Facebook Is At It Again!

It looks like Facebook is going to be rolling out a(nother) new timeline.  I tried to do some preliminary research to help make it clearer so when it happens we all won’t be wondering “what the hell”.   It is a lot of information but here is what I have so far….

They are doing away with the staggered post timeline (thank goodness).  Your status updates and posts will be down the right hand side of the page.  All other sections such as your “About”, “Friends”, “Photos” etc. will be more extensive and down the left.   I hear they are also adding a new “instagram” section as well.

Facebook is going to be pushing you to fill out more of your profile content.  There will be “call to actions” that will prompt you to fill in any empty sections such as Movies, Music, Books etc.  The interesting part is that with the Music, Movies, TV Shows, and Books sections, there will be new “Watched,” “Want to Watch,” “Read,” and “Want to Read”  tabs in addition to “Likes” for those sections.

You will notice that the Photos, Friends, and Places sections have been redesigned and organized in a way that makes switching between content easier and the content will be broken down to make it more user friendly.

Facebook is going to suggest pages to “Like.”  My understanding is that these recommendations will not be reflective of things you have “Liked” before but more from other sources.  Here is what I can gather…. Facebook has caught on to the fact that most of us “Like” a page because we are trying to win a contest, support a local business or simply because a friend asked us to in order to get their “Like” number higher. That means, when Facebook is trying to sell advertisements and trying to pinpoint who will most likely buy the product advertised… our “Likes” really may not be what our interests are at all.  They are going to instead focus on our interests from our “want,” “watch,” “read” and other profile information so they can get a better feel for our desires and activities. Knowing that now makes the call-to-action prompts to fill out these sections more understandable. By doing this, they can provide us with more targeted ads which in turn will most like boost ad revenue for Facebook.  I’m still not sure who this whole thing is going to play out and I hope to find out more about it through my research.

So that is it for now.  I will update you with me when I discover more.  If you have any additional information PLEASE add it to the comments below… help a sister out.  J

 

Thanks for reading~

Michele

 

 

Job Search? Don’t Let Social Media Get In Your Way

Everyone who uses social media knows by now that anything you put out there can and will be seen by just about everybody. When you’re conducting a job search it’s particularly important that your online presence represents the person you want that potential employer to hire. That includes the obvious things such as druken party pictures and online smack-downs with your ex best friend.

There are some more subtle things you may not have considered that could be the reason you aren't getting that second interview. Take a look at these five tips for using social media when you’re job searching and find out if you've been sabotaging yourself.

Job searching is hard enough! Don't sabotage yourself!

Do follow/like the people and companies you want to connect with on Twitter and Facebook.  Retweet or comment on interesting tweets and posts –but only comment if you have something intelligent to add to the conversation. Making yourself known to the right people is important in a job search, but not if you're known as that crazy attention-grabbing stalker person.

Do look back through your streams and delete anything that would look bad to a potential employer, such as the drunk tweet you sent last weekend. In fact, if you often have those kinds of tweet you might want to just delete the account and start a new one! Yes, even comments and pictures that are over a year old can cost you that great job.

Do write every tweet and public post as if the interviewer is standing over your shoulder watching you type. The majority of employers WILL look at your public social media presence to learn more about you. If you put it out there unprotected, the entire world can look at it. You may disagree with their right to do so, but that's not going to stop them.

Don’t immediately send a connection request to your interviewer. It can come off as obnoxious. You wouldn’t invite the interviewer to your house for dinner that night, why would you expect them to give you access to their social network? In fact, be careful who you connect to on which social media platform when it comes to work colleagues. Think about the kind of things you post, and how good you are at controlling what your connections see from you.

Don’t tweet about the interview directly afterward – even if it’s a good comment. Employers want to know that you have boundaries and aren’t going to send every work issue out into the public via social media.

Have you made any blunders with social media during your job search? Tell us about it in the comments!

~ Kelly

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Is Your LinkedIn Headline Doing Its Job?

Your professional headline is the tagline that shows up just under your name in the search results. If all you have there is your job title and company name, you are wasting a great opportunity! This tag line shows up every time you do ANYTHING on LinkedIn. It’s also one of the main drivers for the LinkedIn search feature. If you want to show up higher in the LinkedIn Search results, you need have a great headline.

