Is your number one question about social media, “Where can I find great social media content to share?”  If youâ€re excited about filling your social media streams with useful news and information, but youâ€re not sure how to go about finding the information your audience would want to know, leverage these tools and youâ€ll be off to a great start.

LinkedInâ€s Pulse. Find it under the “Interests” tab on your LinkedIn toolbar. It’s a consistent stream of content from famous influencers as well as contributors just like you about all types of topics, and you’re sure to find something here to interest your audience.

Alltop.com. This is an online, virtual “magazine rack” of blogs. There’s an eclectic array of topics and content. Search your favorite key words, and you will identify several new sources of information.

SmartBrief.com. This is of my favorite resources. SmartBrief editors read and parse through important information published about many topics. Then, they send out summaries with links directly to your email! There’s no easier way to find great resources for your audience. Plus, it’s free!

These resources are great tools to start your list of content sources. You’ll also want to tap into all of the traditional media outlets you follow and be sure to watch your social media streams, too. People you follow probably share useful information.

Make the most of social networking tools and youâ€ll access exponential numbers of new contacts who can make a big difference in your careerâ€s trajectory.

Get my free white paper: 5 Mistakes Preventing You From Landing a Job This Week 

Read the entire post on Vault.com.

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Jobvite’s Social Recruiting Survey from 2013 contradicts that assumption. Jobvite found approximately 40 percent of the job seekers and 55 percent of the recruiters polled are active on Twitter, which is reason enough to consider the site viable to exploit for job opportunities. Additionally, a January study from the talent acquisition software company iCIMS found 51 percent of jobs posted to social media can be found on Twitter. These data points, combined with Twitter’s fluid, transparent and approachable nature, make it a unique social site and fertile ground for job seekers.

Iotronics Corporation helps job seekers use online services to leverage social media, and its product, Twesumes, help job seekers optimize their profiles to be discovered. Klaus Obermeier, the company’s CEO, offers the following tips for using Twitter for your job search.

What to tweet. All of us have something to contribute and Twitter makes it easy to share, interact and build your own brand at the same time. Decide on your tweet themes before you get started. Be sure to use hashtags to label your tweets and make them easier for like-minded people to find. For example, if you are a professional looking for a job in technology with a sustainability and green focus, you could share information and news from all three topics in your Twitter stream and use hashtags such as #greentech and #jobs, to help make your tweets searchable and to find job postings and related content on the subject. Troll streams of recruiters or others in your field to choose the best hashtags, or check out a tool such as hashtagdictionary.com.

Find great people to follow. Twitter is full of great content, experts, forums and resources. There are also thought leaders, brands and organizations to follow that could be helpful for job seekers. Once you find people tweeting about content that interests you, itâ€s much easier to see its professional value. Search for recruiters, people who work in organizations that interest you and the Twitter streams from companies themselves. Youâ€ll also want to identify thought leaders in your industry; industry news sources and individuals who can help with your job search, including career coaches. Use Followerwonk.com to search Twitter bios and identify if people list their employers. Check out Wefollow.com, which allows you to search for keywords to find interesting people to follow.

Engage with people. Share and attribute articles, news and updates consistent with your brand. Encourage follow backs by engaging in the conversation and giving a “hat tip” to others by retweeting (or forwarding along) their content.

Use a Twesume. If youâ€re in active, public job search, integrating a Twesume as part of your overall Twitter strategy gives you a streamlined way to communicate your top selling points, but only if you already have established yourself on Twitter. “A twesume is a tweet with intent – it allows you to communicate your key attributes, skills and background – all in 140 characters or less,” Obermeier says. “Key components of a twesume include job industry, title you are targeting, geographic target, relevant certifications, technical skills, soft skills and degrees. Because the twesume is only 140 characters, it also should include a hyperlink back to informative and supportive contents such as a social profile.” You can use your LinkedIn URL or other online social résumé or portfolio to provide more information. Obermeier reminds users, “Itâ€s key to use hashtags to make the tweet more searchable. Popular hashtags to consider include: #Hireme, #Jobs and #Twesume.”

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Maybe you’ve heard that “Google is the new resume” and that your online presence is the most important thing hiring managers will consider when you apply for jobs. In reality, most companies are not abandoning the resume, and hiring is still done using traditional methods in most companies. However, social media should still be a key component of your job search. Why? What many people forget is that the most time honored way to get a job is via networking, and social media is just the latest and greatest way to tap and grow your network. Twitter is one of the best online tools to help you network well online.

