kNow Media

7 Secrets to Getting Your Next Job Using Social Media

Tyler Knowlton — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 14:06:59 +0000

anuary 5, 2009 - 2:30 pm PDT - by Dan Schawbel

Dan Schawbel is the author of Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success, and owner of the award winning Personal Branding Blog.

Between current economic conditions and the technological evolution of the Internet, the traditional approach most job seekers have taken in the past is no longer viable.

The approach — developing a resume and cover letter, locating jobs on and submitting your resume to corporate sites and job banks, and crossing your fingers in hopes of receiving a call from a hiring manager — is, for the most part, a thing of the past. The new approach is far different. It boils down to the fact that there are fewer jobs available, more competition for those jobs and more touch points for recruiters and seekers to interact.

The current environment

In 2008, there were 1.2 million job losses, unemployment is currently at 6.5%, and the largest companies are shedding as much as 10% of their workforces. There will be 1.5 million college graduates this year, yet the job growth rate is at a six year low, at 1.3%! The amount of jobs posted online is decreasing at over 13%, which has all led to the ratio of 3.3 job seekers per each job.

Social networks are starting to become part of the criteria that both hiring managers and college admissions officers are using to weed out applicants. One in five hiring managers conduct background checks using social networks (primarily Facebook), while one in ten college admissions officers do the same.

It’s time for you to be open-minded and think differently about how you’re going to get your next job and keep it. I’m not saying you shouldn’t submit your resume to job banks, corporate websites, vertical job agents (Simply Hired/Indeed) or attend job fairs, but these should only consume 10% of your time. The other 90% should be concentrated on the following seven social media secrets, which will not only get you a job, but help you create your own dream job!

1. Conduct a people search instead of a job search

The majority of jobs aren’t posted online. Hiring managers get a list of employee referral candidates before they even bother to view resumes from those who submit them online. Sometimes the listed jobs aren’t available or never existed in the first place. Many studies have noted that 80% of jobs are taken through networking, but few have sought to use the web to search and locate people they would actually enjoy working for at companies that they get excited about.

The 3-step people search:

1. Identify the top five companies that you would like to work for.
Use a focused approach instead of flooding thousands of inboxes with spam. You want to brand yourself, not just as the person of best fit for a job, but as someone who is eager and ecstatic to work for the company.

2. Use search engines to track employees that currently work there.
There are over 130 million blogs in Technorati and you can search through them to possibly find someone who works at one of your top five companies. You can search through corporate groups, pages and people on Facebook. You can even do the same on Twitter. Then there are people search engines such as pipl, peek you, and wink. Once you find a contact name, try googling it to see if there is any additional information about that person.

3. Connect with the person directly.
Social media has broken down barriers, to a point where you can message someone you aren’t friends with and don’t have contact information for, without any hassles. Before you message a target employee, realize that they receive messages from people asking for jobs all the time and that they might not want to be bothered on Facebook, where their true friends are. As long as you’ve done your homework on the company and them, tailor a message that states who you are and your interest, without asking for a job at first. Get to know them and then by the 3rd or 4th messages, ask if there is an available opportunity.

2. Use attraction-based marketing to get job offers

The traditional way of searching for a job was proactive, forcing you to start a job that you might not have enjoyed. The new approach is about building a powerful personal brand and attracting job opportunities directly into your doorstep. How do you do this? You become a content producer instead of just a consumer and the number one way to do that on the web is to launch a blog that centers around both your expertise and passions.

You need to be passionate to be committed to this project because it requires a lot of writing, creativity and consistency in order for it to actually help you. A blog is a non-intrusive, harmless and generous way of getting recruiters interested in your brand, without you even asking for a job! Make the recruiters fall in love with you and only send you opportunities that are related to your blog content, so you end up happy in the end.

This works a lot and is expected for new-age marketing jobs that require experience in social media and can even help you jump-start a new business off of your blog platform. By pulling recruiters into your world, you are able to impress them with what you want them to see and they can make a quick decision whether to hire you or not, without you hearing about rejection. Start a blog today using Wordpress.com (for beginners) or install Wordpress.org onto your own host (such as GoDaddy or Bluehost).

