Promote Yourself (13 page)

And finally, before we move on to Google
+
, I encourage you to—at the very least—claim your Facebook user name (e.g.,
facebook.com/danschawbel
) even if you aren't ready to commit to managing your profile at this time. You can check availability at
http://facebook.com/usernames
. This prevents someone else from claiming it in your stead, makes it easier for someone to find you, and looks more professional when you advertise your profile on other Web sites

 

Do You Know How Many Coworkers Are Following You on Facebook?

Social media has kind of made the world into a small town, where everyone knows what everyone else is doing—even if it's private. So whatever you do, always keep in mind that someone else could see you, and, just as in a small town, that rumors spread incredibly quickly—and are impossible to control.

So before you scream at a waitress for messing up your order or you go out and get plastered with your friends, think about whether you really want pictures of that evening making the rounds on Facebook. And imagine what the president of your company would do if she happened to be sitting at the next table. There's no way that that couldn't affect their impression of you. No, of course it's not fair, and yes, you do have a right to a private life. But the reality is that we're in a 24/7/365 world and everything gets factored in. When was the last time you met a new person on Facebook and saw that you didn't have any mutual friends? It's been a loooong time for me.

I can't even keep track of all the horror stories I've heard—either from amazed managers who've fired someone for doing something stupid outside the workplace or from embarrassed young people who got caught and suffered the consequences. There was the guy who called in sick on October 31, then went to a wild Halloween party dressed as a fairy and decided to post pictures on Facebook. Guess who saw them? And there was the young woman who posted on her Facebook page that she hated the company she worked for and despised her boss. It wasn't until she saw her boss's comment on her status: “You're fired,” that she realized she'd forgotten she'd friended him. Oops.

Of course, the small-town nature of social media has its advantages. If you're involved in charity or volunteer work, you've written a brilliant article on some topic, you have a lead role in a community theater production, or you do anything else that's cool, it's easy to let people know about it.

M
y company analyzed four million Facebook profiles and over fifty million data points from
Identified.com
, and we found that the average young worker is connected to sixteen coworkers on Facebook and has nearly 700 friends. Yet only 36 percent list a job entry, meaning that most of them are using Facebook for personal postings but sharing that information at work. Hmmm. Probably time for a little work life/private life separation!

We also found that the average young worker leaves his or her first job in just over two years. This means that your friends could become your coworkers at some point in your life. That's exactly what happened to Alex Leo, who's just starting her career as the Director of Web Product at Thompson Reuters Digital. “I knew several of the people I'd end up working with at Reuters beforehand because of social media. A few of them have a fabulous presence online and we communicated a lot, especially on Twitter. This made coming on board at the company exceptionally easy because I already had people I knew and liked there.”

GOOGLE+
.   Google's social media platform, Google
+
, makes it easy to keep work and play separate. It prompts you to create Circles—groups of contacts—and then lets you control which Circles see which content. Create one for family, one for hiking buddies, one for professional contacts, and so on, then design your content accordingly. Sign on at
https://plus.google.com
. Now that Google
+
is fully integrated into Google's search engine and algorithm, it's important that you start using it if you want to become more visible. Here are some tips and things to keep in mind as you use Google
+
:

 

• The more followers you have (people having you in their Circles), the higher your status updates will rank when someone googles a topic you know about. And when people search for you on Google, your Google
+
profile will rank high and may even come up when people start typing in your name if they're already connected with you.

 

• As with Facebook and Twitter, you can reshare other people's Google
+
updates. You can also network with people in your industry by using the “
+
Name” tag, which will immediately notify that person that you've tagged them.

 

• Unlike Facebook, though, you can use the Google Hangout feature to set up a video conference with people in your network and get to know them better. This is especially useful if your contacts are in a different location, whether that's on the other side of town or the other side of the world.

 

• As with the other social media platforms, use Google
+
with caution. The pitfalls of carelessly blurring the line between public and private are even more serious with Google
+
than the others. Because it's part of Google, anything you post as Public will end up in Google searches where anyone can find it.

 

 

Have You Got Klout?

Your Klout score (
klout.com
) is a measure of your online influence: how many people follow you online and how many share your content. Your Identified score (
identified.com
) measures how attractive you are to employers based on your education, experience, and network. Employers are starting to use these scores, in addition to performance reviews, when deciding whom to hire and promote. The best way to improve your scores is to consistently create good content that other people want to share and respond to.

LINKEDIN.
   LinkedIn is
the
source for professional networking. It's not just a matter of whom
you
know anymore; it's whom
they
know and whom
they
know. LinkedIn is your tool for reaching all those contacts. Once you've posted your profile you'll be invited to “connect” with people you know and from there you'll have access to those people's connections as well. You'll be able to search for individuals you'd like to meet and see whether you share a common contact who might be able to make an introduction. At the same time, because LinkedIn is probably the most popular business social network, other professionals will be able to find and connect with you.

