LinkedIn is the Modern Day CV

I’m always struggling with recording my career-related activities to keep track of my own professional history. I haven’t used a resume for years because as a business owner, I’m more commonly asked for my bio or background, and I try to edit my bio every six months or when I do something new or significant in my work, whichever comes first.

I did try to put a CV together which is much more of an academic document. While I have a 15 page CV, I ended up paring it down thinking it would be easier to read and ended up with a cross between an extended resume and abbreviated CV.

These days, I think the Resume/CV is LinkedIn. I can’t see being a working or even an out-of-work businessperson without a LinkedIn account. The site prompts you to add your work history in an orderly fashion and encourages you to keep adding relevant activities and experience to get to a 100% completed profile.

When I want to know about anyone’s background, I hit LinkedIn first to see if they have a profile and if so, what they’ve been up to in the last 5 years. I’m sure people are doing the same to learn more about me.

I find myself tweaking my LinkedIn account several times a month, making sure that it clearly conveys what I do.

How are you keeping up with your resume, CV or bio? Is LinkedIn working for you?

The Debate About Social Network Profiling

Dear Social Media Mama,

I’ve found myself joining more than one social network. Now I don’t know whether I should just copy and paste the same profile from one to the next or if I need something original for each one. Help!

Multiple Profiles Gal

Dear MPG,

I’ve gone back and forth about “should a profile be different for each social network” or is it acceptable to use basically the same wording for each one?

5 Tips for Managing Social Media

As I make presentations and write about social media, I continue to hone in on my specific views about how to use and manage your social media. Here are some of the points I’ve been making for the last year that still hold up and have crystalized into some of my key points about social media management.

1. A Blog is Your Social Media Hub
When I say this, many people still look at me in terror, especially those who finally got a web site up after all these years or just spent a bucketload of money to redesign their existing web site. I’m not saying that a web site is now obsolete because of social media and Web 2.0 tools, however, blog publishing tools tend to integrate these tools so that embedding social functionality is incredibly easy.

Many web sites and custom or older web site content management systems don’t even support javascript or flash code, literally stripping out widgets and embedded social features. This functionality flaw makes social media integration a bitch. (Note that WordPress.com also has this flaw which really pisses me off.)

How To Properly Respond to Requests on Twitter

Dear Social Media Mama,

A colleague just told me about a freelance editing lead that was posted in a writer’s forum in Twitter. I realized I haven’t used Twitter for this purpose before or to even answer someone.

I looked at how to respond to someone in the Help section on Twitter and I think I understand how I reply to him. I reply to him in on Twitter page, using the @reply function, right?

But what I still need to know is what is the protocol here. Do I send the person a complete resume and cover letter, which it doesn’t seem like you can do in Twitter or do you send a short message briefly saying who you are and send him a link to either my linkedin page or website? Or something else totally different?

–Twitter Mystified

Dear TM:

Basically, you can contact people in two ways on Twitter itself:

1. @ing (“atting”) them – If they are not following you, this is your only way to hope to get their attention directly. You put an @ sign in front of their Twitter handle and put that at the START of your tweet in response to them. First make sure you are following them in order for them to privately message (DM) you in response. Then @ them that you’d like to submit something in response to their announcement and would like to know how to contact them.

Internal Blogger Guidelines

I’ve been working with clients to develop their internal and external blog guidelines. Many of them are blogging for the very first time and several of them have multiple bloggers to help share the blogging load.

Here is a recent draft of internal guidelines that I’ve come up with. I tried to make these accessible, achievable and more motivational than dictating “rules.”

Our blog is our brand – it represents who we are, what we think about, what we believe in. Here are some tips for blogging consistently and compellingly to help build our blog community.

1. Be transparent. No matter what, always be clear who you are. We are not blogging anonymously on our site and we do not encourage our guest bloggers to be anonymous either.

2. Be truthful. Honesty is the best policy when it comes to blogging. We will do our best to check facts, be accurate, and above all, tell the truth.

3. Be yourself. Your personality should show through in your blog posts. Since we have multiple authors, find a niche that you can call your own and be conversational.

Using Twitter to Publicize Events

Dear Social Media Mama:

I’m wondering how to use Twitter in your business to publicize events? I can’t figure out how Twitter can be useful for event PR. It seems very unfocused and random.

In a Twitter Quandry

Dear Quandry:

Or should I say “Tuandry” as in Twitter + Quandry (just a little Twitter insider talk)

I can’t say outright that Twitter is great for publicizing events. That’s putting the onus on Twitter when in fact the power rests in how one uses Twitter, not in how the application itself works. But used as part of an overall, comprehensive social media strategy, Twitter is a key component to galvanize people, tap into word-of-mouth power, get some Googleability and encourage action.

Here’s why and how I use Twitter in the social media campaigns I conduct.

1. Twitter as Gateway

First and foremost, I see Twitter as an active gateway to lead people over to the places where you can provide more information about whatever it is you want to publicize. If it is an event, you can post regular links to event news and developments to keep your followers informed.

Obama and Social Media

I totally believe that the savvy Obama displayed by bringing on the right tech team to implement a comprehensive social media campaign helped him to win the popular vote – not to mention raise funds in unprecedented ways.

Three cheers for the Obama Social Media Team!

Here’s a great slideshow breaking it down…

How Obama Won Using Digital and Social Media

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: election obama)

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What is the WORST Social Media Mistake…?

Dear Social Media Mama,

I’m just getting started with social media to promote myself and my work. What is the worst mistake I can make when engaging in social media?

Dipping a Pinky Toe in Social Networks

Dear Pinky Toe,

What is the WORST social media mistake? Oh, my friend, there are far too many to narrow it down to just one.

But let me tell you some of the things that really irk me when they happen to me in the social mediasphere.

Are You Following Too Many People on Twitter?

Image via CrunchBase

I was just trying to reduce the number of followers I was following for 2 practical reasons:

1. I can’t believe how many tweets I miss from people I really want to hear from;
2. I can’t believe I can properly follow 800+ people, especially if I’m missing important tweets.

I have about 40 pages of people I’m following on Twitter. As I began skimming page by page by page, I could pretty much tell you:

1. at least one thing about each person (or account holder as I also follow organizations and companies) and usually more;
2. how I know them or know of them; and
3. why I follow them.

6 Smart Ways to Blog for Business

So you have started a blog for your company. Maybe you are using a free blog publishing and hosting tool like Blogger.com, WordPress.com or Vox.com. Personally, I’m really starting to like WordPress.com over the other free blog publishing tools.

Maybe you’ve decided to invest a little money in a more robust blogging tool such as Typepad.com. Or perhaps you’ve gone all out and invested in WordPress or ExpressionEngine server software.

No matter what your blog publishing tool, when it comes to blogging for business, you want to be strategic about what you say in your posts and how you say it. Here are 6 ways to blog for business that can help make your company blog a success.

1. Speak To a Specific Audience

With any marketing initiative, knowing your audience is key to crafting your message. Know who you are trying to reach with your blog then write your blog posts with that audience in mind. Do you need to be more formal or more conversational in your posts? Even your blogging voice can be determined by who you are trying to reach. Speak in an appropriate tone for your audience.