Year: 2010

Basic requirements if you’re looking for a social media job

Dave

job board at SXSW
I’ve had a few conversations lately with friends and business acquaintances who expressed an interest in a job involving social media. I found myself giving all of them the same basic advice, so here it is. None of it is new or novel, and I’m not entirely sure I haven’t written this post already, more or less, but I’d rather write it again than search for it.

We just hired someone who has contributed to multiple blogs, created promotional campaigns on Facebook and has a solid understanding of the social media landscape. The competition was fairly stiff and her practical social media experience got her the position.

Oh, did I mention she’s a summer intern? That’s what you’re up against.

This post is not aimed at someone applying to be a community manager at a social media company or a social media marketer at a major brand. I’m talking to people who are hoping to get a marketing or communications position in nearly any company right now. This is what I think you need to be able to answer yes to the question, “Are you active in social media?”

Get right with Google

Google yourself and see what comes up, because that’s what a prospective employer will do. If you’re not appearing on the first page of Google, do some Web searches for things you can do to make that happen. There are plenty out there. Here’s one to get you started.

It’s not essential to have a Gmail account, but 75 percent of the active social media practitioners I know have one. The rest have email at their own domains. That’s what it takes to look clued-in, email wise. And I know I’ve said this before many times, but have a professional-sounding email address and if at all possible, make it your name.

Start a blog

Start a blog on WordPress.com “or a self-hosted WordPress blog if you’re so inclined”. Write as though you are already active in the field. Show your prospective employer that you know how to contribute something of value. Leave him or her thinking, “Damn, I wish this person was writing this on our blog.”

If you’re worried that you’ll be starting a blog from scratch and your interview is in a week, go back and look at other things you’ve written that would be worth posting. When I started the blog that turned into this one back in 2003, I unearthed a slew of long emails I’d written to my friends over the previous year that I thought were funny enough to share. That’s where my first dozen or so posts came from.

And once you have a blog, it becomes the home of your online presence. Content you create there can be promoted on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and more, and it usually doesn’t require anything more than your blog’s RSS feed.

Max out your LinkedIn presence

I assume you’re on LinkedIn, but is your profile 100 percent complete, according to the little LinkedIn progress counter? Ask people for recommendations. If you’re just graduating, ask professors for recommendations now. Take advantage of the things LinkedIn lets you include, like an RSS feed of your blog. Personally, I don’t post my tweets to LinkedIn, but that’s my preference. As a hiring manager, I wouldn’t hold it against you. In fact, I’d see it as evidence that you had spent some time learning the tool.

Also, what does your LinkedIn Summary say about you? It should give a prospective employer a clear idea of who you are, what you’re looking for and what you can offer. It may be the first thing your next employer ever reads about you.

Wash your Facebook face

I won’t spend too much time here becoming the one billionth person to warn you that prospective employers will look for you on Facebook. But they will. Be sure you know what’s there, how the privacy controls work and what people will see. Better yet, turn your Facebook presence into something you hope the hiring manager will see. Remember, I’m talking here about getting a job where social media is part of your duties. Lots of people choose not to mix their personal and professional lives on Facebook, but not so many who do social media for a living.

Tidy up your Twitter

Again, I’m assuming you’re on Twitter. Do you have a presentable photo, a bio that says who you are and a link to a site where we can learn more about you? Is your Twitter handle your name?

It would be great if you have an established following on Twitter, but I won’t hold a low follower count against anybody if their account shows a sincere effort to use Twitter to engage and learn. But if you’re only following ten people and they’re all celebrities, that will tell me right away you’re not using Twitter professionally and I’ll have to teach you.

Those are what I consider the basic requirements, at least right now, in June of 2010. Depending on where you are and what kinds of jobs you’re applying for, that might not be enough. If you have an active YouTube channel and have shot and edited some videos, that’ll be a big plus. If you’re sharing on sites like Delicious, even better. If we can have an intelligent conversation about the potential B2B value of Foursquare, well, then maybe you can have my job.

photo by me

Mommy made me coffee!

Dave

We stopped at a coffee shop yesterday, and The Boy decided he wanted coffee, too. We got him some hot chocolate. This morning he asked for coffee at breakfast, so Jean just made some from milk and cocoa and honey and I think vanilla. She stood at the stove for a while, stirring it and tasting it to get it right.

She’s a good mommy.

I’m writing an enterprise social media book

Dave

Seems like there are a lot of great folks writing social media books right now. Last week I learned that Amber Naslund and Jay Baer are writing a book aimed at small and medium-sized business, organizations and non-profits. I just heard on the Six Pixels of Separation podcast this morning that Scott Stratten “a.k.a. Unmarketing” is writing one as well. I’m sure there are dozens more.

::UPDATE:: And my good friend Justin Levy has just published Facebook Marketing.

Never one to miss out on a good bandwagon, I thought I’d go ahead and announce that I’m writing a book, with Mike Barlow. The book “like Amber and Jay’s and Scott’s” will be published by Wiley, and promoted as part of the SAS Wiley business series.

The working title is The Executive’s Guide to Enterprise Social Media Strategy. As Mike wrote in the proposal to Wiley, it will be a high level guide for developing the practical business frameworks and policies necessary for implementing and managing successful corporate social media strategies.

Key topics include the basic value proposition of social media, metrics, costs, ROI, executive buy-in, critical skills, staffing, training, technology infrastructure, risk management, competitive business benefits and long-term implications of “getting it wrong”

I’m extremely happy to be working with Mike, who knows his way around a book and brought me in to a project that had already been greenlighted. What more could a new author hope for? Mike describes himself as a “veteran journalist and seasoned marketer” He’s also a lot of fun to work with. Our conversations go off on amazing tangents.