Just as you did on Facebook, claim your LinkedIn username (
linkedin.com/in/danschawbel
). Go to Edit Profile, scroll down to Public Profile, and click Edit. On the right side of the page you'll be able to Customize Your Public Profile URL. Use your domain name if at all possible. While you're there, copy and paste the fields from your résumé and make sure your Public Profile features you correctly. Your Public Profile is a short version of your profile that people see if they are not “connected” to you. It doesn't show your connections, nor does it permit people to contact you other than through LinkedIn's InMail system, a paid account feature. Here are some tips and things to keep in mind as you use LinkedIn:

 

• Think of your LinkedIn profile as a living, breathing résumé, something that will keep you relevant as long as you keep it current. Won an award or earned a promotion? Post it! Wrote an insightful article on a business-related topic or read a great article by someone else? Post it too! The more you contribute, the more people will get to know you.

 

• Use LinkedIn as a professional directory to find out more information about the people you work with, people you meet at events, and leaders in your industry. It will help you have more talking points with them and you'll look like you care and/or are interested in them.

 

• Review the LinkedIn Today newsroom by going to
linkedin.com/today
. I find it to be the best and most underutilized page on LinkedIn because it crowdsources all the most important topics that you care about and gives you access to the most shared on LinkedIn.

 

• Join as many LinkedIn groups that are related to your field or industry as possible. There is a fifty-group limit, but the more you join, the more profiles you'll potentially have access to and the more people you can connect with. When you join the group, be sure to participate in the group's discussions. Answer questions, share you knowledge, and increase your visibility. You never know who else is in a group and might be wowed by your expertise.

 

• One thing a lot of people overlook is getting recommendations and endorsements from previous bosses and other people you've worked with in some capacity. These help establish you as a high-performing, high-value employee. And that's important whether you're planning on staying in your current job or making a change. These recommendations are generally a paragraph or two long. LinkedIn also has a feature that allows members to endorse others for specific skills. It's kind of like the Facebook “Like” button. No lengthy explanations, just a simple click. These quick endorsements are very effective in building personal brands, because the more you have, the more visible you'll be when people search for professionals with your skills. The number of endorsements you have for each skill is an indicator of you're perceived talents. If one isn't showing up much, do a better job at displaying them at work and online. You can also click on a skill to see how in demand it is. If your skills aren't in demand, start focusing on others.

TWITTER
   is a microblogging platform that allows you to send messages—called tweets—that are 140 or fewer characters. It's yet another way of connecting with people. And because
everyone
is on Twitter, it's also an excellent way to keep up to date on what industry influencers and thought leaders are up to. If you don't already have a Twitter account, you can set one up at
twitter.com
in about five minutes. Once you're up and running, you can search for other users by topic or company name and start following them, meaning you'll receive their tweets, which might be stand-alone messages or could contain links to other blog posts and other content. Twitter will also help you connect with others in your industry. By tweeting out useful information, resources, facts, quotes, and links to your blog, you will attract followers who will start to see you as a resource. Limit your tweets to your area of expertise so you become known as an expert in that area. People who tweet indiscriminately tend to be ignored. As with the other social media platforms, use your full name and a professional picture so people know they're connecting with you and not someone else. Here are some tips and things to keep in mind as you use Twitter:

 

• Create a custom Twitter background that has more information about who you are and what you do. You can also include a larger picture of yourself and possibly your company's logo, if you get permission and they consent to you owning the profile.

 

• Use
Twellow.com
to search for specific people in your industry to follow. Try and avoid everyone else because it will get way too cluttered if you're following hundreds or thousands of people. Focus your energy on the few people that you're most interested in. You can also use tools such as
TweetBeep.com
and
HootSuite.com
to manage all your social networks in one console. You can use them to track conversations that mention you, your industry, or anything else you specify, as well as to manage status updates on multiple social networks simultaneously.

 

• Interact with your followers and the people you follow whenever possible, instead of pushing random pieces of content with no context.

 

• Search Twitter to find—and participate in—interesting discussions. You do this by using a hashtag (the # character) followed by the topic you're looking for. Searching for #millennials, for example, will bring up all sorts of conversations. Read the discussion threads and jump in. If you're searching for something that's currently in the news, you can actually follow the discussion in real time. It's a very cool feature.

If you feel you can stay on top of them, you may also want to create profiles on other social networks.
ZoomInfo.com
is a simple professional database; YouTube is the top video-sharing site in the world. Use it to post professional videos and even a video résumé;
Quora.com
is a social network that connects you with people with similar interests and industry-specific networks; Instagram allows you to share and edit photos instantly on your phone and share them with family and friends on other social networks; Pinterest is essentially a giant bulletin board where you can “pin” different images, video, and other content on your own pinboard and on those of people who follow you; Foursquare allows you to use your smartphone to see whether there's anyone you know wherever you are.

But remember: You're creating a
professional
profile, one designed to help you advance your career. That means thinking carefully about what you post.

•
Do
post:

• your skills

• your relevant work experience

• your major accomplishments

• links to your professional Web site, blog, and videos

• links to any content you've uploaded (articles, commentaries, blog posts, etc.)

• testimonials, recommendations, and references (if approved by the writers)

•
Do not
post: