As always there has been a lot going on in the social media arena in the past week.  This is a summary of the major (and minor!) developments.

Facebook Questions

On July 28th Facebook announced that it was going to launch Facebook Questions.  The tool is set to allow you to crowdsource the collective intelligence of the 500 million and growing Facebook user base to ask questions and get answers.  Set to compete with tools like Ask, Yahoo Answers and Answerbag, you will be able to ask any question and hopefully get the right answer practically instantaneously.  The functionality isn’t live yet and is only available to a small number of beta testers but to find out more you can read this Mashable  post about the 5 Ways Facebook Questions can be improved.

Google Wave

Google waved bye bye to its Wave product which was launched late last year.  At the time there was much clamoring to get on the communication and collaboration tool which was supposed to allow people to easily work together online.  Unfortunately, Wave didn’t really catch on and today it is no more.  In typical Google fashion though, it would appear that they are turning the failure to their advantage. On a positive note Google yesterday announced that business can now respond to reviews on Google Places.  Not before time.

Twitter Fail

The Twitter fail whale was omnipresent for much of the afternoon which prompted diehards to take to Facebook to voice their complaints and comments and to vent to relieve their anxiety withdrawal.  This leads me to conclude that the Reuters article in today’s Washington Post highlighting a study that found that social media is costing businesses in the UK billions in lost productivity, could in fact be true across the Twitter world!  Twitter is back up much to the disapointment of businesses in North America who saw productivity peak in the last few hours.

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!

Facebook is changing – again.  Here is a resume of recent Facebook changes – to keep you abreast of the latest developments with the popular social network.

Facebook Fans

Alas, Facebook Fans are no more. You can no longer become a “Fan” of a Facebook Page but you can “Like” one.  Instead of the “Become a Fan” button you now click its replacement, the “Like” button if you like a Page and want to tell the world.

Overall functionality remains the same and apart from the wording,  the only difference is that you will see a breakdown of which of your friends “Like” a page as well as the overall “Like” count. Apparently people are more likely to “Like” something than become a “Fan” of it.

There has been some controversy over the fact that your profile image appears in the “Like” section of a Page without consent so perhaps people will be less likely to “Like” than to “Fan” after all – only time will tell.

Facebook Events

Facebook this week announced that it was making it easier to post events. You will still be able to create events as before by clicking on the tab on the right hand of your profile but in addition to this you will be able to quickly create events on the right hand side panel too.  To do so, click on “What are you planning” on the “Events” panel on the right to quickly begin entering information about your event and to invite your friends.

Facebook Insights

Facebook Analytics

Facebook Insights allow you to track the effectiveness of your Facebook page. If you have a Page already, you might have noticed that a few weeks back you started getting a weekly email “Your Weekly Facebook Page Update”  informing you the number of fans, wall posts and visits to your page.  Click on the link to view the the data in more detail.  You can also do this in Facebook by going to any page you manage and clicking “insights” (below information on the left hand side panel).  You can view graphs showing interactions,posts, reviews and so on as well as gaining valuable analytics on demographics such as sex and geography.

This is perhaps the most important change to Facebook recently as it allows you to determine whether your page is effective and to allow you to ascertain what can be done to improve it.  You can even export the data to CSV for further analysis if you so choose.

Related posts:
Recent Facebook Changes

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.

As the Facebook population grows, more and more businesses are using Facebook Pages to promote their business in this forum and to reach out and connect with fans there.

Your Facebook page may be the first contact a prospect has with you and it is important to stand out from the crowd. One way to do this is by customizing your Facebook page to include tabs that go beyond the basic “Wall” and “Info” tabs in the vanilla page set up. Once you have created these new tabs you can customize each page.  Here’s how:

Customize Your Facebook Page

First thing you need to do is add the Facebook Mark Up Language to your Page.  To do this, Facebook search “FBML” find the FMBL application and click to add it to your site.

Once you have added this, go to your Page and click edit.  Under “Applications” you will see FBML.  Click to edit to add a new tab.

The box title shows “FBML”, edit this to show the title you want to appear on the tab on your page. Click to save.   The new tab will now appear on your Facebook page.

To edit and add content to the page click to edit your page again and click to edit on  the pertinent FBML application you just created.  Finally,  add the code you want to appear on the page.

The easiest way to generate the code is to use a CMS editor.  I used WordPress to generate the code for the connect tab content I created on the Out-Smarts Page.

To add images to your new tab page, upload them to WordPress and use the hyperlink functionality if you want to link the image to an external page (exactly like you would if you were uploading and linking an image to a blog post).

Once you are happy with the content, copy and paste the HTML code into your FBML window.   To find this click on applications then edit as before.

Click to complete and save.  Go back to your Facebook page and voila, you will have a new tab there and if you click on the tab the content you created in WordPress will appear there.

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.

The Olympics are in town and this city is all a buzz.  Following my post last week about how the Olympics use social media, I thought it would be great to follow up on that and take a look at how athletes are using these tools.

