This presentation is about gaining credibility via social networking sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. It was given at the 2010 Women in Public Communication Leadership Conference, Orlando, Florida, April 21.
2. Definition Social networking (or media) focuses on building online communities of people who share interests and/or activities. Most social network services are Web-based and provide a variety of ways for users to interact, such as e-mail and instant messaging services.
3. Six Degrees of Separation The idea that, if a person is one step away from each person they know and two steps away from each person who is known by one of the people they know, then everyone is at most six steps away from any other person on Earth.
5. Who is Online? 46% of American adult Internet users have a profile on an online social network site 61% of people with online profiles have annual household incomes of more than $50,000 45% of people with online profiles are college graduates 54% female, 46% male 28% use social networking to make new business or professional contacts and/or promote themselves or their work ~ Pew Internet & American Life Project Survey
6. Benefits For Job Seekers 80% of companies currently use or are planning to use social networking sites to find and attract candidates this year 66% of survey respondents reported they had successfully hired a candidate who was identified or introduced through an online social network 72% of respondents will invest more in recruiting through social networks Source: Jobvite 2009 Social Recruitment Survey 440 HR and recruitment professionals completed the survey 65% have between 101 and 5,000 employees at their company
7. Why Use Social Networking? Relationships Relationships Relationships!!!
24. Research your options Set-up account User name Profile/Bio Photo Find friends and associates Lurk to get used to format Start posting! Getting Started!
25. Exists to help you make better use of your professional network and help the people you trust in return Over 65 million members in over 200 countries and territories around the world A new member joins approximately every second, and about half of members are outside the U.S. Executives from all Fortune 500 companies are LinkedIn members Average user is over 41 years old and earns more than $100,000 per year
28. More than 400 million active users More than 2/3 of users are not in college The fastest growing demographic is 35 years old and older Average user has 130 “friends” More than 200 million users log on at least once each day
33. 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’s happening?” Messages can only use just 140 characters 105 million registered active users 50 million Tweets sent every day 40% of users earn more than $50,000 per year
Also called social mediaDecide WHY you are doing this: business, personal, bothKnow your target audienceBlogging is another form of social networking, but not covering it here because it can be an entire seminar by itself! Same with YouTube. Rules, tips, techniques we’ll discuss also apply to them.Blog – 2-3 times per week; have 30 before you startYou Tube – OK for business, but keep it professional
Do you want to reach any of these people?
Surveyed 880 marketing professionals who were very new to social networking to very experienced70% were small business ownersMedian age was 40-4956% were women
Word of mouth on steroids
ADD VALUEQuality vs. Quantity – don’t over-message or have too many friendsIn Twitter, thank those who retweet youDon’t have multiple “tweets” for one messageBe professional – good grammar and punctuationYou never know who will read your messageKey is to build relationshipsPosition yourself as an expert
Don’t try to hide who you areThe Federal Trade Commission is moving to regulate social-media “advertising.” The FTC is planning to hold marketers liable for false statements published on blogs and social networks—meaning companies or bloggers could get sued for saying a product was good if it really wasn’t."THX for the follow! Discover how to get 16,000 followers in 90 days and make money doing it?"
“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.”Nothing posted online is ever totally gone. Someone could have saved or printed it…or used it in some other way.Know if you are on your friends’ Facebook pagesBig brother always watching – just ask Michael PhelpsHave more than one account?
Options: why are you doing this? Any specialty groups you could join?Intuitive user name, not something made up that most people won’t knowAs much profile and bio information as possible – SHOW why they should get to know youCurrent photo – preview how it will lookResearch friends; don’t accept everyonePlan your strategy, including how much time per day/week you’ll spend updating, reading and so on. Can be addictive!Continue to look for new and better resourcesRemember that this is only ONE resource that you should be using for promoting your business or self
Founded in May 2003 when the 5 founders invited 300 of their most important contacts to joinHad 4,500 members within first month33 million members at end of 2008Free personal listing or premium account ($249.50 / year minimum)Import contacts from Outlook, gmail and othersSearch for people, jobs, companies or groupsGreat resource for job seekers – but info better match your resume
Always research others. In LinkedIn, look at work history and their connections. OK not to connect with them if it doesn’t make sense.Research appropriate groups to join.
Always research others. In LinkedIn, look at work history and their connections. OK not to connect with them if it doesn’t make sense.Research appropriate groups to join.
Two Harvard students founded in 2004 to share profiles, pictures and info with other students23.4% growth just in MarchFree to join
Great example of what current or potential employers or clients would see if they searched for you.If they have their own Facebook account, they would see much moreCan be made private – carefully review and personalize privacy settingsMonitor pictures others may have of you on their pagesAlso has useful (and not useful, but fun) groupsCassie example
Great example of what current or potential employers or clients would see if they searched for you.If they have their own Facebook account, they would see much moreCan be made private – carefully review and personalize privacy settingsMonitor pictures others may have of you on their pagesAlso has useful (and not useful, but fun) groupsCassie example
Created in 2006Better question would be “what’s important to my followers”Micro-bloggingFollowers, not friendsA post is a “tweet”Other applications like TweetDeck and Twirl to manage – cross-post with Facebook and others
Only see my posts, not posts from people I followCan be made private, but less flexible than FacebookReply to someone Tweet – but others can seeRetweet – “forwarding” someone’s Tweet to your followersDirect message = private communicationHashtag (#) – grouping of tweets about subjectShorten URLs to post