A Readers Digest guide to Social Media!

First thing is first, What are you trying to accomplish? Who are you trying get noticed by?

Once you have determined that, figure out what message you should send to accomplish this and what your personnel brand should be.

The definition of a brand is: recognizable type of something: a distinctive type of something.

This means, you need to decides what is your brand. Are you a PM, are you a developer. What are you? what is your brand?

If you are a recruiter you will want to brand yourself as such. Utilize your brand to find candidates, promote your openings and company, connect with other recruiters to exchange ideas and knowledge.

If you are a candidate, you will use it to brand yourself as a great candidate, connect with recruiters and hiring managers, learn more about companies and search for jobs.

For the purposes of this subject we will focus on the avenues below:

LinkedIn:

1. Be sure to complete your profile 100%.

2. Groups, join them. Lots of them , but be sure they are groups that fall in line with your brand and or company.

3. Connect your blog(if you have one) to your LinkedIn profile.

4. Make connections, but again be sure they fall in line with your brand.

5. Get recommendations, lots of recommendations. Companies and people will read these. These are public references that can help you do allot.

6. Use it to post jobs, connect with candidates, all of these activities further your brand, whether a recruiter or candidate.

7. Do research on competitors.

8. Make sure your company has a LinkedIn profile

Twitter:

1. Create a twitter page that represents your brand.

2. Connect your twitter account to LinkedIn and join a twitter group on LinkedIn.

3. Connect and follow those that are in your field and represent your brand.

4. Most people say make 10+ tweets a day. To me it is less about quantity and more about quality. No matter how many tweets you do a day, make sure they support your brand and are professional. 1-2 personnel ones are ok, but remember anyone can read them so be sure you do not say something you will regret.

5. Post jobs, see what your competitors are doing.

6. research other companies, search for jobs.

7. Do all the above for your company as well

8. Do not be afraid to retweet(resending or forwarding a tweet) something you think is important. In doing so you help spread the word about something you feel is worthwhile, and the person who did the original tweet will appreciate it and probably become a connection , friend, and follower.

Blogs:

1. Create a blog, but be sure it supports your brand.

2. Connect your blog to LinkedIn

3. When you make a blog post, be sure to share it out to all of the big social sites(the ones I listed here)

4. Try to blog at least once a week. I try to blog every other day. Sometimes a blog posting is nothing more than restating some news you heard that is relevant. Like when they announced Monster bought Hotjobs.

5. Make sure you use the right tags(tags are like bookmarks that help direct traffic to your posts. Like buzz words you search on).

Facebook/My space:

1. With these 2 sites be sure to have a professional looking site and only use it to further your brand.

2. Make sure your company has a company site, that is professional. Use it to advertise jobs, connect with candidates, research companies or competitors etc..

3. Connect your accounts to the other social media sites I have mentioned.

4. Utilize these sites to drive other companies, industry groups, and people to your blogs, LinkedIn profile and web page(if you have one) as well to those of your company.

Misc:

1. From a personal perspective ensure you have a profile on Zoominfo and or Wikipedia.

2. For your company make sure they have a profile on Wikipedia

3. Utilize a social media managing tool, such as Tweetdeck or Jobdeck. These tools allow you to monitor, and post to multiple social media sites at once.

4. For you company try hiring a Social Media Manager to design and manage your social media presence.

5. Set up a google news fed on your company, and things related to your brand. This will supply you with information that can be blogged about, tweeted and more.

6. Look into the numerous tools available to help with social media

The key to Social media, whether for your company or your self is your brand, and making connections. But remember you need to keep up with it to get the most out of it. As with anything you will only get out of it, what you put in. Also do not be afraid to pick up the phone and make a call to one of your social media connections. That is called taking it to the next level and creating a tangible connection