Mike and I are sharing the writing tasks, and we’re on a tight deadline. I hesitate to say the deadline out loud or write it here, because I’m slightly in denial. Let’s just say my nights and weekends are pretty well spoken for over the next month.

I’ve already got a great lineup of social media thinkers and doers who have agreed to participate and tell their stories. I’m excited to see this come to fruition. I’m convinced the book will prove to be a valuable resource for people figuring out how to make social media work inside companies.

Essentially, it will be the book I was looking for when I started this job a year and a half ago.

If you have a great story about how your company has integrated social media into your operations and you’d like to share it, email me at dave [at] dbthomas [dot] com.

Stay tuned for more. Once we’ve actually written the thing, we’ll think about creating a blog for it.

photo by Jasoon

Your name should be your Twitter handle

Dave

I have a friend and colleague who is debating whether or not to change her Twitter handle. Right now she’s @Postgrad. She likes the name. She’s gotten attached to it. She feels it says something about her. I think she should change it to her name, Meg Crawford, or some available variation.

Why?

Because that way people will know what her name is.

I follow more than 1,100 people on Twitter. Some use their names, some use something else. I just heard @unmarketing on Mitch Joel’s Six Pixels of Separation podcast this morning. I follow him on Twitter and he shares great information. He has more than 57,000 Twitter followers.

I have no idea what his name is.

Clearly his Twitter strategy is working for him, and he may have reasons for wanting to brand “Unmarketing” instead of his name. Is @Mashable really Pete Cashmore, or is it Mashable, the online tech news site? We already know that @GuyKawasaki isn’t just Guy Kawasaki, it’s a network of people that share information for, essentially, the Guy Kawasaki brand.

I met Wayne Sutton close to two years ago. I never had a moment’s trouble remembering Wayne’s name, and that’s no mean feat for a 44-year old brain that is constantly bombarded with information, noise and toddler.

Why didn’t I have trouble remembering Wayne’s name? Because his Twitter handle is @WayneSutton.

The question you need to ask yourself is, “What is the brand I am promoting on Twitter?” For most of the people I know, the answer to that question is, “Me.” Even if you’re tweeting on behalf of a company or organization, you’re trying to establish your credibility. Your value. Your brand.

If your name is your brand, make it your Twitter handle.

photo by quinn anya

Honesty goes both ways

Dave

I posted last week about the doublespeak I hear on airplanes, and how refreshing it would be if companies would say what they mean in social media. I got some great comments on my post from Sara Livingston and DJ Waldow and AnnMaria De Mars that got me thinking.

Yes, we all want companies to be more honest and transparent. We would all love it if a company said, “I’m sorry. That sucks. We screwed up. Let us fix it.” Some companies do, but a lot of companies are scared.

Why?

Well, let’s look at the current situation with BP. They’ve taken a tremendous amount of flak for the work of their flacks, and it’s arguable whether or not there is anything they could say at this point that would make the situation any better. But what would happen if they said, “It’s our fault. We screwed up and we’re sorry”?

It would be used against them in court.

In many ways the traditional customer service model, especially consumer interactions with merchants, is adversarial in nature.

Consumer: “You took my money and you screwed up and now you should pay.”
Company: “You gave us your money and we aren’t sure we can trust what you’re saying and so we won’t pay unless you make us.”

Social media does create a pathway to make customer relationships more human, and allow everyone involved to see the people on the other side as people.

But if that’s going to work, we as consumers have to accept that companies are made up of people and people make mistakes. That means dropping the self-righteous indignation. Lots of people seem to deal with the powerlessness they feel in their everyday lives by exploiting their power as a customer. And lots of people are constantly on the lookout for a reason to sue.

That doesn’t work if you want openness and authenticity on both sides. The only way companies — and their legal departments — will become comfortable with acting and talking like humans is if consumers avoid the temptation to use it against them.

photo by Kyle MacKenzie

Would anyone want to make a documentary about your social media program?

Dave

The Mrs. and I recently watched “Art & Copy,” Doug Pray’s 2009 documentary that features some of the biggest names in the history of American advertising, people like Lee Clow “one of the creators of Apple’s “1984” campaign”, George Lois, “”I Want My MTV“”, Dan Wieden and David Kennedy “”Just Do It”” and Hal Riney “”Morning in America“”.

It’s a fascinating and powerful film that lets a group of very creative people talk about what makes them tick. I recommend it to anyone who spends any time thinking about how to influence the opinion of others.

I was struck by how many of the breakthrough campaigns seemed to revolve around one key phrase that some clever person came up with, maybe scrawled on the back of a napkin. “Got milk?”, for instance, or “Where’s the beef?”

Clarity, brevity, originality and audacity are common characteristics of great ad concepts. Heck, great concepts in general.

In a fascinating and somewhat eerie revelation, Dan Wieden said the inspiration for “Just Do It” came from Gary Gilmore, the convicted murderer who, when asked if he had any last words, replied, “Let’s do it.”

There are a few key characteristics shared by the men and women in the film. Obviously, they are all very smart and creative. But nearly every one of them said something to the effect of, “We had to show our clients that we were right and they were wrong.” Most of them had a story about a risky campaign that went on to be a breakthrough that scared hell out of their clients at first.

Nobody gets asked to be in a documentary because they played it safe. If – and I’m not saying this will or should happen – anybody makes a documentary in 20 years about the early days of social media, who will they want to talk to? Probably the people who are scaring the hell out of clients right now. The audacious people with the outrageous ideas who are 100 percent convinced that laying yourself and your company open is the right thing to do.

What would you rather say to a documentary filmmaker in 20 years? “We tried cool new stuff and a lot of it worked really well”? Or “We played it safe and jumped on the bandwagon near the end”?

photo by Digging90650