms changing the landscape at a dizzying pace, where should you dedicate what are probably limited resources? Facebook? Twitter? LinkedIn? Pinterest? Google+? Is it better to bet on one or two platforms, or to spread your chips across them all and see which one hits? Just as the cartoon notes, it's important to develop a social "strategy strategy."
At the heart of any decision about social strategy is relevance, according to Jason Breed, Global Social Media practice lead for Accenture and co-founder of www.Hashtagsocialmedia.com. He says, "[You] need to do social on purpose--otherwise, you are simply moving for the sake of motion."
[ Once you've decided on a social platform, it's time to measure your social strategy's success. Read 5 Social Media Metrics That Matter Now. ]
Organizations must think about what's relevant for the business and what's relevant for the customer, Breed advises. "Like any investment, [social initiatives have] to result in impact to the business--calls deflected, new leads, competitive intelligence, supply chain effectiveness, etc. Then figure out the best channel for that, not the other way around," he says. "It does not matter if you put up a Facebook page while your customers are complaining on Twitter."
Organizations need to know not only what social platform their customers are on, but also what they are doing while they are there. Joellyn Sargent, principal of marketing and management company BrandSprout, offers this example: If you know your customers are spending lots of time on Facebook but they primarily use the platform to stay in contact with close friends, it may not be the best venue if you want to do something with more of a B2B focus. "Once you know where your customers hang out and why, pick one or two platforms that align with your customers' usage patterns," says Sargent. "Focus your social networking efforts on those. Maybe it's LinkedIn and Twitter, or Pinterest and Facebook. Whatever you choose, dedicate yourself to learning how to use these platforms well, then build on that experience as you add more diverse platforms to the mix."
It's also important to be aware that certain social networking platforms tend to be better for certain applications. For example, a company that makes children's toys or women's clothing might want to stake a claim on Pinterest, which is image-heavy and whose audience is primarily female.
Kate Hutchinson has focused the social media presence for domain name registrar United Domains on Twitter. "Over time, I've really focused our presence on Twitter because I find the most engagement there, and it has the most open platform for searching and finding new conversations that my company can participate in," says Hutchinson.
Hutchinson works with other social platforms as well, but in a very concerted, strategic way, based on the strengths of each of the networks and what each can offer United Domains.
"LinkedIn I use as a company directory, adding our product offerings as well as cross-posting blog posts and searching for potential partners," she says. "Google+ is best for simple content sharing. It's a much smaller network, so I focus less effort there, but I definitely work to share content from the company blog and new product pages. The advantage of Google+ is the indexing power and the influence it plays on search rankings. Facebook I find to be a completely mismatched network for my company's offerings. We target SMB customers as a B2B company, and Facebook is better suited for a B2C company. We do have a presence there, but most of it is automated, simply to keep it current. There is little interaction with the site."
Just as you need to select the right network for your company, you also need to carefully develop the right presence on each. As Hutchinson notes, some sites will warrant more (or less) dedicated presence to activities like engaging in conversations with customers. But you also have to be aware of what kind of content works for each site. In other words, what you post on Facebook may not make sense on Twitter, and vice versa.
"There are definitely social networks that are so similar that you can duplicate efforts and skip the customization, but when it comes to the big ones, customized content can go a lot farther than just using the same social media message across multiple platforms," says Denise Keller, COO and manager of social initiatives for Benchmark Email, an email marketing service. "In some ways, it's like mail merge letters. You can send a mail merge letter to thousands of people, personalized with their name and business, but in the end most can probably tell that it's a mass email, even though you put in some individualized information. You don't have to create custom content every time you post to the big social networks, but you should aim to create and post some on a frequent basis."
What social networks is your organization focusing on? How did you decide? Please comment below or write me at debra.donstonmiller@gmail.com. Follow Deb Donston-Miller on Twitter at @debdonston.
The Enterprise 2.0 Conference brings together industry thought leaders to explore the latest innovations in enterprise social software, analytics, and big data tools and technologies. Learn how your business can harness these tools to improve internal business processes and create operational efficiencies. It happens in Boston, June 18-21. Register today!
On Pinterest, it's share and share alike #SoulcialMe
Americans spend upward of 30 hours a month staring at their computer screens, shopping and browsing and seeking. We relish the efficiency, the expanse of information, the anonymity and the freedom. But we are social creatures and as such, can't seem to stop gathering in various online communities to share music or photos of fabulous dinners or handbags.