3. Be proactive on Twitter

Twitter has become the ultimate utility to connect directly with recruiters and employees at companies you want to work for. By conducting Twitter searches, following recruiters on your account and using the “@” sign to communicate with them on occasion, you will start to learn a lot about them and their companies.

Before you follow anyone on Twitter, you HAVE TO have a completed profile. This means, you should have a short bio, the location where you’re from, a link to a site that recruiters can go to for more information (I recommend your blog or your LinkedIn profile) and an avatar of yourself (not a clown or Homer Simpson please). This way, you stand a better chance of securing an opportunity or a relationship with people who care enough to read your profile.

Most people get jobs on Twitter by already having hundreds or thousands of followers. For example, I’ve heard of at least ten people getting a job by tweeting “just got laid off, looking for a job in finance” and then receiving a few direct messages with people who want to help them. Of course, these individuals had built trust, credibility and relationships with their followers over time, so they were more inclined to come to their rescue. You can do the same, just start right now!

4. Capitalize on LinkedIn

It’s no surprise that LinkedIn has been extremely profitable and successful as of late. Recruiters are starting to use LinkedIn as the main place for sourcing candidates because it’s free and the top professionals are on there. Many people don’t use LinkedIn to the best of their ability and fail to complete their entire profile, such that it says “100% complete.”

Just like any other search engine recruiters are using, keywords are extremely important. You want to fill out your entire profile, just like you would a resume, but include the same avatar you are using on Twitter (see above) and ensure that the summary section is complete. You’ll also want to get at least one recommendation from a supervisor or friend, which will give you a “1″ next to a “thumbs up” graphic when people search for you.

Then, you should import all your contacts from Outlook, Gmail, etc, so that you can start to build your network or grow your existing network. The more people you’re connected to the better because you’re only able to reach other people in your network (1st, 2nd & 3rd degrees) by having these connections. You may want to pay for a premium account, so you can contact other recruiters that may help you. Finally, you should conduct searches on there for jobs that you may be interested in and reach out to those individuals that may supply you with an interview or referral.

5. Advertise your brand using AdWords and Facebook Social Ads

Google AdWords is Google’s advertising platform, which offers CPC (cost-per-click) and CPI (cost-per-impression) pricing for advertisements on Google and partner sites. Some of their partner sites are newspapers, radio and TV.

Before running your advertisement, you need a landing page. If you have a website or blog, then use the resume page within it to display through advertising. This works beautifully because recruiters can see that single resume page and notice all the other pages/options on your website, to get a better sense of your brand.

Here’s how to create your ad:

Title. When you create your ad, label yourself as a specialist, expert or guru on the title tag. You might want to state the fact that it’s your resume first.
Description. In the next two description tags, pull out your biggest achievements in 6 words or less and list your personal brand statement or a few descriptors.
URL. For your URL, don’t use the URL for your resume page. Instead use yourname.com for personal branding purposes. Drop the “www” from the domain you want to promote because it’s unnecessary.

Facebook Social Ads allow businesses and individuals to advertise using Facebook’s news feed or left rail (will change to 2 ad spots on the right when the new interface swaps over). This program works similar to Google’s but you can use a picture and it’s more “word-of-mouth friendly” because ads travel through the news feed of friends.

Here’s how to create your ad:

Title. What is the ad for? The title is the most important piece of your ad because it has the most “text” emphasis. I would say “I want to work for ” or “Resume for .” Try and be as specific as you can.
Picture. Just like your Facebook picture, don’t use a picture that you wouldn’t want shown to your future employer. I would go for a professional yet personal picture.
Description. Don’t write your resume, but instead give the viewer a quick description of who you are, what you do and what job you want in 25 words.

Once you create your ad, either link it to your Facebook page, LinkedIn profile or blog/website. These ads are all about targeting a specific group that would care about your resume or hiring you for that matter. When you select your target audience, keep your major in mind, as well as the company and location.

