Why You Need Social Media

Why You Need Social Media
by Dan SweetMBA Class of 2009
for Notre Dame MBA Career Development

What is Social Media?
“Social media is a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information and content. It's a fusion of sociology and technology, transforming monologue (one to many) into dialog (many to many) and is the democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into publishers.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media

What can Social Media do for you?
Free advertising
The easiest networking you’ve ever done
Powerful research tool
Great way to stay on top of an industry

How do I get started?
Assess your Social Media savvy
Decide on your personal brand
Determine your level of involvement
Choose the most appropriate tools
Start connecting and creating content

Assess your Social Media savvy
0 – 2 Internets, what?
3 – 4 Heading in the right direction
5 – 6 Doing great
7 Social media superstar

Determine your personal brand
What are you passionate about?
What are you good at?
Develop a personal brand statement
Choose a consistent image of yourself to use across all sites online (called an avatar)Here is mine: aim forprofessional recognizablefriendly
Align your resume, cover letter and online profiles around your brand statement

Determine your involvement

Choose the most appropriate tools for your goals
Facebook
connecting with friends
LinkedIn
business networking
Twitter
broadcast txt messaging – networking
Google Reader
inbox for blogs you read
Wordpress/Blogger/Typepad
start a blog and share your perspective

The Basics of the Tools
Facebook – privacy settings
LinkedIn – connections, recommendations
Google Reader – setup, adding blogs, use
Twitter – setup, following others, tweets, @replies, DMs, Tweetdeck, search, groups

Facebook
A recent survey showed 1/3 of hiring managers are looking at Facebook profiles
Turn offs: poor judgment, rude comments
Don’t be this guy!

Facebook
Facebook is primarily for your friends
Either keep it clean or consider removing yourself from search results
Visit your search privacy settings page and under “Search Visibility” select “Only Friends” (Remember, doing so will remove you from Facebook search results, so make sure you want to be removed totally. Otherwise, you can select another group, such as “My Networks and Friends” which I believe is the default.) Click “Save Changes”
Consider altering your privacy settings so people can’t tag you in photos if you want to control your image online
Visit your profile privacy page and modify the setting next to “Photos Tagged of You”. Select the option which says “Customize…” A box will appear. Select the option “Only Me” and then “None of My Networks.” Now no one will be able to tag you in pictures.

LinkedIn
Many great resources available for LinkedIn
Check out these guides:
Official LinkedIn ‘09 Grad Guide
Guy Kawasaki’s 10 Ways to Use LinkedIn
LinkedIn: 22 Ways to Dominate
One Tip:
Profiles with more connections and recommendations rank higher in search results. Write a few recommendations for others and ask former bosses and colleagues to recommend you as well.

Google Reader
An Inbox for the blogs you read regularly

You don’t read blogs? Only guys like this are into blogs?

These people all blog:
George Soros
Carl Icahn
Mark Cuban
Bill Gates
Paul Allen
Sergey Brin
Larry Page
Jerry Yang
Oprah
Guy Kawasaki
Seth Godin
Richard Branson
Blogs are written by people in every industry. Reading them regularly allows you to stay on top of what is happening in an industry and keep up on their latest thoughts and ideas. In many cases commenting on the blog will start a conversation with the author.

Google Reader Tutorial
Signup for an account from Gmail.com
(try for yourname@gmail.com or something close)
ND’s Gmail isn’t integrated w/ Reader
Set up your ND email to forward to your Gmail
1
Reader is missing!
2
3

Accessing Google Reader
Just click “Reader” from within Gmail or go to reader.google.com and sign in
Treat it just like your email. It is easy to stay current in just a few minutes a day.

2 ways to add subscriptions
From the blog you want to add
From within Reader (if you know the feed address)
Look for RSS logo or “Subscribe”

Navigating in Google Reader
The blogs you subscribe to are on the left
The number of unread items is in parentheses

A few blogs by industry
Venture Capital / PE
A VC
Going Private
MarketingSeth GodinGuy KawasakiDave KnoxAlan Wolk
BackPocket from Prophet
Banking / Investing
Abnormal Returns
Leveraged Sell-OutVix and More
Capital Chronicle Paul Kedrosky’s Infectious Greed
Technology
TechCrunch
Scobleizer
Fake Steve Jobs
Valleywag
Non-Profit
Spare Change
Have Fun – Do Good
Health Care
Pharmalot
PharmaGossip
Consulting
Blogs by McKinseyitesGDIFC
Subscribe to a few of these and you will quickly find more

Twitter
What is it? (from Twitter.com)
“Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?”
Twitter is more useful when you answer the question, What is on your mind?
No one cares you just ate some cake.
Try to make your tweets “value-add”

Get Twitter setup
Go to Twitter.com and signup
Pick a username as close to your real name as possible
Upload your picture (avatar)
Put a link to your LinkedIn/Facebook or blog in your profile
Follow some people
Start tweeting!

Quick Twitter Definitions
Tweet (n) = a Twitter message
Tweet (v) = to send a Twitter message
@replies = put an “@” in front of anyone’s name to send a public reply to them
DMs = direct messages – send a private message to someone who follows you
RT = retweet – a way to pass on a tweet you find especially interesting, useful, or funny

Finding people to follow
Follow me “dsweet”
Look through the people I am following and follow some of them
Iterate indefinitely
Once you are following some people you like, use MrTweet.com for customized recommendations of good people to follow

Getting people to follow you
Be interesting
Be funny
Be helpful
Talk to people using @replies
Get your friends and family on Twitter
If all else fails, read this article:
Guy Kawasaki: Looking for Mr. Goodtweet

Tweetdeck is Twitter.com on steroids

Final Twitter Tips
Download Tweetdeck at Tweetdeck.com
Search to find people in your target industries
Organize the people you follow into groups
Use it to update your Facebook status
Also, follow your Facebook friends
Take Twitter on the go and never be bored
ÜberTwitterfor BlackBerry
Twitterific for iPhone
ceTwit for Windows Mobile

Putting it all together…
Use a personal home page or blog to link all the pieces of your online identity.
Consider buying yourname.com or set up a free profile with a service like MeeID.com or a Google Profile.
Create an email signature that links to your online identity and allows people to learn more about you easily

Examples:
www.meeid.com/dansweet
lookuppage.com/users/dansweet
email signature

A final word of caution:Don’t blow yourself up…
Consider steering clear of these topics online: religion, politics, and sex
Present a consistent image
Don’t spam people
Think before you type- a short case study:
A lucky job applicant tweeted the following:
Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work.
A Cisco exec tweets back:
Who is the hiring manager. I’m sure they would love to know that you will hate the work. We here at Cisco are versed in the web.
(posted March 17, 2009 on I’m Not Actually a Geek)

The End
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Why You Need Social Media

by Dan Sweet on May 11, 2009

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