We come together when rumors circle over a Kim Kardashian-Kanye West courtship or the replacement for John Galliano is announced at Dior. But nothing really says "Get to know me" quite like posting images of your favorite platforms or colored jeans, waiting for the social affirmation of a virtual thumbs up and comments from both real-life friends and those found throughout the Web. It's a scrapbook world out there, and the fast and furious growth of such social networking sites says a great deal about the American psyche: We like it pretty, we like it easy (who says you can't answer your boss' question and share a funny cat video at the same time?) and we want to achieve this soothing state at the click of a mouse. Affirmation may very well be our national pastime — and declarations about personal style prompt a lot of the love.
It may even be psychologically healthy.
This all bodes well for the current social media darling Pinterest, a virtual bulletin board that lets its users showcase all the images, videos and witticisms that inspire them to make their own cookies, remodel their offices or create a perfect spring wardrobe. As is the modus operandi of most social media sites, Pinterest offers users a feeling of approval and the promise of a surge in popularity as friends comment on, "like" and share these newfound treasures on their own boards.
Even better: Pinterest and the numerous sites like it (Pinspire, anyone? Or perhaps the more testosterone-themed Manteresting? They don't pin, they nail.) are free to use, meaning there is no financial limitation to this form of online self-expression. If you click on the photo's link to another site and make a purchase, then hey, that's on you.
Cincinnati-based fashion blogger Erin Flynn, 25, who is the co-founder of the site Righting Style, agrees that Pinterest is a great source for storing — in her case, sartorial — ideas, but it also allows her to connect with other fashion bloggers and share ideas. From a business perspective, Flynn likes that the site drives a lot of Web traffic (read: eyeballs) to her blog.
Alexandra Lippin, 31, a publicist in Los Angeles, admits that she first joined the site because she thought it would be a good resource for her clients, but now, well, she can't stop Pinning.
"I look forward to going home and logging on," Lippin says. "I use it for everything: shopping, party planning, recipes, décor ideas, etc. I have spent so much money in the last two months since I got into Pinterest as I keep finding things I want!"
Because these sites rely so much on positive visual appeal, they also allow users to interact with a community eager to share comforting ideas — as opposed to polarizing opinions or news stories that could cause a backlash of comments. Here, the worst-case scenario is that no one re-pins your image.
"What I get out of these sites is that they're celebrations of the small things in life, because it's these celebrations that change how you feel," says Pamela Rutledge, director of the nonprofit Media Psychology Research Center (MPRC) and instructor of media psychology in the UCLA Extension program. "I find all these celebrations and creativity not just charming, but uplifting as a trend. We always had negative news because that's what gets eyeballs for the 10 o'clock newscast, but we've never had the opportunity before to explore so many small, happy bits."
Yes, a lot of the items people pin probably end up being more aspirational than inspirational — the sarcastic humor-themed greeting card site SomeeCards.com features a card that reads "I'm really looking forward to the non-existent wedding you're planning on Pinterest" — but the site has also started a craze of "Pinterest parties" where (more often than not) women gather to show off the crafts and food and other niceties they created based on ideas they found on the site.
On a daily basis, technology news sites tout statistics of Pinterest's meteoric rise. In January, Pinterest users spent an average of 89 minutes on the site. (By comparison, Twitter users were there for 21 minutes and users of the job-themed social network
LinkedIn spent 17 minutes on the site.) In March, it became the third most popular social media site in the United States, behind Facebook and Twitter. Pinterest users in the United States are reportedly mostly women between 25 and 34, and top brands on the site include Etsy, Kate Spade and HGTV.
Call it superficial window shopping if you want, but MPRC's Rutledge argues that sites such as Pinterest can provide some insight into what makes that colleague down the hall tick.
"There's a way of self-discovering as a way of sharing because you're not overtly saying 'I Love Trees' or whatever," says Rutledge. Much like body language, "you're leaving it for people to infer."
So, yes, sharing your love for the new Gregory Parkinson line at Anthropologie or Frye boots says a lot without giving away your entire psychological store. This you-figure-it-out mentality could be precisely what's needed in a social media landscape of ever-changing privacy settings where our professional, home and social lives are all intertwined online — these visual sites give us the affirmation fix we crave without the cost of committing our thoughts to text.
"Social networks and apps remind me of show-and-tell days in elementary school where I choose what I want the world to see, but I also pick what I want to keep private," says Brian Hernandez, culture editor for social media news site Mashable. "I think that's a smart way to look at social media. Our online presence should be an extension of who we are, [but] it's not what defines us."
