Keppie Careers

Social media speaker, social media consultant, job search coach

New Media Atlanta – lessons for job seekers mimic those for business owners

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chriseditedDSC00965-800x572It’s always fun to get together with all of my social media friends! Atlanta has a great community of tweeters, bloggers and social media enthusiasts.

Yesterday, I attended the New Media Atlanta, a conference organized by Matt Fagioli and Brad Nix. (In the picture, I pose (from far left) with my friends Stephanie A. Lloyd and Stephanie Frost with key note speaker and social media guru, Chris Brogan.)

Listening to the speakers and panelists, one message came across very clearly to me:

Advice to entrepreneurs and business owners for using social media to improve their prospects parallels the advice I offer job seeking clients.

Below is a recap of my tweets from the conference. (In reverse chronological order.) See if you don’t agree that job seekers can learn a lot from information aimed at business owners!

For non Twitter users, #nmatl is a “hashtag” used for the conference to make it easier for people to follow the conversation on Twitter. If you search that tag on Twitter, you will find the entire stream of tweets about the conference.

MY TWITTER RECAP

. @chrisbrogan talking about “share vs. hoard.” Good for #jobseekers to think about-SHARE. You may be surprised at results

Don’t collect business cards like Pokemon via @chrisbrogan at #nmatl. DO: LISTEN-ASK-RECIPROCATE-COMMENT-COMMENT BACK

Business opportunities come to people who connect ppl to other ppl – via @chrisbrogan #nmatl

.@chrisbrogan reminds us that #jobseekers shouldn’t start looking for a job after they’ve been fired. Manage UR relationships along the way

“Your competitor is doing it.” @chrisbrogan on social media for businesses. SAME for #jobseekers. Find your niche & what you offer. #nmatl

. @chrisbrogan says “Reciprocity is a powerful thing” – YES. #Jobseekers – listen up! #nmatl

Integrate social media with all of your marketing efforts-advice for businesses from #nmatl. Also ++ for #jobseekers. Don’t rely on 1 thing.

Branding advice works for #jobseekers-Simple story, be articulate and intelligent! Take the time to KNOW YOUR STORY! #nmatl

#nmatl – Branding – Find a simple story in product and present it in articulate & intelligent, persuassive way – Bill Bernbach via @tobydiva

Brent Leary says “Listening to customers yields more than asking.” Same idea for #jobseekers-use your ears and mind to connect. #nmatl

Jeff Turner shares useful tool to monitor # convos: http://tweetgrid.com/irc #nmatl

Jeff Turner: “important to take risks.” Lesson for job seekers: Take a chance! Connect w/someone new. What’s worst that’ll happen? #nmatl

Relationships matter in web of interconnections. Key for jobseekers-networking = relationships. No matter what you call it. #nmatl

I posted a blog on the day of the conference that I’ve been holding for a while, but seemed perfect: Job seekers (and business owners) pitch what you offer, not what you WANT. I think this is a good reminder of many of the lessons that speakers shared. A lot of it boils down to a very basic message:

USE YOUR EARS FIRST! Listen, respond, connect.

It’s not rocket science, but clearly not everyone is doing this or doing it well. If you do it well, you can fuel your job hunt and/or entrepreneurial plans. Don’t get left behind!

Since this is all about connecting, here are some people I had a chance to either meet for the first time and/or spend time with again at the event and links to their Twitter accounts:

Stephanie A. Lloyd, Stephanie Frost, Marna Friedman, Taryn Pisaneschi, Robyn Cobb, Marisa Sharpe, Stone Payton, Todd Schnick, Jenny Devaughn, Chad Rothschild, Jeff Turner, Bert Dumars, Victoria Dunmire, Chris Jordan,  Kevin Metzger, Willie Jackson,  Andrea Walker and Sandra Spiller.

I’m looking forward to the opportunity to get to know some of my new friends and to possible business opportunities in the offing!

If you need help using social networking (Twitter, blogging, LinkedIn, FaceBook, etc.) for your business or job search – I can help! Please learn more about what I can do to help you!

Not convinced that social networking can propel your job hunt?

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If there is one thing that I learned at the ERE Expo conference targeted at recruiters and career professionals earlier this month, it is that social networking is a key way that recruiters identify and source candidates. Have you been hesitating to use social media for your job hunt? Maybe you think it is a fad? Take a look at this video from Socialnomics…

A few key points:

Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months! If Facebook were a country, it would be the world’s 4th largest.

80% of companies are using LinkedIn as their primary way to find employees.

Are you making it easy for people to find you? Watch this if you think social media is not important. It may just change your mind!

Thanks to my friend Andy Drish for sending a link to this video on Twitter!

Let me help you navigate the social networks to propel your job hunt!

Social media conference in Atlanta

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New Media Atlanta LogoAre you a job seeker or entrepreneur (or a “wanna be” small business owner) who needs to know how to incorporate social networking tools into your plans? Then, you won’t want to miss the New Media Atlanta conference, billed as ” a high level, business dialog about how social media is changing marketing and messaging – and in fact, changing the nature of all communications.”   You will learn strategies to leverage social networks “power to build your company, product, brand, service, etc.”

