Social Media Networking: Using Social Media to expand your opportunities and land your next gig.

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This presentation is about using your online social networks to expand your chances of landing face-to-face meetings with people who will get you your next gig.

Face to face networking is still the king when it comes time to really close the deal, to get that job, but social media offers you an opportunity to widen your prospects for those face to face meetings to happen. The revolution that is social media isn’t that we are all able to talk to each other but that we are able to so easily and at such a large scale, talk to each other. Not only that but we now have the opportunity to share things that we’ve created and things that we’ve found with each other very easily. This, of course can have it’s drawbacks as we’ll soon see. The key though is that social media tools allow you another avenue to getting to the face to face meeting that may land you a new and better job. Getting to that face to face meeting is often the hardest part of the journey so why not increase your chances?

Here are some quick facts associated with social media use, particularly here in Central Ohio and as it is related to employment. According to Neilson Internet Ratings Columbus Ohio ranked 6th in social media use among the largest US cities. We are a community that has embraced social media. In every news cast you hear mention of Twitter and Facebook, most likely some of the organizations you belong to are trying to reach out to you through their blogs and Facebook pages. In fact, Facebook is so popular that we are approaching half a million users in Central Ohio which is about one third of the population. Twitter and LinkedIn are being used very successfully by organizations around Central Ohio as ways of attracting new talent and new supporters. According to Careerbuilder.com almost half of all employers are now using social media tools to find and screen new employees. We’ll discuss this further, particularly the screening part.

I’m going to assume that you are atleast curious about this social media thing and you want to give it a try. There are literally thousands and thousands of options so let me start with the most popular and most basic options first. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and MySpace. MySpace was the original dominate social media networking site. Unfortunately the design and administration of MySpace led it to become more of a seedy lounge than a respectable community. If you’re looking for a date you might want to try MySpace but if you’re looking for career, volunteer and community opportunities then this isn’t then move on. MySpace has tried to re-invent itself and it has had some success at that by becoming a place for bands to get some recognition but again, unless you’re a musician this won’t help you much.Facebook was the young upstart poised to take on MySpace just 4 years ago and, well, it accomplished its task. Facebook is not without its embarrassing photos and bad taste but it definitely offers a wide variety of opportunity to network with people who really will help you make the all important face to face meetings happen. Facebook is a place where you can find people with similar interests and similar local friends. The fact that Facebook has made a point of building a culture that embraces friending people you are actually in touch with means that you are less likely to have incredibly embarrassing things posted about you or by you. Likewise, your ability to manage your online persona via Facebooks tools help you to have some control over what others see about you.LinkedIn is the smallest of these four networking sites but one of the most powerful for looking for work. LinkedIn provides you with an easy route to finding old co-workers, employees and employers who you might have had a good (or great) experience with. Reaching out to them to ask for recommendations is one way to boost your self esteem as well as add some clout to your online persona. LinkedIn offers the opportunity to browse local participating companies, start or join local professional groups, etc. Here in Central Ohio several casual atmosphere professional and psuedo professional groups are putting together amazing meetups (face-to-face networking opportunities) using LinkedIn.Finally there is Twitter. What is Twitter? Well, your guess is as good as mine. I have some very specific things that I like to use the site for and one of those is most definitely keeping track of events going on around Columbus. Nearly every volunteer organization, non-profit, networking group and most local businesses that are doing anything are doing it on Twitter. This is an opportunity to really let yourself shine as someone who has interesting things to share, say and do.

What does your network say about you. Hopefully not that you’re a falling down drunk who passes out at parties. The thing is that, well, some of us may have been this unlucky fellow at some point in our life. Unless your trying to get a job that encourages raging alcoholism however I would guess that you would rather not relive these moments with potential employers.To that point then becomes an age old adage we all learned from our parents at some point or another; “You are judged by who you associate with.” This doesn’t mean that you need to de-friend all of your hard partying friends or your extremist brother-in-law or whatever. What it does mean is that you need to make it clear to them that you do not want to maintain that kind of persona online, that you are trying to use your online social networks as a way of building a better future for yourself.So what happens when a picture like this from your past crops up? First thing to do is ask that the person who posted it remove it. If they are unwilling to then you give them fair warning that you’ll have to remove them from your friends list and if they still won’t relent then you defriend them. This won’t wipe the slate clean but for the near 50% of employers researching you online they won’t likely dig so deep as to find this picture (or statement or whatever it was) because they are most concerned with who you portray yourself to be and by blocking that piece of evidence from being directly tied to you they don’t consider it of interest.A good lesson here is that social media delivers a level of transparency to our lives through the people that we interact with in both our online and offline space. Those people may relay conversations that took place offline to the online sphere, or pictures or even video. That means that you really do have to consider what things you participate in in your physical life that you are proud of and what you are not proud of.