6. Construct a video resume and upload it to YouTube

A search for “video resume” on YouTube will give you over 1,700 results. Many video resumes are good, while others are so amateur and rehearsed that they subtract from a given candidates marketing program. The key with a video resume is that very few people have actually created one, so they serve as a differentiator in the recruiting process.

A good video resume is short, describes the value you can contribute to a given position, explains why you’re the best person for the job and talks about your background in a story-like format. If you aren’t a person with an outgoing and lively personality, then don’t bother creating one. Since you’re filming yourself, don’t rush because you can always try it a hundred times before you upload the final version to YouTube.

7. Subscribe to blogs that have job listings

We all subscribe to blogs to receive information based on our interests, at least I hope. Over time we rely on these sources for information to keep us updated on what is happening in certain industries or different trends that are developing. In the past few years, the larger blogs have started to integrate job banks into their own websites, using software/hosting from companies such as Job-a-matic.

Blogs that have taken this approach include Guy Kawasaki’s blog, GigaOM, and Jeremiah Owyang’s Web Strategy Blog.

Other blogs, such as Darren Rowse’s Problogger Blog offer blogging jobs, and Mashable has a job board highlighting jobs in social media and tech.

This targeting will save you from hours searching and help escort you to jobs that you’d actually want.

Integrate the traditional and social media approach

These seven secrets are extremely important in your next job search. The most successful job searches come from those who have already built up strong networks, both online and off. You need to integrate this new-age approach with the traditional approach you’ve already been using, in order to be consistent, so there are no surprises from the recruiter’s perspective. They want the candidate they see on paper or online.

I would recommend that you use a link to your blog, LinkedIn profile and YouTube video resume on your traditional resume. You’ll also want to link your existence on all social networks together. You need to be where recruiters are searching, as well as become a content producer so you can attract them directly to you. That is how you have a successful job search and stand out for years to come.

Government 2.0: How Social Media Could Transform Gov PR

Tyler Knowlton — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 13:57:35 +0000

Via Media Shift

by Mark Drapeau, January 5, 2009

t’s easy to see governments as nameless, faceless monoliths, something impersonal or, even worse, untrustworthy. Much of that is because government culture remains steeped in traditional ideas about public relations and outreach work, notions that have become archaic in an Internet-enabled, hyper-connected world. Just as private companies are learning to embrace social media to manage brand reputations, governments must adapt if they wish to effectively communicate with their “customers” — a.k.a. their citizens and stakeholders.

I propose that using authentic and transparent personalities as public outreach ambassadors can help transform “government for the people” to “government with the people.” This should also have an indirect positive effect on the government organizations — the brands — they represent.

Government 2.0

To be sure, governments are very different from private corporations in ways that create barriers to change. Bureaucracy and entrenched special interests make collaboration between agencies difficult. Information assurance, infrastructure, and legacy system concerns can make using or acquiring novel technologies from startup companies nearly impossible. Constant turnover of elected officials and political appointees as well as year-to-year budget concerns make long-range planning nearly a fantasy.

Nevertheless, as I have written about in my column at Mashable and elsewhere, pockets of influence inside the government as well as outside groups like the Sunlight Foundation are working to change that. And gradually, senior leadership is realizing that the upside of adopting social technologies could be extremely high.

Some criticize the use of social technologies in areas like national security and foreign relations, but I feel strongly that decision-makers cannot make informed choices about this until they or their staffs have personally had experience with this technology. And some senior officials, such as Colleen Graffy, the current Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, are bravely taking the plunge.

Colleen Graffy’s Twitter feed

Behind every press release, web page, and social networking account is a person. But when people “hide” behind organizational brands, it reduces the authenticity and transparency that people — citizens, customers, fans — have become accustomed to seeing in the Web 2.0 world. New social tools and niche communications can empower people to connect with their audiences on a more personal level through what has been termed “ambient awareness” or ambient intimacy.

The Collaborative, Creative Class

Governments everywhere are dealing with the rise of the “collaborative creative class” or C3. Often thought of as “Millennials” but in reality composed of people from all generations, C3 are the passionate, talented, and creative individuals who often blur the lines between work and play. To harness the momentum and power of C3, and to recruit and retain such individuals for public service, the government needs to embrace the spirit of creativity and trial-and-error characteristic of the social software community, fund research and development on social software, address information security risks inherent in social software, and create policy, acquisitions, and human resources incentives to encourage the use of such software.

Social software has numerous government applications, including information-sharing within and between agencies; collaborating with outside partners like humanitarian workers; public outreach and crowdsourcing; and empowering people with inexpensive, simple, mobile technology. In addition, as hostile entities become more adept at using social media for propaganda, it is imperative that governments familiarize themselves with social technologies.

How can government use social software to engage people in meaningful ways, understand public sentiment, recruit and retain employees, and harness what is often called collective intelligence? One early and prominent advocate of this is Rep. John Culberson (R-Tex.), who has experimented with social software including the text micro-blogging platform Twitter and the video broadcast technology Qik.

Rep. John Culberson (R-Tex.) on Qik

In my opinion, there is a good deal of opportunity for bi-directional engagement between the government and its citizens. Rep. Culberson’s visionary experimentation with social software prompted Congressional rules changes that effectively empower members to act as bi-directional ambassadors, bypassing traditional media to directly engage Congress on behalf of constituents, and perhaps more profoundly, vice versa.

Bi-Directional Brand Ambassadors

The term “branding” is most often associated with companies selling products, but government components are arguably brands themselves. And failure to monitor conversations about brands is guaranteed to be PR trouble. Just look at the recent “Motrin Moms” controversy, which has been written about extensively here, here, and here. Briefly, Motrin failed to keep abreast of negative public reaction to an online advertisement aimed at mothers, a failure that may very well have damaged the brand’s reputation in a major niche market.

Conversations like those that surrounded the “Motrin Moms” video are happening every day on issues that directly pertain to governments. How well do governments monitor what their constituents are actually talking about on Twitter and similar open information-sharing platforms?

Businesses, governments, and other organizations are still struggling to find the best way to use social software to engage people about their brands. I have argued elsewhere that on social networks, brands are best represented by individual people as “brand ambassadors.” Ashton Kutcher and Maria Sharapova are in digital camera commercials for a reason — so you’ll watch (and hopefully listen and learn, too).

But television commercials, billboards, and press releases are unidirectional — the audience sits back and passively receives information. Through social software, brand ambassadors have the potential to promote messages through what I term “indirect, intimate influence” or I3. Brand ambassadors ideally listen and learn from ongoing conversations, and then engage in them, creating bidirectionality as outlined in books like The Cluetrain Manifesto. Ideally, they also talk about more than just their brands on social networks — a good ambassador will also talk about other aspects of his or her life, to the point that followers eventually begin to see the brand ambassador as something of a trusted friend.

Becoming Individually Empowerful

As the influence of traditional media sources like television networks and newspapers declines, I predict that brand ambassadors will become a critical part of government public relations and outreach. In an environment of rapidly changing global issues, an increasingly fractionated media sector, and people more and more defined by unique combinations of niche interests, the government sorely needs enhanced public relations that involve bi-directional multimedia engagement with specific niches of public interest.

Every citizen now has the potential to be a collector, an analyst, a reporter, and a publisher — and so does every government employee. Engaging, trusted personalities employed as brand ambassadors will complement — not replace — traditional public affairs and government outreach. Depending on their agency or office’s mission and goals, individuals can follow customized strategies to engage specific niches of the public at events, in interviews, and through constant, pervasive use of new and emerging media tools. In an ongoing bi-directional conversation, brand ambassadors employing I3 would work not only on behalf of the government among the people, but also on behalf of the people within the government.

Government social ambassadors should be fully accessible, transparent, authentic, and collaborative leaders that inspire people to cooperate for the sake of common concerns. As part of their missions, government brand ambassadors should conduct community-based research to understand the “marketplace.” What do the elderly living in the Southwest think about health care? What do kids from different household incomes think about their public schools? What does the man-on-the-street in Greece think of U.S. foreign policy? My guess is that most people don’t know who the government authority is on elderly health care, impoverished schools, or foreign policy towards Greece. And while many interests are represented in Washington DC, the interests of the average person are sometimes misunderstood or overlooked.

The strategy of lethal generosity can be incredibly powerful when engaging micro-niches. Lethal generosity holds that the most engaged and sharing person in a community will eventually become the most trusted. By leading overt discussions online and in person, combined with the ambient intimacy brought about through I3, government brand ambassadors will gain a greater sense of public sentiment, which in turn will allow lawmakers to formulate better informed public policy.

Conclusions

While governments certainly face challenges in using social tools, the pros of using these tools far outweigh the cons. Social technologies can make networking and engagement with the public simple and powerful, make research faster, identify influencers in useful micro-niches, provide mechanisms for combating negative publicity, and measure public sentiment to help inform public policy.

These tools can also be used to advertise job vacancies or agency needs as well as provide live broadcast coverage of niche events. And there are increasingly quantitative measurements of social software return-on-investment. Finally, they may even save money. Phone calls, focus groups, and airline tickets can be expensive; social software can provide a cheaper alternative in some situations. Governments everywhere will benefit greatly by adopting progressive new approaches to social software and the indirect, intimate influence it propagates.

Dr. Mark Drapeau is a biological scientist and government consultant. He has a B.S. and Ph.D. in animal behavior, conducted postdoctoral research on complex genomic and neural systems, and has published writing in Science, Nature, Genome Research, American Scientist, the New York Times, the Washington Times, and other venues. He is also a contributing writer to Mashable.com on government and social technology. These views are his own and do not represent the official views of the National Defense University, the U.S. Department of Defense, or any other part of the U.S. Government.

Newspapers are Old News

Tyler Knowlton — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 14:53:39 +0000

Via PR 2.0

by Brian Solis

As a follow up to my post, “Extra Extra, Read All About It! Newspapers Respond to the Social Web,” new research emerges that documents the looming exit of print newspapers as a primary source of national and international news.

According to the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, a new survey indicates that 40% of respondents claim the Internet as their primary source for national and international news, versus 24% in 2007. In comparison, 35%, up 1% from 2007, rely on newspapers and 70% count on television as their main source for news, down from 74% in 2007.

Perhaps the harbinger of things to come is embodied in the response from Americans under 30. A staggering 59% indicated that they get most of their news from the Internet, up from 34% in 2007. In the group, television tied with the Internet at 59%, but for broadcast TV, it’s a steep decline from 68% in 2007. As Dan Farber of CNET points out, these figures add up to more 100 percent because people have the ability to offer multiple answers.

Clearly, printed newspapers as well as television are under tremendous pressure to reinvent themselves in the social economy. It’s not just about the socialized mechanisms and channels to source and broadcast news however, a successful metamorphosis requires the creation of an active and enlivened community supported by a profitable business model.

As I’ve stated previously, through social networks, blogs, and micro communities, consumers have access to information literally as it happens. Their peers become sources for news and information, reinforced by social frequency and reverberation. Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, and other networks ARE emerging as trusted and oft referenced newsfeeds. And, they’re fueled by immediacy, brevity, and connectedness.

You can download the study as a PDF here.

UPDATE: TechCrunch reports that content sites brace for 50% revenue loss

Israeli Consulate to tweet about Gaza war

Tyler Knowlton — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 14:51:06 +0000

Via ARS Technica

By David Chartier | Published: December 30, 2008 - 11:40AM CT

Ubiquitous microblogging service Twitter is once again making political news today with the announcement that the Consulate General of Israel in New York will hold a “Citizen’s Press Conference” today. David Saranga, Consul of Media and Public Affairs, will be taking questions about the situation in Israel and Gaza via Twitter, and anything that requires more than Twitter’s 140 SMS-friendly characters will be posted to the Israel Consulate’s blog.The conference is set to run from 1-3pm EST, but the consulate’s Twitter account, twitter.com/IsraelConsulate, is already active and responding to questions.

If you aren’t familiar with how this “tweet and reply” system works, here’s a quick primer: On Twitter, users can direct public “tweets” (basic Twitter posts that are 140 characters or less) to other users by prefixing the message with an @ symbol and a username.

