Privacy and Social Networking

An article in today’s Vancouver Sun raises the Facebook privacy issue again: the article discusses the increase in bogus online identities and points out that many business individuals are steering clear of Facebook as a result.

Every time Facebook makes changes, like those we mentioned in yesterday’s blog post, the inevitable wave of hysteria follows.  Whilst privacy is undoubtedly an issue, it shouldn’t be a reason to avoid social networks completely.  Given that 400 million people (and counting) use Facebook, if you are in a professional role where building your network is part of what you do, then it is simply foolish to ignore Facebook completely.

How To Mitigate Facebook Privacy Concerns

Privacy is indeed a concern, as is identity theft, but if you take a few simple precautions when social networking you can really help limit the risk of these eventualities actually transpiring.  What better a time then to review some simply steps you can take to mitigate  these concerns:

1. Use the privacy settings (in Facebook click on settings at the top right hand side of your screen then privacy) to make sure that your personal information such as date of birth, home address, email etc are not there for all the world to see – don’t want to encourage identity thieves or spammers do we?

2. Off the Wall – don’t use people’s wall to communicate personal information or communications. If it is longer than a couple of sentences take it to Facebook email.

3. Remember that the first thing recruiters do these days is to check out candidates on Facebook. If you intend on ever applying for another job you should be cognizant of this.   Boasting about your drinking prowess to the world will not land you that coveted job. Always do the granny test, be careful of what you post and again use the privacy settings accordingly.

4. Be authentic – upload a profile picture so that people can see that its really you – or what you look like after all these years, as the case may be.

5. Be selective about who you add and which pages you like. Don’t add every TD&H who invites you and remember what mother said about strangers! Seriously though, being selective about who you connect with gives you more control if safety is a concern: this is not about quantity – it is about quality.

6. Never Buy Friends or Followers – never use sites that promise you thousands of new followers or views.  There is always a catch.  (Thanks to the a forementioned Sun article for that one!).

7. Be respectful and don’t use profanities too much – you never know when someone’s kid is watching over there shoulder (take it from me – this happens a lot!).

8. Be true to who you are. Transparency is key to effective social media participation. Don’t try to present yourself as something or someone you are not. Imagine how embarrassing it will be when someone crawls out of the woodwork and points out the truth – to everyone.

9. Say It - If it is not worth saying out loud, it is not worth saying on line.  This is a good mantra to bear in mind when considering your status updates.

10. Block Em – If someone is rude to you in comments or on your wall, you can block them. Again go to settings, privacy and scroll down to Block List to do so.

11. Applications – you should be aware that most of the games and applications on Facebook are from third party companies you know nothing about and are often set up for the simple purpose of collecting you marketing info. Once you add the application, they have access to your information. Be wary of which applications you add and again use the privacy settings to control this.

Thanks to Tailor Ransom for the great Flickr image!

The idea of having a professional image is not a new one – uniforms have been standard for many occupations for centuries. The difference with personal branding is that the concept is not to make you look like one of the crowd, but rather to make you stand out from it.

When considering your personal brand you should look at many factors: the way you speak, the way you look, the car your drive, your education, and your character, but the single most important aspect to consider when building your brand is that it has to be real. It has to reflect the real you. A personal brand that portrays a false image will be apparent to everyone you come into contact with and will do more harm than good.

Identify the unique aspects of your personality, skills and experience and use those to make “you” stand out from the crowd. By building on a personal brand that it true to you, your efforts will be more rewarded and your image will be more realistic and authentic.

Using social media is an ideal way to build your personal brand, to expand and reinforce your network, but there are risks that you should be aware of.

Tips For Building Your Personal Brand Online

Here are some tips that will help you take advantage of social media to build your brand safely:

1. When networking on Facebook or other social forums always use the privacy controls to limit access to your information (usually you can find these by clicking on “account”).

2. Use Facebook, LinkedIn and other networks to make people aware of what you do or want to do. Highlight your unique experiences in these forums

3. Google yourself or use Pipl to see what’s being said about you and do the Granny test on the results – if Granny wouldn’t approve then perhaps the content isn’t appropriate to enhance your business profile.

4. Use your profiles in these forums to present an appropriate professional image. Include a good headshot that is authentic and don’t post any photos, videos or images that compromise your image.

5. Portray yourself professionally (as appropriate to your industry) in all forums.

6. Be true to who you are: transparency leads to trust – if you have a good reputation people are more likely to do business with you.

7. Remember that you have a valid and unique opinion. Don’t be afraid to voice it.

8. Always be respectful of others. It is okay to disagree but be polite about it.

9. If you are young and looking for a job be aware that a party boy or girl image may seem cool to your peers but it won’t help you get a job or grow your professional network.

10. Online networking is a vital tool for anyone trying to build a career but don’t get sidetracked or sucked in. Avoid this by scheduling time for online networking and sticking to it.

11. Don’t make friends with everyone and anyone. Be selective. It will help you manage the volume of information and will also expose you to less risk.

Personal branding is being used more and more to help people highlight their professional attributes and experience, grow and enhance their networks, build business and to find new careers. In our next post on this subject we will look more closely at which social media tools to use and how to use them to do this effectively.

These days building relationships online is as important to growing your business or reputation as networking in the real world. Not only can you be more effective using social media but you can also get more done in less time.

The Internet is a great way to expand your career horizons and get to know new and influential contacts. Here are a few pointers to bear in mind when using social media to network.

1. Don’t try to network in every Internet networking hub out there. Choose those where you get the biggest impact (i.e. those that your existing contacts already use, those that reflect your target audience, or those most applicable to your niche). The most popular are LinkedIn (Professional Network), Facebook (fastest growing) and Twitter but there are many networks that are industry or job specific (like Active Rain for real estate) too so take time to check them out.

2. Leverage existing on-line networks to grow new ones. I use the Out-Smarts’ Facebook Page profile to promote our Twitter account and vice versa and add more contacts in that forum

3. Promote your activity in your chosen forums by including it in business cards, profiles and on your website.

4. Use widgets. Most of the social networks allow you to widgetize a link to your profile. Add this to your site, blog etc and include widgets for other networks in your networking profiles.

5. Always remember to be professional in these forums – ask the Granny question and make sure your content is appropriate to your professional standing.

6. When you meet new contacts in the real world find then on-line and add them to your networks.

7. Trawl the friends of your friends and contacts and add those you know or those gurus in your business.

8. Don’t spread yourself over to many networks or allow them to suck up your time. Schedule it into your day.

9. Join groups. Facebook and LinkedIn both offer groups. Join applicable ones and gain access to more people in your field.

10. Participate in the right forums. These should relate to your industry or market and to those of your prospects.

11. Ask and answer questions and use your status to attract new contacts.

12. Blogs can be a great way to build your network too. If you have a blog, always follow up with people who leave comments to connect with possible prospects and peers.

13. If you don’t have a blog then use blog comments as a forum to connect with influential bloggers in your industry, to build awareness of what you do and to add value for their visitors in turn.

Yesterday, we talked about how you can use LinkedIn for recruitment purposes, today we look at some of the other tools available to support your recruiting needs.

Plaxo – another prominent professional networking tool with over 20 million users, Plaxo is similar to LinkedIn in that it allows you to search job listings and to connect with people who are hiring but unlike LinkedIn, it does not have tools aimed solely at recruiters yet.

Xing – Another professional network which is becoming more popular with over 8m users.  It is very similar in its functionality to LinkedIn but posting jobs is much cheaper.  The downside is that lots of users are in Europe so its not the best tool for North American recruitment purposes.

Other professional social networks that facilitate recruitment:

Viadeo

Biznik

Social Networks – Facebook

Facebook Groups:  there are groups on Facebook dedicated to getting the word out about jobs.  To do so you can join and post or participate.  Examples include:

http://www.facebook.com/search/?q=jobs&init=quick#/group.php?gid=29593013279&ref=search&sid=745281396.2828234181..1

Facebook Pages – some companies have Facebook pages dedicated solely to helping them find staff.  The best known example is the Ernst and Young Facebook Page.

Facebook Events – having a hiring fare?  You can use Facebook events like this one to promote it.

Facebook Ads: allow you to post ads aimed at people you want to employ: location, education level etc.

Twitter

Twitter is proving a great tool to promote job openings.  You can use corporate or staff Twitter pages to Twitter to your community about job postings or you can even have your own dedicated Twitter feed that serves this purpose alone like KPMG http://twitter.com/kpmg

As with any Twitter effort, your follow strategy will be important.

Twitter Ad-ons

You can also use third party tools like Twitter Job Search to search listings and post your own.

Here at Out-Smarts, we are looking to hire an intern right now.  So far we have had 3 suitable and interested candidates contact us and all we had to do was post the fact to Facebook and Twitter.    If you are interested please contact us, otherwise good luck in your recruiting or job search efforts.

Social media isn’t only a great tool for networking and marketing online, companies are using these tools more and more to connect with potential employees, to attract new hires, to build brand awareness (as a great company to work for) and to research prospective employees.  This is the first of 2 blogs looking at social media for recruitment.

There are a number of social media tools you can use to enhance your recruitment function – here are a few:

• Professional Networks,
• Social Networks like Facebook,
• MicroBlog platforms like Twitter,
• Blogs,
• Video
• Podcasts.

Perhaps the main social networks that support recruiting are the professional networks.  To use these effectively, your company should have a presence in these forums whether it be through a company presence or through staff profiles.

Professional Networks:

LinkedIn

LinkedIn has over 47 million users in 200 countries.  As a “professional social network” it is ideal as a tool to use to assist recruitment.  There are a number of ways you can use LinkedIn for this:

Searching Jobs on LinkedIn – this is useful from a recruiting perspective as it allows you to search other positions in your industry that have been posted in this forum.

Find People

You can use your LinkedIn Profile to find people – LinkedIn is a free professional network but if you upgrade your LinkedIn membership you can communicate more effectively with possible candidates.  Paid LinkedIn accounts start at $24.95 and run to $400.95 depending on volume (of emails, interactions etc).  By using this paid LinkedIn functionality you can contact, communicate and interact more than with the vanilla version but more importantly for recruiting, you can check references.

Post a Job

Posting a job on LinkedIn costs $195 for a 30 day listing.  The benefit of posting on LinkedIn is that it facilitates candidate research and allows you to identify and connect with people who can recommend and refer them.

In addition, LinkedIn also provides a service aimed solely at recruiters called LinkedIn Talent Advantage which aids in the sourcing, getting the word out about jobs.

More on social media for recruitment tomorrow.

Rob Cottingham’s Noice to Signal doodles never fail to raise a smile. This one is not only apt but also very appropriate in a tongue in cheek kind of way.

I missed last month’s reasons to be cheerful, not because there was nothing fun or innovative to share but simply because I forgot (woops).  So to make it up, this months reasons to be cheerful includes more links to valuable websites, tools and social media innovations for you to enjoy.

Wowzio – is a tool that allows you to customise and create your own widgets online.  They are also developing an interesting tool called Pulse which will “bubble up topics and posts that users are engaging with across the blogosphere”.

ClipCanvas provides professional stock footage and video clips.

Yelp – found a great restaurant or love your dentist?  Then share your recommendations with your community or use your network to find reliable services.

New Twitter tools are proliferating, there seems to be a new one every day.  Favs include: Twibes – lets you follow Twitter groups and create your own, and TweetTree - lets you view your Twitter posts and replies in context (thanks to Chakravibe for that one). I’ve also been using Power Twitter to amp up my Twitter experience with Firefox.

Need 4 Design – if you need a log or website design why not crowdsource this and run a design competition with Need 4 Design.  You submit your requirement and designers compete for your business.

Add your company to LinkedIn.

Eventbrite – online event registration tools.

Backtype – find, follow and share comments on the web.

Its been a year since our last podcast with Todd Sieling of Corvus Consulting. Back then I was new to this podcasting lark and collected almost 2 hours of material complete with lots of groovy background noise thanks to a certain coffee shop ( it took me almost a week to edit down!).

This time our podcast is much more easy on your ears and it even has some humor (its geeky but its humor nonetheless). Todd talks about what he’s been up to since last spring, the demise of Magnolia, SXSW and why he hates the term “social media”. Enjoy.

[audio:http://www.out-smarts.com/podcast24.mp3]

Podcast: Download

Out-Smarts is on LinkedIn thanks to this very valuable blog post by Jose Uzcategui:

If you joined LinkedIn back in 2004 but haven’t been active it in the last couple of years, you might not know of some of the features added to this powerful social network.

Some of the people I’ve talked to lately were very surprised to hear you could search company profiles on LinkedIn, even though these people have been a part of the social network for a few years.

Yes, with LinkedIn you have the ability to browse and post company profiles. For a couple of good examples, check out the BC Cancer Agency or Microsoft:

What are these company profiles good for?

Target your networking.

If anyone within your immediate or extended network works in a company you’re interested in, let them know you’re interested and if they can give you a heads up with any job posting being circulated internally. Basically, work your magic.

Show your organization’s talent.*

Company profiles show “New Hires”, “Promotions”, “Most Popular Profiles” and other information that automatically builds your organization’s credibility and exposure.

*Remember, your online marketing efforts should have a clear strategy. Before creating a profile for your company, browse and find out about your competitors. See how your company’s profile would fit in the established market. Do your employees have LinkedIn profiles? Is your company about to have major restructuring?

*Also, make sure you have time to update the profile if you decide to go for it. An outdated profile is more damaging than no profile at all.

…and more exposure.

If you participate, ask interesting questions, answer others concerns, participate in groups, etc, your company will be the first thing people see when they check your profile. Go out there, start answering questions and become an authority. You will look good – and so will your company.