It helps that Pinterest and sites like it are on trend, as social media is quickly moving toward a more image-oriented landscape that not only simplifies but speeds up the mental affirmation process. Just as in a clothing store when you instantly get a sense of outfits to take to the dressing room, social sites' photographic displays help us instantly decide if we find an image to be pleasing, pretty or interesting. Facebook, for example, has incorporated a visual timeline and recently acquired the mobile application Instagram, a photo retouching tool that bathes otherwise average closet-raid photo shoots in patinas of soft, faux-vintage light. You can even view your Facebook page in a Pinterest-style manner with the Pinview application. Twitter allows photos and videos to appear in updates, and the microblogging site Tumblr makes it easy to share and re-share content with a quick click.
"There's suddenly what's being referred to as the visual multiplier," says Alexis Madrigal, a senior editor at the Atlantic who covers technology. "It's easier to share and pass around photos and videos than it is to pass around text. … When we're talking about people who are processing information quickly, the idea that a photo is a thousand words might actually be provably true."
Using Visual Social Networks to Grow Your Business Business on Main #SoulcialMe
Related Topics
Pinterest, Tumblr and Instagram are revolutionizing online marketing. Find out why a picture really is worth a thousand words when it comes to these popular tools.
You’re a Facebook ninja, a Twitter master and a LinkedIn maven. But do you know about the new breed of social media sites focused on sharing photos and images? Here’s a closer look at three of the hottest and how you can use them to grow your business.
What it is: Pinterest users “pin” images to virtual bulletin boards, follow other users and repin their pins.
Why it matters: Pinterest’s exponential growth is making waves. The site currently drives more referral traffic to retailers than LinkedIn, YouTube or Google Plus. In February, Pinterest attracted 17.8 million unique visitors, comScore reports. According to VentureBeat, Experian’s 2012 Digital Marketer: Benchmark and Trend Report shows Pinterest has moved past more established sites like Tumblr, LinkedIn and Google Plus, and now boasts the third-highest number of social media site visits in February and March. The primarily female users average 89 minutes a month on the site.
Who it’s for: “You use Pinterest to curate images, so there has to be a visual element to what your business does,” says Monika Jansen, who is founder of marketing communications firm Jansen Communications and blogs about social media at Network Solutions’ GrowSmartBiz blog. “That doesn’t mean you have to produce a product. Service businesses could pin photos or videos from events, or photos of what inspires them when they’re creating — anything you might pin on an actual inspiration board in your office.”
What to do: Pinterest is still invitation-only, so get a user to invite you, grab your business name as a Pinterest account and describe your business in your account settings. “Add the Pinterest bookmarklet to your browser, so you can quickly pin things as you surf the Web,” says Jansen. Link your Pinterest account to Facebook and Twitter so fans and followers can see you’re on Pinterest.
Next, create pinboards in categories related to your business, and optimize what you pin by using keywords and hashtags in descriptions. Look at “Popular” boards in categories relevant to your business to see what types of images attract users.
The possibilities are endless. Think of Pinterest as a virtual catalog. Hair salons can pin popular hairstyles or recommended products, restaurants can highlight favorite dishes, house specials or recipes. Travel planners should pin destination pictures; architects, decorators and designers should show off their designs.
Using Social Media to Promote Green Energy - PR.com #SoulcialMe
Stream Energy takes a social approach to promoting green energy.
Dallas, TX, April 29, 2012 --(PR.com)-- Social media has grown massively in terms of popularity, but how can you use it to help promote green energy? Here are a few tips you can use to get the most out of Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and blogging.Social media outlets involve user participation and/or user-generated content. Popular social media platforms include Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, Google+ and Foursquare, as well as social bookmarking sites like delicious, and social news sites like Digg or Reddit.
Specific social media techniques include creating profiles, blogging, microblogging (also known as tweeting), ratings and reviews, as well as video, photo, podcast and presentation creation and sharing.
Recent research from ComScore says social networking websites reach 82% of global internet users. Facebook now reaches over half of the world's global audience and accounts for one in every seven minutes spent online around the world. In October 2011, Twitter reached one in ten internet users worldwide, having grown nearly 60% in the past year.
Here are a few tips for using social media to promote green energy:
1) Profile creation - Think about what you want to achieve and which channels are best for reaching your target audience. For example, if you’re aiming to reach businesses then you may consider LinkedIn and Twitter to be more useful than Facebook.
Ask yourself, what are your objectives for having a presence in social media? A good starting point is to follow companies and brands similar to yours, as well as those that you like. Look at how they use tone of voice to balance being a professional company in an informal medium.