For example, if you want to ask the Israel Consulate a question for today’s conference, either log in or sign up and type a message like “@IsraelConsulate Can bombs really root out Hamas?” This will allow the people running the Consulate’s account to see your question and, ideally, reply back to you with a public message that (barring any custom preferences) all other users can see.

A screenshot of the Israel Consulate’s Twitter page with tweets and replies. Click for a larger view

Twitter can be used with a desktop browser, mobile applications, or even via SMS, allowing virtually anyone with some kind of an Internet-connect device to participate and as questions at this “Citizen Press Conference.”

A few drawbacks to this approach, however, could cause trouble for the Israel Consulate and Twitter’s participants. Opening the doors this wide to a global audience could very well overwhelm the Consulate’s team with question, many of which will undoubtedly be duplicates. Twitter’s focus on absolute simplicity may also make some Q&A conversations difficult to follow, as one of the most useful tools that could visualize threaded conversations, Quotably, has closed up shop; Twitter offers no comparable alternative.

Plus, Twitter offers a preference to only display replies to users that you follow, which will effectively hide any replies that @IsraelConsulate sends to most participants. Depending on the Twitter circle that you choose to follow, disabling this preference could result in a flood of @replies that drown out the Consulate’s conference.

Still, the adoption of Twitter for larger social and political exchanges will only be a boon for the service, even if this latest experiment encounters some turbulence. Other, more ambitious experiments, such as the dual-party presidential debate conducted over Twitter, may have had more trouble, but we have seen everything from C-SPAN, CNN, Shaquille O’Neill, school classrooms, Comcast, JetBlue, and even law enforcement agencies adopt the service to communicate in more personal, professional, and accessible ways with audiences.

The Governator Takes to Twitter and Widgets to Pass California Budget

Tyler Knowlton — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 14:46:58 +0000

Via Mashable

from Mashable! by Adam Ostrow

California is yet to pass Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s budget, intended to help correct the huge deficit the state is expected to face over the next year and a half. The Governator has apparently had enough, and is turning to social media to urge constituents of the nation’s most populus state to pressure their lawmakers in the state legislature.

The “Legislature’s Failure to Act” widget features how many days the state has gone without having a budget passed, and also keeps a running ticker estimate of how much money the state is losing, modeled after the famous National Debt clock in New York that recently ran out of digits. The widget, powered by Clearspring, can be emedded on user’s websites and blogs, or posted directly to social networking profiles by clicking the “share” button:

Additionally, in case you hadn’t noticed yet, Schwarzenneger has taken to Twitter in recent months, posting links to updates about the budget crisis and promoting things like the widget. So far, his team is using the microblogging tool completely as a one-way broadcasting tool (the Governator isn’t following anyone and he has made no replies), but it’s a useful stream of information if you’re concerned about the issue.

Schwarzenneger, the former movie star, fittingly has his own channel on YouTube as well.

Boring Holidays = Social Networking Extravaganza

Tyler Knowlton — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 14:37:35 +0000

Via Mashable

December 30, 2008 - 4:16 pm PDT - by Adam Ostrow

There are a lot of reasons that social networks experience a bump in traffic during the holidays. For one, lots of people are off from work or school. Moreover, there simply isn’t that much else going on – a slowdown in email and news means more time to loiter around your favorite online hangouts.

This year has been no exception, as Hitwise breaks down the numbers. According to the analytics firm, Facebook saw record traffic this Christmas, with 1 in every 22 websites visited in the UK going to the social network. Overall, that made the site the second most popular online destination in the UK during the holiday, behind only Google.

Not surprisingly, watching videos also seems to have a strong correlation with having nothing better to do. YouTube was the 3rd most popular site in the UK for Christmas week, beating out Windows Live Hotmail. In all, Hitwise says that social networks accounted for 10% of web traffic during the period.

Thus, expect to see a big jump in growth when the numbers for top social networking sites are released next month. We’ll also likely see the ever-narrowing gap between Facebook and MySpace close even further in the US, as Facebook’s college-heavy audience enjoys more leisure time in front of their computers.