According to a Wired Magazine blog post, there is some confusion among athletes as to whether or not they are actually allowed to post during the games.  Here’s an excerpt from the article:

But there is no Olympic rule that sets up a blackout period for athletes according to Bob Condron, the Director of Media Services for the United States Olympic Committee.

“Athletes are free to blog during the Games,” says Condron. “And Twitter is just a blog that’s written 140 characters at a time.”

There are some restrictions on what athletes can do online during the Olympics. According to the IOC Blogging Guidelines for the 2010 Games, athletes and other accredited people must keep their posts confined to their personal experiences.

Despite this confusion many athletes are using social media right now.  Lets look at which social media tools they are using, how they are using them as well as how you can find, follow and lend your support.

Twitter

Lots of athletes are using Twitter to share their Olympic experiences.  One of the best ways to find them is to follow Olympic lists like these ones.

Canadian Athletes on Twitter

US Olympic Athletes on Twitter

Olympic Winter Sports

True North Media House

Huffington Post Athletes List

Olympians

Athletes are using Twitter in different ways.  Some are simply sharing their experiences in getting to BC and settling in to their new diggs at this point.  Many are posting their experiences in their final practices leading up to their events and all are  building their fan base. By finding and following our athletes on Twitter we have the chance to share in their Olympic experiences first hand as well as to give them our support.

Many national teams have dedicated Twitter feeds too, to keep fans updated:

Team Canada

Team Great Britain

Facebook

Whilst Twitter gives athletes a quick and easy way to communicate with fans, many also have fan pages on Facebook to build awareness of their endeavors, to post video content and share their Olympic aspirations.  Canadian gold medal contender in figure skating, Patrick Chan’s page links to video clips, fan photos and updates about the skater.

One of the best ways to find and follow athletes on Facebook is through the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Page.  Theyrecently asked the question “Hey any Olympic athletes out there? What is your Facebook page?”, here is the response.  Another way is to find the national team pages and check out who they are fans of – athletes are usually listed.  Here are a few – to find the rest search Facebook for “Olympic Team”.

Canadian Olympic Team

US Olympic Team

Swiss Olympic Team

Australian Olympic Team

Blogs

How these athletes find time to train and blog is beyond me – I guess that is why they are Olympians and I am not!  Here are links to athletes using these forums too:

Dustin Cook – Official blog of the Canadian Alpine Ski Team Member

Speed skater – Denny Morrison.

Good Luck To All Athletes

Good luck to all athletes competing at the games – thanks for keeping us posted on social media.  Welcome to BC and enjoy your time here: may it be golden!

I had a slew of old friends find and follow me on Facebook recently and its great to catch up but most of them are newbies to social media and making their first forays in these networks. In watching their actions, I thought I would craft a post giving them some pointers they should consider to maintain their safety and privacy online.

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 cogniscent of this. If you plan on getting your boobs out or boasting about your drinking prowess to the world give it some consideration first. 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. 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.

6. 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!).

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

8. My friend Marc at Amuse Consulting says if its not worth saying out loud, its not worth saying on line. This is a good mantra to bear in mind when considering your status updates.

9. 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.

10. 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.

Vancouver 2010

With only 11 days to go before the Vancouver Olympics begin, the excitement is building here and I thought this would be a good time to update on our last post about the Olympics and Social Media.

Since posting over a year ago, it would appear that the Olympic organisation has embraced social media somewhat and had some hick-ups on the way.

The Olympics on Twitter

In November VANOC was chastised for their poor response on Twitter when thousands were left waiting and eventually dissed because of a glitch in their ticket ordering system: rather than using Twitter as a customer service tool to let customers know exactly what was going on, their Tweets were ambiguous and erratic.

You can enjoy “timely Tweets from the VANOC communications team” at 2010 Tweets, where the organisation continues to push out information about itself with little interaction or true community building. The same can be said for their other feeds: @followthe flame, @code2010.

The Olympics on Facebook

They do rather better on Facebook, it has to be said. Both Vancouver 2010 and The Cultural Olympics are well represented there.

Again, fans cannot contribute to posts on the site but they can and do comment – most of them being positive.

The less publicised Canada Code page though is centred around community and collaboration. The Canada Code website encourages everyone to upload photos and text sharing their Olympic experiences. If you do, you could win a pair of those red mittens everyone is trying to get their hands on (or on their hands as the case may be!)  and if you are really lucky your content may be shared on public screens across Vancouver during the event. Now that is more like it VANOC! From their Facebook page:

The Olympics and Citizen Journalism

As for the Olympics embracing social media journalism, according to VANCOUVER ACCESS 2010, a collection of multi-media content; blog posts, pictures and videos covering the various winter/summer sports and cultural events, despite numerous attempts by prominent social media commentators VANOC seems to still be ignoring this vehicle:

“Over the past few years, as a group, we have spoken at various conferences and events about the impact of citizen journalism, social media and the internet on the various Olympics, IOC and “ANY”OC brands. We sent VANOC several letters over the past 18 months requesting to meet with them, and have a discussion about this change in culture… Without any replies.”

Seems a shame to ignore such valuable contributions.

Watch out for more on social media and the Olympics over the next month.

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.