Tips for Writing Your LinkedIn Headline

• You've got 120 characters to catch the attention of that recruiter, customer, or contact. Think carefully about what words will give the best reflection of who you are.
• Your headline should describe the main things you do, not your job title. For example, instead of saying “Trainer at Smith & Co.” try using “Soft Skills Trainer, Instructional Designer and LMS Administrator”.
• Include the keywords that people would use to find someone like you. For example, if you want to connect with other people in the medical insurance industry, use “medical insurance” in the headline.
• You can put something catchy in your headline as long as you also include your keywords. For example, mine has been “Learning & Development Passionista” and I get a lot of great comments about it. At the same time, Learning & Development is my main keyword driver for my profile at the moment. I recently added “Professional Networking Coach | Speaker” as a second keyword set.

If you're not sure what your headline should say, post your idea in the comments and I'll be happy to give you some feedback!

~Kelly

Friday Fun Day Apps: Pocket Doc and iMapMyRun

 WELCOME to Friday Fun Day App Review!   Normally, Friday Fun Day App Review is one work related app and one fun app.  Today I would like to do something a bit different and share with you two health related apps.  PLEASE DONT RUN AWAY – give me just a minute.  Now if I were to be honest with you I would tell you that I would prefer to review an app that tracks how many oreos I can dunk in a glass of milk in under 60 seconds.  However, I didnt find an app for that (not that I was looking or anything).  So in an attempt to live a healthier lifestyle I decided to review more practical apps.  I have friends and family who use both of these apps and I thought that they were worth a spot in our Friday highlight.  So let’s get started…

Pocket Doc: Pediatric System Reference is an easy and quick resource for a ton of your parenting questions medical, pharmaceutical and behavioral.  Created by All Children’s Hospital, Pocket Doc is a free app that includes a symptom checker for illness and injury, a medication and allergy checker, a dosage calculator, parenting advice for behavior, eating or wellness plus much more.  From newborn to teen, Pocket Doc is a helpful tool in any parent’s toolkit.

iMapMyRun: A fitness tracking application that is quite easy to use.  App allows you to use the GPS of your mobile device to track fitness activities such as workout details, duration, pace, distance, calories burned and much more.  You can even see your route traveled on an interactive map.  What makes the app even more useful is that you can upload the data to any of the MapMyFitness websites and from there you can view the route workout data along with a detailed workout history.   Of course, since I love social media I was happy to see that they have a social media component that allows you to join groups, challenge friends and interact with an online fitness community.

I would love to hear about any additional “health and wellness” apps that you may use. Also, if anyone finds that oreo app will you PLEASE contact me? You can tweet me at @chelelawson, connect with me on LinkedIn at Michele Lawson (Red Feather Networking) and comment or “like” us on facebook at www.facebook.com/redfeathernetworking.

And as always, thanks for reading…

M

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Friday Fun Day: Card Munch and Old Booth

I’m so excited to be doing today’s Friday Fun Day App Review and I thank Kelly for sharing this blog spot with me.  The reason I’m so thrilled is because last month was my personal conversion from Blackberry to iPhone.  Although I went in kicking and screaming I am now a full fledged iPhone addict (complete with a Siri girl-crush).  Following in Kelly’s footsteps – today I present you with one “work” app and one “fun” app.

This app is by all means one of the most efficient apps for capturing and a saving business card information that I have ever used.  It’s so easy and so accurate.  I am big on time management (because I suffer from it) and this app really frees up all the time that you would normally spend hand entering in contact information especially during and after a large meeting or conference where you accumulate a lot of cards.  Here are the pro/con’s as I see them:

Pro:

 One snapshot of the card is all you do – Card Munch does everything else.

Captured information is actually transcribed by humans not technology.  Supposedly, every card goes through three human transcriptionists to ensure accuracy.

If your contact has a LinkedIn account – their profile information will also be loaded. This allows you to see a full profile with all the additional information it contains.  If you are not connected to them on LinkedIn it will give you the option to link to them with one click.  If they do not have a LinkedIn account than you will see only the information that was provided on the business card.

Envelope “button” allows you to begin an email with this contact quickly and easily.

Auto Save to iPhone option will save the contact into your actual iPhone contact list.

Holding your iPhone allows you to see all cards in a carousel style view.

Cons:

You must have a LinkedIn account to use this app however LinkedIn accounts are free and in my opinion everyone should have one anyway.