Meanwhile, if you’re lucky enough to still be on holiday, perhaps step away from the Web for a moment. Or, don’t

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, liliboas

Mafia Finds Fans on Facebook

Tyler Knowlton — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 14:34:50 +0000

Via The New York Times

By RACHEL DONADIO

Published: December 30, 2008

Thousands of users have joined fan pages devoted to top Mafia bosses on the social networking site Facebook, the Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica reported Tuesday. A page devoted to Salvatore “Totò” Riina, the “boss of bosses,” who is serving 12 life sentences, has more than 2,228 fans, some of whom wished him a merry Christmas. Other fans called for the “immediate beatification” of Bernardo Provenzano, who was imprisoned in 2006. Relatives of Mafia victims expressed outrage.

PR 2.0: Must Read Posts of 2008

Tyler Knowlton — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 14:25:07 +0000

Via PR 2.0

by Brian Solis

It’s easy to lose sight of the beacons and milestones that resonate, influence and guide us as we navigate through these evolutionary times. After all, we’re deluged with education, lessons, and insight from so many brilliant leaders and inspirational voices, that it’s practically impossible to retain and reference all that moved us when we’re moved on a minute-by-minute basis. Our attention and relationships are more precious than ever.

As 2008 comes to a close, I wanted to share with you some of my favorite posts on PR 2.0 over the last the year. I hope they help you as you explore the new opportunities that will define your future in 2009 and beyond.

PR 2.0 2008 Top 40:

Free ebook: The Art and Science of Blogger Relations

Free ebook: PR Tips for Startups

The Value of Online Conversations

Transforming Customers into Evangelists: The Art of Listening and Engagement

The Definitive Guide to Social Media Releases

Social Media is Not The Final Frontier of Marketing

Gary Vaynerchuk Puts the Social in Social Media

Cultural Voyeurism and Social Media

PR 2.0 = The Evolution of PR, Nothing Less, Nothing More

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Conversation Has Left The Building

The Evolution of the News Business

Will The Real Social Media Expert Please Stand Up?

Distributed Conversations and Fragmented Attention

In Blogger and Media Relations, You Earn the Relationships You Deserve

PR 2.0: Putting the Public Back in Public Relations

Making Mistakes and Amends in Blogger and Media Relations

The Evolution of Press Releases

The Escalator Pitch, Going Up?

PR Tips for Startups - The Director’s Cut

The Art of Conversation - It’s About Listening Not Marketing

The Social Revolution is Our Industrial Revolution

Comcast Cares and Why Your Business Should Too - The Socialization of Service

SEC To Recognize Corporate Blogs as Public Disclosure, What This Means for Wires and Press Releases

New Communication Theory and the New Roles for the New World of Marketing

Introducing The Conversation Prism

PR is Not Dead

The Socialization of Your Personal Brand - Part I - III

Launching Your Company at an Event? You need PR

The State of Social Media 2008

Redefining the Echo Chamber to Excel in an Economic Crisis

Twitter Tools for Community and Communications Professionals

In the Social Web, We Are All Brand Managers

Reinventing Crisis Communications for the Social Web

Al Gore on the Social Revolution for Change

Barack Obama, The Social Web, and the Future of User-Generated Governance

Introducing MicroPR, A PR Resource for Journalists, Analysts and Bloggers on Twitter

Saying More with Less: A Directory of Short URL Services

TechCrunch Kills The Embargo, But PR Holds the Smoking Gun

Fear Kills Businesses, Dead

Introducing Social Syndication and Aggregation: Social Media Predictions for 2009

For a full table of contents of posts related to Social Media, New PR/Marketing, and Business, please click here.

Top Social Media Sites of 2008 (Facebook Still Rising)

Tyler Knowlton — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 14:21:52 +0000

Via Tech Crunch

by Erick Schonfeld on December 31, 2008

What were the top social media sites of 2008? ComScore came out with its worldwide traffic stats for November a few days ago (so these don’t include December). They are a mix of social networks and blogging platforms. Blogger, the orange line in the chart above, still rules the roost with an estimated 222 million unique worldwide visitors in November (up 44 percent from November, 2007). Facebook, the blue line, is on pace to pass it soon with 200 million unique visitors (up 116 percent). (Note, though, that this is more than the 140 million active users Facebook itself reports—go figure). MySpace is pretty steady at 126 million uniques. Wordpress is a close fourth and gaining with 114 million (up 68 percent). And Windows Live Spaces is down 22 percent to 87 million uniques.

