EyeSee

I was asked to talk about LinkedIn to a group of job seekers today.  Since I only had a couple of hours to present I had a huge challenge on my hands. LinkedIn has evolved to be a very powerful social network for professionals. It is feature rich and is evolving daily. Most people don’t use it to it’s full capacity Free or paid.

The other challenge is the fundamental philosophy of sharing from the younger age demographic to the “privacy” issue of the older age demographic.

So when I actually thought about it I realized that “you are nobody if you can’t be Googled”!!!

Personal branding is becoming more important daily and there are many ways to achieve this given the tools that are available today.

So here’s my perspective from a LinkedIn perspective.

We had a great discussion and there were a lot of relevant and great questions that were asked. There was a common theme amongst the audience of sitting in front of a computer and applying for jobs!! I was quite taken aback by this as I thought that everyone knew about the hidden job market!!

I asked if anyone had tracked the time they spent looking for jobs online and the ROI of this and it seems that no one is measuring their success. I bet you if this were to be done it would be very apparent quickly that the ROI of this activity is not very high.

So if anyone out there looking for a job wants to try this experiment I would love to hear the results.

Traditional forms of job hunting, resume writing, job postings

vs

Branding online using LinkedIn, informational interviews through reverse company checks on LinkedIn, engaging in the community.

Is anyone up for the challenge?

What are your thoughts on this? Do you have a LinkedIn success story that you would like to share with us?

Summer is here, although it’s hard to believe due to all the rainy cold days we have been having lately. It’s also the time when most people take their vacations and the office is generally quite and things slow down a little.

So if you are looking for some excitement how about some personal development on the social media front. We have just launched our Social Media Summer Series.

Three great topics to inspire and enlighten you to embark on a social media adventure.

Twitter demystified – July 14th 9:30am-noon

There has been a lot of hype around Twitter lately and most people sign up and don’t know what to do after that. They quickly loose interest. Twitter is a microblog and if used effectively can be very effective communication tool.

Flickr & YouTube – a key to the success of a Social Media Campaign – July 21st 9:30am-noon

Flickr is a photo sharing site and what has this got to do with anything? Images are interesting and entertaining so what better way to get your message across using an image.

YouTube is a video sharing site and too can be used very effectively from a business perspective. There are many ways and it’s not just about amateur videos but professional ones as well.

Blog and website design using Wordpress – Aug. 18th 9:30am-noon

Blogs are getting increasingly popular today. Wordpress is a free open source content management tool that can be used both as a Blog and to design a website as well.

So why is social media becoming so popular these days? People do spend a fair bit of their time online whether it’s for work, their own personal use or entertainment. As a business it’s very important to have a presence in these places or be part of these communities and connect with them in a meaningful way.

It’s not about spamming them or telling them about your product or service. It’s about establishing a connection with them.

These seminars have been designed to show you the how to as well as the different ways these tools can be used.

Registration

Twitter demystified – July 14th 9:30am-noon

Flickr & YouTube – a key to the success of a Social Media Campaign – July 21st 9:30am-noon

Blog and website design using Wordpress – Aug. 18th 9:30am-noon

So take advantage of this great learning opportunity and sign up for these sessions. See you there.

I am currently demonstrating the mechanics of Blogging during the New Media Fundamentals for Business Seminar.

This seminar goes through all the fundamentals of the New Media tools needed to successfully run and market a business.

Here’s some feedback from the participants.

UPDATE

When I had initially put together this seminar I knew it was going to be really intense. The idea behind it was to give the participants a flavour of all the commonly used

• terms
• Social Media and other New Media tools in use currently
• examples of how businesses branded themselves and used these technologies

I did add a quiz at the end and was not sure how that would go. I was pleasantly surprised that everyone got into it and got the right answers.

I am going to followup and do more in depth seminars on each of the tools.