When used well, Twitter can be a real door opener for job seekers who are wiling to try a new strategy to reach out and connect with people who may be able to refer them for jobs. If you’re not convinced Twitter can help you, consider this: CareerXroads, a consulting practice, conducts annual studies about how organizations source and hire employees. Their most recent study showed that nearly half of all companies make at least one hire for every five referrals they get.

Even if you’re not good at math, it’s clear that you’ll have a better chance to land an interview (and a job) if you can increase the number of contacts who know, like and trust you. Luckily, Twitter is a terrific way to improve your chances in all of those areas.

How can Twitter help you compete in today’s job market?

What Can Twitter Do For You?

Provide a mechanism to help you demonstrate your expertise.

Job seekers don’t always spend time thinking about how to showcase their expertise, but it’s an important strategy everyone should keep in mind. If you’re an expert in your field, but you don’t make an effort to let people know, it’s difficult to attract opportunities, and unlikely anyone will approach you with an opportunity for a job. When you use Twitter to share information and news about your industry, you make it clear that you have your finger on the pulse of what’s going on in your field, even if you’re not currently employed.

In addition to highlighting what you know by posting status updates to appeal to people in your field, Twitter gives you a chance to demonstrate skills employers like to see. For example, if you say you’re a great, efficient and effective communicator on your resume, you can prove it by having a useful and well-written stream of information on Twitter. If you’re touting your skills as a great team builder, you can show how you built a community on Twitter as proof.

Allow you to meet and connect with people beyond your normal circle of friends and colleagues.

There’s a logical limit to how many people you can meet, even if you go to every networking event in your area. When statistics show how important referrals are for job seekers, it becomes a numbers game in addition to a skills issue: how many people know about you, and how many of them would be willing to pass along your name for an opportunity or introduce you to a key contact?

You may be surprised by how generous people on Twitter can be. Even if they have not met you in person, many people who connect with you online and see a useful and intelligent stream of information via your Twitter handle may be willing to connect you with someone who could change your job search trajectory dramatically! Don’t think of Twitter as frivolous; it can help provide some important contacts and potential access to people you’d never otherwise easily access, including CEOs, hiring managers and colleagues at target companies.

Teach you new information.

It’s important to keep abreast of what’s new in your field, but there’s so much to do everyday, it’s easy to get out of the loop. Once you follow a well-connected, informed group on Twitter, you’ll never need much more than to sign into your Twitter account to learn what’s new and what’s hot in your industry. Ideally, you’ll become one of those go-to people to follow, but on your way there, you’ll learn a lot about what’s going on in your field by following other people who care about the same topics as you and tweet about them.

Help people find you

When you take the time to demonstrate your expertise and expand your network, the next logical step is that you’ll make it easier to find you. One of the best things about social media is the opportunity to reverse the job search process: instead of always applying for jobs (pushing your resume and application into a position), social media allows you to be out in the media sphere so hiring managers have a chance to find you. Wouldn’t it be great to be recruited to your next job, without even needing to apply? That’s more of an option when you hop on Twitter and other social media sites to showcase what you know and engage with potential colleagues.

Don’t discount the social media tool with the bird logo — you could be 140 characters away from connecting with someone with the power to change your career!

photo by eldh

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When someone Googles your name, what does he find? When you have your own website — a social resume — you can help control your online identity.

It is TIME, if…

• You are a job seeker, independent contractor or small business owner.
• You just want some job search insurance.
• You want the right people to find you and to hire you!

An online presence — a social resume — can help you achieve your goals!

My social resume package can help you:

• Get discovered by people who need you. Attract interest in you and what you offer.
• Remain high on your industry’s radar, even if you’re not looking for a job.
• Make it easier for people to find you through Google and other search engines. Control what people find when they Google you.
• Expand your network of potential customers, employers, mentors and colleagues. The more people who know about you, the more likely you are to be referred for opportunities.
• Sharpen, communicate and reinforce your most important messages.
• Raise your profile and improve your value as a subject matter expert. Use your online presence to convince people you can do what you want to do next — even if you are missing some qualifications.

Best of all, you can achieve these results around the clock – whether you’re actively working at it or not. As soon as you’re ready, so am I. Contact me for a price quote.

