Recruiters & Social Media – Love/Hate or Love/Love?

The most frequent comment I hear from recruiters when we talk about social media is that it takes too much time… they are super busy finding candidates and filling reqs and don’t have 2 -3 hours a day to spend on social channels, updating their statuses and sharing information. While I agree that it takes a bit of time up front, once you have all your social profiles completed you really only need to spend 30 minutes a day monitoring and updating them. 

I’m all about automation to save time.  My favorite tool right now is Buffer App.  This is a free tool that allows you to schedule up to 10 articles at specified times of your choice.  Use this scheduling tool with Feedly.com or whatever reader you use and set your updates to your social networks in advance.  By using a reader you can follow blogs and online papers like Mashable, TechCrunch, Fortune, VentureBeat, INC.com, Wired, Engadget or any of the many, many other great publications.  Then use RSS feeds to your reader or Outlook.  You can quickly scan and click on interesting articles and then use Buffer App to schedule sharing via Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. 

HootSuite or TweetDeck are great tools to manage social feeds and schedule postings.  I use HootSuite and have linked it with my Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn Feeds.  I have tabs for each stream and can schedule posts to all of these networks, multiple times.  It’s easy to post your current job openings directly from HootSuite.  You can also schedule them to recur every week and keep them at the top of your social profiles. 

Use your downtime and leverage mobility.  While you are waiting, pull out your mobile device and check your social feeds and retweet, share, like and repost articles that you find valuable.  I’ve spent many hours at the salon, doctor’s office, auto repair shop, coffee shop or restaurant catching up on my Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn feeds and sharing content from them. 

If you decide to automate (and I hope you do) remember that it is best to read the content that you want to share first and then share with your network.  If you allow the tool to pick the content, you might end up sharing content that is not relevant to you or your network.  People follow you for a reason and you should be sharing what you consider valuable information.  If it’s not valuable to you, it probably won’t be valuable to your followers.  

Will Work For Klout

This picture of me was snapped recently at a local mall and it’s for realz!  Can you believe it? Me, Leslie Mason, reduced to soliciting social media scores on the street corner. Am I the only person who measures their social success by their Klout score and what in the world is going on???

My Klout score is dropping and I am concerned... not panicked yet but on the verge.  After all I worked really hard to get it up to 63 at its peak and three weeks ago it dropped below 59.  

Thankfully it recovered but just today when I checked it was back at 59, causing a sinking feeling in my stomach as well as a bit of dizziness.  Monitoring my Klout score has been a roller coaster ride for me over the past few months and I can’t figure out what is driving this behavior.  

I have carefully maintained all my social networks, judiciously sharing content and engaging with others and trying to spread out my interaction over all the sites that Klout monitors; LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, YouTube, Blogger, Instagram, Foursquare and Wordpress. What am I doing wrong?  Recruiters rely on their social media brand.  It is an indicator of our success, right?  I need to figure out Klout’s secret sauce… is it weighted heavier for sharing original content?  Most of the Klout heavyweights are publications or blogs.  Maybe I’m on to something!   

My company, Intuit, uses a methodology we call Lean StartIN which is a process of rapid experimentation.  We are applying it across the enterprise, including Talent Acquisition.  For my purposes, I want to test the impact of one blog posting on my Klout score over a period of time to see if this will move the needle… hopefully increasing my score.  I will monitor results and report back to you.  

If the experiment is a success my Klout score will hit 65 (an all time high) and if it reaches 70 I will share a video of me dancing a jig like Michael Flatly, the Lord of the Dance (I am Irish after all).  Or better yet... I'll do the Harlem Shake or celebrate GANGNAM STYLE… in fact I’ll post a poll and let YOU vote to decide which artistic celebration of dance you prefer.  This would actually count as another Lean StartIN experiment… look out, I’m on a roll!

For this experiment I will need your help, Dear Reader.  My ask of you is to please tweet, retweet, share, post, comment, like, +1 and utilize any other method of social sharing of my article to spread the word.  I’m also calling in the Big Guns… feeling a comeback!

Friends and Coworkers:

You know who you are, but like the academy awards I only have limited space to call out names. Forgive me for those that have been omitted.  

@StacyZapar friend and social rockstar… I’m happy to ride on your Klout coat tails anytime. ;)

@ghouston @aaroneden @LeanStartIN @JorgenSundberg @StephenMonaco @adriandparker @BillVick @ray_anne @smheadhunter @nmailey @crizzcoxx @scottaxel @fishdogs @philohme  @Mike_Anas @SherYoung @LindaBurkard @PHXRecruit @keli_intuit @KMGoodall @mint @Intuit @QuickBooks @turbotax @IntuitInc @IntuitPayroll @IntuitAccts @GoPayment @IntuitCareers 

Please… hook a sister up!!!

