I hope that the title to this blog post knocked you out of your comfort zone, because that was my intention in writing this guide. Don’t get me wrong: LinkedIn is still an essential part of your job search, and having an optimized LinkedIn profile and networking with others on that platform is still a prerequisite in helping you land your next job. But where LinkedIn may have been the ultimate differentiator for the job seeker two years ago, it no longer is. Instead, it’s time to start thinking about investing more time in utilizing Twitter for your job search. …
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After recently publishing blog posts on two of LinkedIn’s newest features, LinkedIn Profile Stats Pro as well as LinkedIn Signal, I have received a few comments and questions from my readers like the one below: I have yet to make the leap to a paid account, and as new features like this come available it makes the thought more enticing but not enticing enough. Curious as to why you choose to go to a paid account? What are the benefits in your opinion? I have actually recommended the now $9.95 a month “hidden” LinkedIn Personal Plus account to heavy users …
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Google Analytics is the default (and free) service that analyzes visitors to your website. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could analyze visitors to your Facebook Page? Facebook Insights actually provides you with that data. What about Twitter, you ask? Twitter just recently released a beta of their Twitter Analytics to a select few users. And although there is no word about a potential analytics application for LinkedIn Groups, LinkedIn has now released a Google Analytics-like application to analyze those who view you on LinkedIn: LinkedIn Profile Stats Pro. When compared to its social media counterparts, what is unique about …
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It seems like only yesterday when I was blogging about the top 15 recommended social media books of 2009, but here we are ending out 2010. And what a year 2010 has been: The rise of Facebook to become a dominating (and sometimes threatening) force globally, Twitter becoming a mainstream realtime communication platform embraced by older generations, and even LinkedIn adding various functionalities throughout the year to continue to remain relevant as the default social network for professionals. Popularity in location-based applications such as FourSquare also skyrocketed this year. And if 2009 was the year in which companies were still …
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LinkedIn Signal was released just two months ago as a new way for professionals to consume information. While the new product was only available in beta for some time, my good friend Glen Loock recently mentioned to me that now anyone can access the application through LinkedIn Labs, or better yet, here’s the official link for Signal. I always feel it is best to wait a little time and give new features some historical perspective before reviewing them fully on my blog. This is no different with Signal: While it was announced with some fanfare in late September, the application …
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I had a chance this week to speak at an event in front of several different local Orange County nonprofit organizations. While nonprofits are beginning to understand the potential for social media engagement, my sense during the meeting was that efforts seemed to be centered around Facebook for the objective of merely gaining awareness for their organization in the community. While utilizing Facebook to help in raising awareness for a nonprofit and its cause is a necessity to any social media strategy for nonprofits, there are many other things that nonprofits can be using social media for. Similarly, there are …
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With all of the information generated concerning social media these days, it really is getting hard to keep up on the latest developments amongst the multitude of platforms, case studies and statistics. There are definitive sites like Mashable and Social Media Examiner that have risen up to become leading sources of information, but what about the work of all of the excellent bloggers out there with unique perspectives that aren’t appearing on these sites? That’s where social media content hubs come in: Websites that are publishing content from a variety of these bloggers. There are 3 great sites that have …
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Despite the fact that Twitter has apparently grown from 58 to 175 million users in less than a year, it is clear that some of those “users” are actually “bots” or even corporations who have several different accounts to serve their current and potential customers with. Case in point: Dell alone has more than 30 Twitter accounts. All it takes is an email address to register a new account, so it is not uncommon for even some individuals to have multiple usernames. This may explain why, outside the networking circles of those active in social media, there are many people …
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Whenever I speak to a large group or consult with a client on social media, I have a tendency to overwhelm my audience with the so many things that they could be using it for. That leads to a growing fear for those that aren’t active in social media that it will become a total time suck. On the other hand, for those that start to get active and see its professional and personal benefits, they can’t seem to find enough time to cover all of their online bases. Which leads to the question that I am often asked: How …
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While recent social media conversations tend to be about Facebook and Twitter, I find that many professionals and businesses aren’t maximizing their LinkedIn presence. There are many that simply don’t know what else they can be doing on the platform, while others still believe in some of the many common fallacies about the social networking platform for professionals that exist. Social media is a tool, and you can only leverage the tool by thinking outside of the box and applying it to your situation. Believing in what you hear about any social media platform, without taking the initiative and experimenting …
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