2) Relevant content - Think of what would be of relevance and interest to your target audience, and create and share content with that in mind. By doing this you’ll rapidly grow a fan base of valuable likes, followers and subscribers who will share your content to help you expand your reach.
3) Establish your expertise - Online forums and groups enable you to engage in debate and discussion on your subject. Remember, when participating in online discussions your objective is to demonstrate knowledge and expertise, not sell your services. Trying to use social media as a sales channel will quickly lead to you losing likes and followers, and at worst being banned for ‘spamming’.
4) Listen and respond - Social media makes it easy for customers to make contact with your company. Rather than using it as a traditional one-way communication tool where you simply broadcast messages, use it to find the advocates. Where possible engage in conversation with them through social media, and observe the conversations they have to understand their needs and interests more.
5) Use hashtags - If you are unfamiliar with Twitter, then the amount of content may seem overwhelming. Individuals and organizations use hashtags as a convenient way to enable people to sort content into relevant subjects. For example, if you search Twitter for #environment or #sustainability then you can find content relevant to these topics. Include relevant hashtags in your tweets as a way to allow people to find your content and start following you to find out more.
6) Promote your social media efforts - It’s necessary to promote your social media presence through established channels to ensure success. Add social media buttons to your website and email signatures that encourage people to ‘follow’ and ‘like’ you.
You can also benefit from adding ‘social share’ buttons to your website and blog that easily allows visitors to share that page with their own Facebook friends, Twitter followers, LinkedIn groups etc.
7) Measure - As social media is a more qualitative than quantitative channel of marketing, measuring results can be challenging. Typical metrics you can measure include followers and likes, the number of visits to your site from social media and how long those visitors stay on your site (tools like bitly and Google Analytics can help with this), which pages people are visiting, retweets of your tweets, comments on your blog, positive and negative mentions of your company or brand within social media, leads and sales acquired, and relationships with clients and prospects.
Stream Energy has expanded its social networking efforts in the recent past to promote green energy initiatives as well as other company products, services and programs. To stay up to date on the latest information, follow us @1StreamEnergy or like us on Facebook.
Contact Information Stream Energy
Paul Thies
214-800-4409
Contact
www.streamenergy.net
via pr.com
Life Inc. - Your Twitter feed may be costing, or landing, you a job #SoulcialMe
Chris Newton / Getty Images stock
More than one-third of employers are snooping social networking sites before hiring a candidate.
By Allison LinnAttention jobseekers: You probably want to clean up your Twitter feed, lock down your Facebook profile and gussy up your LinkedIn page.
There is a good chance your prospective employer is snooping around about you on social networking sites.
A new survey from CareerBuilder finds that 37 percent of human resource managers are using social networking sites to research potential job candidates, and another 11 percent plan to start.
What’s more, they’re using social media to make hiring decisions.
About one-third of hiring managers who are using social networking sites to screen candidates say they didn’t hire someone because they found something online that raised an issue about the candidate. The most common red flags were inappropriate or provocative photos or information, or something about the candidate drinking or using drugs.
The findings don’t mean you should shutter your social media life completely. A good social strategy could land you a job.
A little less than one-third of respondents said they had found something on social media that caused them to hire the candidate. Those hiring managers said social media gave them a good feel for the candidate’s personality, conveyed a professional image and supported the qualifications they had been given.
CareerBuilder surveyed about 2,000 hiring managers and human resources professionals for the study.
The findings come as more companies are getting aggressive about screening candidates via social networking, even going so far as to demand a candidate’s Facebook password. The state of Maryland recently became the first to ban that practice.
In the CareerBuilder survey, 15 percent of respondents said their employers prohibited using social media to screen candidates.
The issue is coming up with current employees too. A Library of Congress employee recently accused his employer of firing him after learning via Facebook that he was gay.
Do you think social media helps or hurts in a job search?Results with 9 short comments
Total of 774 votes - click on the "Display Comments" bar below to sort comments11.9%It helps because I use it to show my qualifications92 votes76%It hurts because it gives employers unnecessary insight into my personal life588 votes12.1%I'm not sure94 votesDisplay Comments:I'm not sureFacebook is generally understood to be an informal social network for friends, while LinkedIn is more professionally-oriented.
It hurts because it gives employers unnecessary insight into my personal lifewhile working for Comcast I tweeted something bad from an account that didn't even use my name and got asked about it via company IM in min
I'm not sureIt wouldn't hurt to see potential employer's Facebook pages . Maybe I don't want to work for a company based on their Facebook pages.