Shameless Self Promotion (really cry for help):

@Mashable @TechCrunch @twitter @LinkedIn @YouTube @Facebook @hootsuite @Google @instagram @Forbes @HuffingtonPost @GuyKawasaki @scobleizer @dannysullivan and all you other Captains of Klout out there… you have my permission to share and repost my content. 

And last but certainly not least:

@StephenAtHome Award winning twitter celebrity superstar that you are… I’d be thrilled just to see @leslie12002 show up in your timeline

Hmmm… wonder if @Klout would use this article in their blog?  Stay tuned for part deux… hope to see you on my timeline!

Leslie Mason @leslie12002

Find Me on:  

Defining Your Online Brand

Everyone knows what a brand is… most people associate it with a product or a company like Cheetos® or Nike®.  We have been talking about Corporate Brand in the recruiting industry for quite awhile and now Personal Brand has become just as popular.  You hear it on everything from the Wall Street Journal to America’s Next Top Model.  What exactly does Personal Brand mean and do you really need one? 

I teach a workshop on personal branding so I read a lot of articles on this subject.  Today I read an article by Jasmine Sandler about How to Create a Visible and Engaging LinkedIn Profile that also explains personal branding extremely well.  I would like to take it outside of LinkedIn and apply it to your career goals and personal life. 

What is it?  Your Personal Brand is basically what people think about you.  How they see you at work, in real life and more and more importantly these days, online.  Going one step further, what they will say about you to their friends, associates and colleagues. 

Why do you need one?  Even if you don’t think you need one, you have one. It might not be what you would expect.  People are forming opinions about you based on their interactions with you, word of mouth (what they see and hear about you) and how you present yourself.  You need to take control of how people view you and show yourself in the best light.  Good lighting is crucial for a great picture and you are creating a picture of yourself for the world to see.  If you are a job-seeker you need a strong, positive personal brand to attract prospective employers, present who you are and get interviews.  As an employee you need a good brand at work to make the best possible impression, define how you can contribute to the organization and advance your career. 

How do you do it right?  You should start by knowing yourself, your capabilities, and the direction you want to go and then start building your brand.  A key place to start is building a powerful online brand.  This will be the cornerstone of your personal brand.  The article I reference earlier is a great example of building out your LinkedIn profile which is the most important professional social network at this time.  You should also create profiles on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and maybe even Pinterest to share your perspective and establish credibility.  Show your personality and let people see your thinking, world view and sense of humor.  (Remember to constantly manage and adjust privacy settings to only show professional pictures and interactions.)

Start Building Credibility… when you develop your online profile, make sure people can find you when searching by using key words that are the most relevant and make sure your profile reflects those key words.  Be sure and publish your recommendations and accomplishments. Highlight your successes… share the conferences you are attending, articles you have published and accolades received.  Stay informed… subscribe to publications like Forbes, Bloomberg, Tech Crunch and follow your favorite companies and people. Join groups related to your industry and comment on the articles that interest you or that especially touched or informed you.  Engage in conversations, share your expertise!  Be consistent, select a unified theme for all social media so people will easily recognize you everywhere. 

Become a Subject Matter Expert… decide what you want to be known for and make sure people know you for that.  Share your opinions, educate and inform others.  You can start by creating a blog.  It doesn't have to be super high tech, many sites like Blogger are very easy to use and set up.  Create engaging content about whatever you are passionate about and share your passion with the world.  Finally network and make connections… you never know where that next speaking engagement invitation or job offer will come from. 

Remember the three fundamentals… Be Seen, Be Heard and Be Respected. See you online!

LinkedIn Improved Email Settings Features

Someone at LinkedIn must have read my previous post... have you seen the new features under your settings page?  (I don’t remember it being this way before, but then again, my memory isn’t exactly the steel trap it was in my youth.)  They have made it much easier and more organic to manage all your email settings now by adding the new email preferences link that allows you to control how all email is sent to you.  Click on the settings tab (hover over your name) in the top right corner and land on this page:

Now if you click on the Email Preferences Tab you can manage messaging to you via email:


   
• Select the types of messages you're willing to receive
• Set the frequency of emails
• Select who can send you invitations
• Set the frequency of group digest emails


 
 
 
And you can manage how LinkedIn pushes information to you via email by clicking on the Frequency of Emails link. All this in one place!
 