LEARN MORE…

photo by ♀Μøỳαл_Bгεлл♂

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This month, the Career Collective (a community I co-coordinate with my colleague Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter) addresses the question of how to use social media in a job search. (Please click through to the links I’ll add soon at the bottom of this post to the other responses to this question.)

There are so many great ways to use social media in your search, most of which I address in my book, Social Networking for Career Success.

There’s no doubt social media tools offer an underutilized opportunity to:

• Help you connect with new people and keep track of contacts.
• Easily learn new things.
• Share your expertise and expand your brand.

LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook all provide easy-to-use, free tools to get-in-touch (and keep-in-touch) with people who may be interested in learning more about you and what you have to offer. However, I think the best, and most important tool the majority of job seekers do not have is a personal website, or social resume.

Why have your own website?

• Hiring managers will Google you. What will she find?
• A personal site is a way to control how your name appears online.
• Statistics show your online presence matters, and that employers are looking for personal and professional data about you.
• NOT putting up your own site only gives people an incentive to look deeper in the web for information about you. Take a look at these sites to learn what the “deep web” knows about you: pipl.com, Polymeta.com.
• Managing a site is important for career insurance and professional development. Showcasing your expertise online (even if it is in a new field) helps demonstrate what you have to offer, even when you aren’t looking for a job. An online presence can grow and change along with your career and help attract people to learn more about you. This could result in opportunities to speak at conferences or events, or even invitations to apply for jobs down the road.
• Having a website suggests you have some technical savvy and understand how to use online tools to communicate. That, in and of itself, is an important skill many employers value. It’s known as “social proof.” You may say you know about technology on your resume, but actually using it to showcase your own information goes a long way to prove you have what employers want.

Especially if you are transitioning to a new job or an experienced job seeker who needs to overcome age discrimination, having an up-to-date online presence and maybe even a viable blog helps show prospective employers you’re willing to learn and are perfectly capable of keeping up with technology.

In my book, I suggest starting out using WordPress.com to try out an online presence. It’s a great resource, and it’s free. However, there are limitations to free tools — not the least of which is you don’t really “own” that online real estate. With some know-how, or an investment in someone who does know how, you can have your own site. If you’re lucky, you can even have “YourName.com,” which will help you rank high for your name in search and help direct people to find the information you want them to find about you.

I hope you’ll visit my site, GetASocialResume.com, to learn more about what you’ll want to include in your social resume. If you don’t want to figure out how to do this yourself, I can help. With a relatively small investment, I can offer you an online presence you’ll be proud to use as a hub for your social media activity, and help you create a site to tell a compelling story describing your background and experiences.

The following are posts from other Career Collective members answering this question

Make Your Career More Social: Show Up and Engage, @WalterAkana

You 2.0: The Brave New World of Social Media and Online Job Searches, @dawnrasmussen

How to Get a New Job Using Social Media, @DebraWheatman

Social Media: Choosing, Using, and Confusing, @ErinKennedyCPRW

How to Use Social Media in Your Job Search, @heatherhuhman

Updating: A Social Media Strategy For Job Search, @TimsStrategy

Your Career Needs Social Media – Get Started, @EliteResumes @MartinBuckland

We Get By With a Little Recs from Our Friends, @chandlee

Expat Careers & Social Media: Social Media is Potentially 6 Times more Influential than a CV or Resume, @expatcoachmegan

Social-Media Tools and Resources to Maximize Your Personalized Job Search, @KatCareerGal

Job Search and Social Media: A Collective Approach, @careersherpa

Social Media: So what’s the point?, @DawnBugni

Tools that change your world, @WorkWithIllness

HOW TO: Meet People IRL via LinkedIn, @AvidCareerist

Effective Web 2.0 Job Search: Top 5 Secrets, @resumeservice

Jumping Into the Social Media Sea @ValueIntoWords

Sink or Swim in Social Media, @KCCareerCoach

Social Media Primer for Job Seekers, @LaurieBerenson

The post How having your own website helps you appeared first on Keppie Careers.

I live tweeted the panel Laurie moderated with Ana Roca-Castro, social media consultant and founder of Premier Social Media; Carmen Hudson, recruiter and founder of tweetajob; and Microsoft Recruiter Heather McGough.

That is Anna, Carmen and Heather in the photo (left to right). (Laurie had to leave before I had a chance to take this picture.)

These are my tweets from their talk. Lots of great advice there for job seekers! Be sure to follow everyone to keep up with their updates going forward!

The post How to get hired – networking via social media appeared first on Keppie Careers.