This conference, which will be held in Atlanta THIS FRIDAY – September 25th, is a great opportunity for both job seekers and entrepreneurs to hear from some of the leaders of the social media movement! Read on for details:

Chris Brogan will be a key presenter talking about his new book ‘Trust Agents‘ which he co-wrote with Julien Smith. Chris is President of New Marketing Labs, and home of the Inbound Marketing Summit conferences & Inbound Marketing Bootcamp events. He works with large and mid-sized companies to improve online business communications like marketing and PR through the use of social software, community platforms, and other emerging web and mobile technologies.

You’ll have an opportunity to ask your burning questions of the speaker panel and get real answers. Read more about the schedule here…

Don’t miss this great opportunity to learn from and network with the best social  networking minds in Atlanta and beyond! I hope to see you there!

I can help you with your social networking strategy! Learn more about me and my services.

Review – Twitter for Dummies

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twitter for dummies51GY-XBFhfL._SX106_Starting out with a handy, tear-outable list of Twitter Don’ts (Don’t follow 100s of people when you first sign up.), Twitter Do’s (Listen to what your Twitter friends are saying) and a great list of shorthand commands (stats – get your followers and following count)…and ending with a handy glossary of terms useful for Twitter users to understand, Twitter for Dummies, by Laura Fitton, Michael E. Gruen and Leslie Poston, is a book that is chock full of information for anyone who uses (or wants to use) this terrific social networking platform.

In the introduction, the authors point out an important aspect of using Twitter – Learning to communicate in 140 characters or less (as required in “tweets”) may very well help you communicate more effectively as your writing “becomes shorter and more to the point.” Personally, I have found this to be true, and a real benefit of being a power Twitter user. Let’s face it – less is more, and learning to get to the point quickly and succinctly has many benefits.

Laura, Michael and Leslie also remind readers that “Twitter is a living, breathing and constantly changing dynamic community.” Their book offers a snapshot of tools and tricks to use it well, but it is up to the user to take advantage of the ideas and to stay up-to-date going forward.

No useful Twitter manual is complete without a discussion of “finding your Tweet voice” and information about using Twitter for business. I love the author’s answer to the question, “What’s the business use of Twitter?” Laura replies, “What’s the business use of email?” (p. 177). I laughed out loud, because that is exactly what my friend Stephanie A. Lloyd and I reply to Twitter skeptics! (Another reply we offer – Do you make time to use the phone?)

The book is directed at first-time Twitter users. It offers step-by-step instructions that give you the tools to become a true Twitter expert. The user who has the patience for extremely in-depth information will find a plethora of information – enough to really become a power user. However, for the more casual tweep, the level of information may be a bit overwhelming. I would recommend focusing on one or two topics at a time, mastering them, and moving on.

Definitely get a copy of Twitter for Dummies if you are the type of person who likes to know everything about a topic and you have the bandwidth to get through a fairly intensive guide. You can be sure that you’ll be a real pro once you learn everything that Laura (@pistachio), Michael (@gruen) and Leslie (@geechee_girl) share. You can also follow @dummies for up-to-date information about the book.

Need some help getting your job search going? Find out how I can help you look for a job the right way, with optimized materials and a forward focus.

Review of The Twitter Book

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thetwitterbook4166iaPKDKL._SL500_AA240_You didn’t think you needed another social network to propel your job search? You’re on LinkedIn – isn’t that enough? If you are a regular reader, you know that I am a bit of a Twitter evangelist! I think that Twitter is a terrific resource for job seekers, entrepreneurs and all professionals for connecting and network expanding.

While I think of using Twitter as second nature, there are many “ins and outs,” and it really is not all that obvious to everyone. So, I was excited to receive The Twitter Book, by Tim O’Reilly and Sarah Milstein. As the authors note in Chapter 1, “Twitter lives a dual life. On one hand, it’s a simple service. Besides letting you share and read very short messages, it has few bells and whistles. On the other hand, it can be surprisingly hard to figure out. The screens aren’t particularly intuitive and the jargon and symbols are obscure.”

So, I read the book both as an expert user and as a coach looking for resources to help my clients become more frequent and successful Tweeps. I was not disappointed on either count!

For new users, the book offers a tutorial on how to get signed up and started and how to create a profile. I was surprised and delighted to find that Sarah and Tim actually quoted my Twitter profile as an example of a bio that tells a story (see page 23)!

The book covers all of the terminology that Twitter users need to know and provides pictures and examples throughout. Need to know how to find people? Done. How to tweeet from the road? Done. What’s a RT (retweet) and can you edit it if it is too long to send? (Yes, but consider using “via” if you change it substantially,” p. 115).

Power users – did YOU know that there is an opp called 140it that “uses common cutting conventions to whittle down” your posts if they are too long? (It doesn’t work for every post, but I had never heard about it, and I’ve been tweeting up a storm for a while now.)

Suffice to say that any detail you need to know is available in this handy, easy to use reference.

But, using Twitter successfully requires more than just a list of “how to,” practical concerns. There are many nuanced aspects, and Sarah and Tim don’t forget about them in this book. Included in the book: discussions about how many people to follow, how to have great conversations, how to @ reply so the user will know what you mean, how often to tweet and how to go beyond “what are you doing?” to be a contributing member of your Twitter community and more.

I’d recommend this book to anyone hesitant to try Twitter because it seems overwhelming and current “tweeps” who would like to pick up some tips from the pros. You can follow the authors at @timoreilly and @SarahM and you can follow the book’s hashtag (“demystified” on page 41) -  #twitterbook.

Need help getting started using Twitter for your job hunt? Your resume isn’t doing the job it needs to do? Click here for informtion about how I can help with your search.