ComScore keeps a list of what it calls “social networking” sites, but these include blogging platforms and other social media sites as well. While the audience for blogs is still showing healthy growth overall, Facebook stands out as the social gorilla taking share from not only other social networks but blogs and other social media as well.

Below are the top 20 sites on comScore’s social networking list. It is really more of a social media site list, which is what I’m renaming it for this post. It is not definitive, but it gives a good lay of the land. (Here is a similar ranking from 2007). Note on this list the stubborn persistence of Yahoo’s Geocities at No. 6, the rise of Yahoo’s Flickr at No. 7, Six Apart at No. 10, and the presences of Chinese sites like Baidu Space and 56.com. The real surprise, though, is document-sharing site Scribd at No. 16, with nearly 24 million worldwide uniques.

Top Social Media Sites (ranked by unique worldwide visitors November, 2008; comScore)

Blogger (222 million)
Facebook (200 million)
MySpace (126 million)
Wordpress (114 million)
Windows Live Spaces (87 million)
Yahoo Geocities (69 million)
Flickr (64 million)
hi5 (58 million)
Orkut (46 million)
Six Apart (46 million)
Baidu Space (40 million)
Friendster (31 million)
56.com (29 million)
Webs.com (24 million)
Bebo (24 million)
Scribd (23 million)
Lycos Tripod (23 million)
Tagged (22 million)
imeem (22 million)
Netlog (21 million)

Here’s a screenshot of the actual data (as you can see, I rounded above):

Top task performance heavily influences branding

Tyler Knowlton — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 13:51:26 +0000

Via Gerry McGovern

If a customer cannot complete their top tasks quickly and easily on your website, why would they trust you to help them with other tasks?

You’re in a giant shopping mall. You urgently need to go to the toilet. You go to the Information Desk. There’s a big queue. After waiting for ages your turn comes and you ask directions. You’re told to head down the hallway, take a right, go up an escalator, turn right, walk down to the end of the hall, take another escalator, turn left and walk down to the end of another hall where you will find the toilets.

You hurry towards your destination wondering why they have made it so difficult to find the toilets. When you finally get there you find to your despair that there are no toilets. You have been given bad directions. This sort of experience will color your whole view of the mall. And if you do go back a next time you’re not likely to go to the Information Desk looking for directions to other areas of the mall you’d like to visit.

There are certain basic things your website needs to do really, really well. If it doesn’t then the customer is likely to get a very negative view of the entire website. If you can’t easily book a room on a hotel website, then you don’t think much of the hotel website. For that matter, you don’t think much of the hotel either.

If you can’t quickly find contact details on a website then the brand is undermined. We need to reclaim branding. It has been hijacked by a very narrow visual interpretation, as if the essence of the brand was the logo and the graphics.

The essence of the brand is the experience customers have with a product or service. There is of course a visual component in branding but it has been vastly overemphasized. When we think of Google do we think of a colorful logo or a fast way to find stuff? Web brands, in particular, are functional. The successful ones help us do useful things.

When we arrive at a website for the first time we are impatient and highly skeptical. If we try to complete basic but important tasks on that website, and we fail, our whole impression of the website is undermined.

Every website has a small set of top tasks (usually no more than three, definitely no more than five). After getting off a plane I remember going down an escalator to the trains section of the airport. At the bottom of the escalator were three signs: Trains, Tickets, Toilets.

What are your Trains, Tickets, and Toilets? How easy is it to complete your top tasks? Branding is about how well you help people succeed. It is about how much time you can save them. It is about how easy and convenient you can make their life.

On your website there are top tasks that customers expect you to do extremely well. If you don’t perfect those tasks, you lose your customers’ trust. A brand that is not trusted is not much of a brand.

Gerry McGovern
mailto:gerry@gerrymcgovern.com