It hurts because it gives employers unnecessary insight into my personal lifeIt's too easy for things to be viewed out of context and too easy for the searchers personal prejudices to come into play.
Students should take care with their own social-media history | The Republic#SoulcialMe
ATLANTA — He has a website, a blog, a YouTube channel and he’s on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.
If you want to know University of Georgia student Connor Nolte, 23, of Milton, Ga., take your pick. It’s all there for the world to see.
Done the right way, social media can be a boon for high school students and young adults like Nolte seeking a coveted internship, employment in the tight job market or a slot in this fall’s freshman class.
But college admissions officers and employment experts say it also can have the opposite effect.
Dan Rauzi, senior director of technology programs for the Atlanta-based Boys & Girls Clubs of America, said he has seen it happen.
Rauzi recalled a cautionary tale delivered by a Holland, Mich., senior at a recent youth conference. After a run-in with a school official, the student went home and, in frustration, posted a note on his Facebook page asking, “do we now have permission to brutally murder” the principal.
Although the student was accepted into college, Rauzi said, he faced felony charges that were later dropped and was given in-school suspension, fines and community service.
The student told his audience it was “11 words that changed my whole life.”
“As a parent, especially of two Division I athletes, there’s a lot of fear about that in my household,” said Kurt Nolte, Connor’s father.
And for good reason. In addition to playing an ever-increasing role in people’s personal and professional lives, social media use also is playing a role in job and college application decisions.
It has become increasingly common for employers to scour social media profiles to learn more about job candidates. Almost one in five people surveyed in the United States are going online to find jobs, but many are nervous about potential fallout from personal content on social networking sites, according to a 2011 survey by global work force solutions leader Kelly Services.
And according to Jieun Choe, executive director of college admissions for Kaplan Test Prep, a 2011 Kaplan survey found that 24 percent of admissions officers checked applicants’ Facebook or other social media pages — up from just 10 percent in 2008. Of those, 12 percent said they found something that negatively impacted an applicant.
(EDITORS: BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM)
Neither the University of Georgia nor Georgia Tech use social media to vet student applicants.
But Patrick Winter, senior associate director of the University of Georgia’s office of undergraduate admissions, said his office encourages students to be mindful of what they post online and to create professional email addresses for use with all college correspondence.
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Although the student was accepted into college, Rauzi said, he faced felony charges that were later dropped and was given in-school suspension, fines and community service.
Also, Choe said, “Students should be mindful of their digital trail. That includes knowing what people are posting about them.”
Her advice to students?
“Google themselves,” Choe said. “The Internet has a really long memory, so this isn’t just about a specific phase in your life. This goes beyond college admission. It could impact your reputation, your job choices.”
That impact doesn’t have to be negative. Connor Nolte has used social media to brand himself in the same way corporations do, playing up the positive.
His website, www.connornolte.com, pictures him on the University of Georgia basketball court, with this simple message:
“My name is Connor. I play basketball at the University of Georgia. I graduated with a degree in marketing and am currently working on my master’s degree in sport management. I hope to combine both degrees to work in sports marketing in the near future.”
The graduate student credits the site, Twitter and his blog with helping him land two internships — one in 2010 with ESPN and another this summer with the U.S. Olympics. “Without social media, I am fairly certain I wouldn’t have gotten either internship. I wouldn’t have been able to differentiate myself as well.”
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During the 2009-10 basketball season, he began posting a series of “game day trick shots” on his YouTube account, embedding them in his blog.
The shots, including those made by basketball great Charles Barkley and University of Georgia coaches Mark Richt and Mark Fox, were featured on ESPN’s “SportsNation” and caught the eyes of Nolte’s future internship bosses.
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Kurt Nolte said that he and his wife, Julie, drilled into their three children the need to be socially responsible at all times.
“We tell them whatever they put out there, it better be something their grandmother can look at,” he said.
“I’m not saying I’m perfect, but … I’ve found that the best way to guard against posting negative photos is to not engage in an activity that might be frowned upon by a future employer,” son Connor said.
In 1999, when Boys & Girls Clubs of America released its first Internet safety program, Rauzi said people went online mostly to pull information off the Internet.
But today we push information onto the Internet.
“Now I’m posting my life online,” he said. “That’s why Boys & Girls Clubs takes this seriously, and I think it’s really important that everyone who comes into contact with kids and teens, particularly parents, are talking to them about this — not in a way that is accusatory, but in a way that educates them and reminds them that this is important stuff.
“Just like Nike guards their brand, teens need to guard their personal brand,” he said.
via therepublic.com
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