Instead of letting your network speak for you (although you surely want to let all of the positive things they say about you come through); you need to speak for yourself. Your online persona should be a direct reflection of your offline self. The difference here though is that you can quickly and easily expand your story online by linking up content that you have created or that you find interesting. This gives you a chance to really explore your interests and share them with the world.Create online profiles that reflect not just who you are today but who you want to be next week, next month or next year. This is a powerful way of keeping your goals and wishes in front of your nose all the time. Perhaps you’ve heard people talk about putting goals written on sticky notes on the bathroom mirror, etc. as a way of keeping focus. This is that same sort of tactic except it also brings in your network, giving them the opportunity to support you as you reach for those goals.Finally, in regards to this, find your own voice. Text, video, photos and audio are all great ways of communicating who you are and you can use resources at your public library to create content via any of these mediums. If you have a cell phone there is a really good chance you can create any one of these directly from it. Composition doesn’t have to be professional quality but the substance of the content should be true, from your heart, creative and/or with depth that will mark you as an individual who is on the ball about whatever you are speaking about.

As you grow your online persona you will want to take advantage of the network you are building to meet people face-to-face; remember, hardly anyone gets a job without meeting their employer face-to-face. Social media is great for this as well. These are just a few of the hundreds and possibly thousands of groups that have either formed based on online social networks coming together in “real life” or they use online social networks to grow their participation. The beauty of groups like these is that there is unlimited opportunity to take leadership on putting together a meetup – that face-to-face networking event I mentioned earlier – which gives you an opportunity to show yourself as a creator and a doer; two things that employers like to see.There is a concept that has derived from the online world that everyone can find 1000 raving fans. There are a few meanings and uses behind this concept but for our purpose lets think of it this way. With a billion or so people online you might consider the number 1000 to be equivalent to the number 10 or even 2, it is insignificant to how many people are out there. So, instead of trying to convert people who don’t share the same interests as you or don’t have a similar perspective; our online social networks afford us the opportunity to find lots of people who do.Consider Central Ohio’s social media usage that I talked about earlier and then have a little faith in believing me when I say to you that anyone can find at least 50 other people here in town who fall right in line with your interests. I don’t think it is a hard stretch to say that you can even find 1000 other people, right here in town, who will share a very similar set of interests as you do.Take advantage of that and get them all together and find out what kinds of amazing things a group that size can make happen. Maybe at that point you aren’t looking for an employer but instead you are finding your route to self-employement or even starting to consider some of these people as collaborators or potential employees.These groups become incubators of innovation and all it takes is a one, or a few interested people to get the ball rolling.

This is what it all boils down to. Use your online social media networks as a way to reconnect with old friends, co-workers, distant family and the like. Start from this base of people who are already cheerleaders for you. Then start looking at this extended network and start finding other people, new people, who share your similar interests and connect with them.As you go about making these connections remember to always share. Share information you have created, share videos/audio/text/photos that you find interesting and relevant to other people. In the pre social media networking days if you ran across a news story or article you generally had the opportunity to share it with one or two other people. If they found it interesting the might have shared it with one other person and mentioned you as the initiator. The likelyhood of this leading to a new career opportunity was slim. However, now you can very very easily share with tens or hundreds of your friends instantly which means they can turn around, give you credit for the find/creation of the content, and share it with hundreds of their friends. This is the raw power of these online networks. Reaching thousands with your single voice is much more likely to produce opportunity – make sure that what you are sending out is something you’re proud of.Remember, speak for yourself and speak in a way that represents both who you are today and who you want to be tomorrow.

Now I expect you to try this out. Dip your toe in the water first, listen and learn from your peers. See what they are doing that seems like a fit for you and be very aware of what they are doing that makes you uncomfortable – that can be a good warning sign for something you might want to avoid.

I always like to end with a little mention of Creative Commons licensing. Unless you are a professional expecting to get paid for certain content that you are developing I find that using Creative Commons licensing is a great way to grow your networks. Often times when people come across my content that is licensed this way and they want to use it they reach out to me, let me know they like my work and that they’ll be republishing it in some way shape or form. This grows my network a little bit further and gets my name out to audiences I may never meet in real life. Just like right this moment I am giving you a glimpse into the lives of these four Flickr.com users.Social media, even through something a simple as posting a picture with Creative Commons license, is a powerful tool for growing your network of supporters. I wish you the best of luck on your online adventure and please feel free to add me to your network.http://twitter.com/digitalocracy/

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Social Media Networking: Using Social Media to expand your opportunities and land your next gig. - Presentation Transcript

Andrew Miller
Owner/Innovation Gardner
Andrew@andrew-miller.com
http://andrew-miller.com
a
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Andrew Miller Consulting
Social Media Networking
Using Social Media to expand your opportunities and land your next gig.
Why use social media?
Social media quick facts:
Central Ohio Ranked 6th in social media use among large US cities.
Approaching half a million Facebook users in Central Ohio.
Twitter and LinkedIn are being used by many large Central Ohio organizations.
45% of employers are using social media in the hiring and screening process.
What’s the difference?
What your network says.
Speak for yourself!
Create something new.
Connect, Reconnect & Share.
Try it out!
Use social media to make connections to people you share interests with.
Use social media to share stories and ideas you’ve created.
Use social media to find face to face networking opportunities.
Use social media to follow-up on those meetings with value adding information.
Use social media to have fun and showcase YOU!
Thanks:
All photos used in this slide deck are licensed through the Creative Commons and were found at Flickr.com
Chuck Heston
KJMatthews
Tavallai
Rachel Ullrich