Currently only available on iOS devices.

There is no way to transfer the contacts (in bulk) to your PC. 

Transcribing time can range from an hour to many hours (although I have never had it last more than 6 hours total)

 

This app is a must have for me and many of my business colleagues. 

 

  Old Booth is not a free app but it is certainly a fun app.  Currently a bargain at $1.99 it will provide hours of fun and laughter.  Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad – also available for Mac however price may vary.   

Old Booth lets you take a photo (either now or one from your library) and allows you to change the look into an old-time photo.  Some of the photo editing options:

*Comic Touch -make your pic look cartoonish
*Face Melter – Allows you to morph, resize and squeeze photo image
*GooeyFaces – The difference between this and Face melter is that you can add your voice to the pictures. You can also change the pitch of your voice which provides some very interesting results.
*Juxtaposer – You can erase parts of a picture then put it on top of another picture. Every wonder what you mother-in-laws head would look like on a horses body?  (What? That’s just me?  Never mind)

So there you have it – my two pics for the Friday Fun Day app review.  I look forward to discovering more fun apps for my iPhone and sharing them with you in the future.  I’m now officially in the “there’s an app for that” club.

Thanks for reading!

M

 

 

 

Have You Done Your Conference Pre-work?

To get the most out of attending a professional conference, you’ve got to do your pre-work. I know that you’re busy. I know that you barely have time to think about the clothes you’re going to pack let alone think about doing extra work before your airplane even leaves the ground. But if you knew that by putting in a few minutes spread across each week leading up to your conference could help you make connections that will be of lasting benefit to you personally and professionally for years , would you be interested? If so, read on.

You can use LinkedIn and Twitter to break the ice with other conference attendees and get to know them a little bit. It only takes a few minutes at a time to check these two platforms and contribute to the conversations.

Doing your pre-work on LinkedIn

If you don’t have a LinkedIn profile, you need to create one now. For me, LinkedIn has been the most useful social media platform for building my professional network. It’s easy, it’s unobtrusive, and you don’t have to log into it every day to update your status. (well, you could if you wanted too!)

Once you are on LinkedIn, join groups associated with whoever is hosting the conference. Usually the conference is put on by a professional group, and industry leader, or a group of industry leaders. To find these groups, enter keyword into the Search box, and make sure the drop down says Groups before you click the search button.

Once you are in the group, look for discussions about the conference and join in. If there isn’t a discussion about the conference, start one! Great discussion starters are:

Can anyone recommend a good hotel near the conference location?

I’m flying in to [conference city] the night before the conference. What’s the best place in town for good [your favorite food]?

Are there any speakers at [conference] that I shouldn’t miss seeing?

When people respond to you, send them a connection notice with a customized message thanking them for their response and asking a follow up question. Keep the conversations moving. Once you get to know people, you can suggest meeting up at the conference.

Doing your pre-work on Twitter

Most conferences now designate a Twitter hash tag that everyone can use to share information and talk about the conference. Find out what your conferences hash tag is. You can often find it right on the main conference page. If you don’t see it there, go to Twitter and do a search on the conference names and acronyms. For example, I’m attending ASTD International Conference and Exposition in May 2012.  The hash tag is #ASTD2012. If I didn’t know that, I might go to Twitter and search on ASTD, ASTDICE, conference, Denver, etc.  If anyone is tweeting about this conference, their tweet is likely to show up in a search on at least one of those terms. Only search on one term at a time.

Once you’ve found the hash tag, it’s time to start tweeting. You can start slow if you want, retweet something first. When you get a bit braver, reply to a tweet. And finally, start tweeting yourself. Tweet about a speaker you like, or tweet that you’re going to the conference. If you need ideas, do a search on the hashtag #conference and see what kind of things other people are saying about their conferences.  When you feel ready, start tweeting directly to people, such as:

 @KellyPhillipsNC see you in the Expo at #ASTD2012!

One important thing you MUST do is to have a clear face shot of yourself on your LinkedIn and Twitter accounts. Even the attendees that you don’t connect with online will be lurking and watching the conversations and Twitter stream. They’ll see your name and picture go by, and if they see you at the conference it will be much easier to start up a conversation with them because you’ll be familiar to them.

I encourage you to give it a try. Just a small amount of time and attention to pre-conference social media can turn your conference experience into a networking boosting adventure!

~Kelly