• InMails
• Invitations
• Messages
• Group emails
• Announcements
• Status updates
• Notifications
• Network Activity
• And several others including LinkedIn Partner Emails


 
 
 
Thank you LinkedIn! 

Too Much Information? Easy Steps to Manage your LinkedIn Status Updates & LI Twitter Stream

Recently I received an email from one of my LinkedIn connections requesting that I “remove him from my list”. This person is a connection that I know personally and I was surprised at the email since I don’t have a list and wasn’t sure what he meant. Turns out he was referring to the frequency of my LinkedIn status updates… seems he had all his connections status updates set to come to his inbox and my daily updates were becoming “too much noise”.

For a recruiter, this can be a fine (on) line to walk… how many updates are necessary and how many are too much? My solution was to twofold… to show my connection how to manage his LinkedIn Status Updates and for me to manage my LinkedIn tweets and only post the tweets especially relevant to my network and my role as a recruiter. Seems I have gotten a bit overenthusiastic on twitter lately. 

My part was accomplished by going to my LinkedIn settings under “manage twitter preferences” and checking the box to only post my tweets with #in instead of every tweet that was going out.

For all of you out there who are having this problem, here are the steps to manage your LinkedIn Status Updates so that you won’t be affected by all the online noise.  This is how you can turn off status updates on your LinkedIn Profile and you won’t receive any of them at all in your stream:


1. Go to your LinkedIn profile and click on your name in the top right corner

2. Click on SETTINGS

3. Click on the ACCOUNT tab on the left bottom of the page

4. Under settings – click on “customize updates you see on your home page”

5. Under the General tab uncheck the “status updates from your connections”

Hope this helps… we are all out here in the sphere together… let’s all try and get along.

Networking to Find a Job… Are You Using LinkedIn?

There is just no getting around it… LinkedIn has become the major player in networking. Whether you are looking for sales contacts, employees, or just company information; this should be your first stop on the research train. If you are unemployed, underemployed or just looking for that dream job… this tool could just be your ticket.

Recruiters have been using LinkedIn for years to source passive candidates. Why don’t you join the party and use LinkedIn to network for a job? Intuit is proud to have the most connected woman on LinkedIn as a part of our Right Talent team. Stacy Zapar has over 30,000 first degree LinkedIn connections and she will be on the Intuit Careers Live Video Career Advice Series Facebook Chat on Thursday, February 17th at 11:00 am PST.

No matter if you are a seasoned LinkedIn Uber user or a relative Newbie to the tool, you will find something to take away from this chat. Please join Stacy Zapar tomorrow as she discusses how to use LinkedIn in your job search.
Participating is simple. Log on to www.facebook.com/intuitcareers and click on the chat and blogs tab on the left hand side of our page up to 10 minutes prior to the chat beginning. You do not need a webcam to participate. After Stacy’s presentation you will be able to text chat in your questions for Stacy to answer live.

And while you're at it... if we are not already connected on LinkedIn… here is a QuickLink invitation to join my network: http://bit.ly/feKQg0. Hope to connect with you soon and Happy Networking!

Technical Difficulties

In our world of high tech: blogs, video chats, LinkedIn, Facebook, twitter, etc. What are we supposed to do when our technology lets us down? Soldier on? Not likely... I’m more the freak out and run around with my hair on fire type. Hup two three four... get out of that fetal position and make the best of it! Ummm Hummm.... I know, right?

Sooner or later it happens to us all... the best we can do is... keep on keepin on, make the best of a bad situation, gittin jiggie with it... OMG! How many more Soul Train references can I come up with?

In case you haven't guessed, I was the victim of technical difficulties this afternoon. We were presenting a video chat at work today on our Facebook page and right after we started our computer crashed. Being totally prepared, we quickly switched to our back up computer, and realized the video camera wasn't working. We diligently pressed on and continued with the presentation. Just a few minutes later the network at work went down... arrrgggghhhhh!!!!

Somehow we managed to keep the voice up and running along with the PowerPoint and we were able to finish the chat and limp away licking our wounds. The moral of the story... you can never be over-prepared (and next time we will run the chat with multiple admins stashed away at hidden locations) I'm not saying it's a cave in Afghanistan but... this next time the SAT phone stays on! Stay tuned... more to follow... same bat time, same bat channel.

3 Minute Overview on Using LinkedIn

I noticed this simple video on using LinkedIn while scrolling throuth my blog reading. Maybe it will help you get started.