PR 101

Since posting the very popular rant last Wednesday on there being too many social media sites, I have had some requests for a post on what is proper social media etiquette. I wrote on the same subject almost a year ago. Like Emily Post did, I think it is time to update. So, let’s get to it.

• Let’s start at signing up for a site. Think of yourself as being at a party or in a meeting. You would tell people your real name, something about yourself and what you do. It’s no different in social media. So:
  • First, use your real name – not something cute. This is the only way that people are going to know you. If you were hunting for an employee, or hiring someone to perform a service, would you hire “drunkguy05” or “sexxxygirl02?” Plus, if you want to be found, the odds are much better if you use your real name.
  • Second, post a picture of yourself, not your dog, not a pretty sunset, or some weird avatar. People want to know what you look like. Why wouldn’t you post your own picture? You on the run from the law?
  • If you have one, include a link to a blog, another site such as LinkedIn or Facebook. This shows you are a real person. Definitely link to your website if you have one.
  • Include a short bio of yourself. Again, this gives people an idea of who you are.
  • This next rule should be obvious, but people violate it all the time. DO NOT SPAM. If you are joining a site simply to sell me something, go away. That’s not the purpose of social media. I am glad you asked – it is to have a conversation, link with like-minded people and share information. It is not to buy real estate in Goa, or some system that promises me I will get rich working five a hours a week. Or a system that makes me into a spammer. If I get those kind of invitations, I will block you, and I will report you to the site administrators. Of course, that goes double for all of those porn people out there.
  • Once you sign up for a site, it is perfectly acceptable to invite your friends – once. Not six times. As I said last week, if I don’t respond to your invitation, it means I don’t want to join. After the third time, I am going to send you to my spam filter, never to return. And know something about the people you are inviting. As a personal example, I am an Apple; I will never be a PC. So don’t invite me to join Windows Live. It is not going to happen.
  • On that subject, there is quantity versus quality debate in social media. Some experts argue that the idea is to accumulate as many followers as possible. Their thesis goes you want to distribute whatever you are sending out to the widest possible network. The other side it is better to be followed by a 100 people who are influencers in their networks. I come somewhere in the middle. It is up to you to decide. However, this is not high school – the person with the most friends does not win.
  • After you join a site, get active on it. Why else would you join?  That doesn’t mean you have to spend every waking minute posting. But, if you join Twitter, tweet twice a day. If you are Facebook, post an update or two each day. You get the idea. I will not follow anyone who invites me to join a site, but has done nothing there themselves.
  • As part of the above bullet, respond to other people’s post. That’s just good manners. If you want people to respond to what you do, you should have the courtesy to do the same for them.
  • Another thing for you LinkedIn people – unless you know someone personally or have worked closely with them, don’t recommend them. And do not send out blanket requests for recommendations to total strangers. How good could a recommendation be if you nothing about someone? Plus, what if you called by a potential employer who asks you about some stranger you recommended? You are going to look dumb and the odds are very good that the candidate will not get the job.
  • A final note – there is no privacy in social media. Well really, there is no privacy in the Internet Age period. So, if you don’t want people to know something, don’t post it anywhere. Things on the web never really go away. Along those lines, all of you college kids who have those really cool photos of that weekend in Cabo where you took your clothes off and jumped into the ocean – take them down. Many companies will not hire someone if they see such photos. Yeah, it is not fair, but that’s the way it is.



The latest statistics from the U.S. Department of Labor estimate the current unemployment rate at 9.7 percent. That’s 9.3 million people who are unemployed. Globally, it is estimated by the United Nations’ International Labor Office that 212 million people are out of work.

As a note, in the United States you are only of work if you are collecting unemployment. Once you stop, you are no longer counted. There are some arguments that the real unemployment rate is 17.3 percent – depending how you want to crunch the numbers.

Things don’t look good right now for a lot of job seekers.  There are approximately 2.4 million job openings in the U.S. according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. You know that expression about the five pounds of feces and the one-pound bag – well, I think we are seeing it in action.

I wrote about job hunting back in November. Things have actually gotten worse since then. I thought it was time to touch in the subject again, Here are some other suggestions on finding a job.

How Does Social Media Figure Into That?
What does this all have to do with social media? It’s simple really. With approximately four workers for every position, it behooves anyone looking for a job to develop an edge. The days of just sending out a resume, or responding to a job post are long gone. Let’s face it; any company with an opening is drowning in a tidal wave of resumes and cover letters. I doubt most are even read.

You need to do something to stand out – I mean really stand out. Yeah, you guessed it – get active on social media. Why? It will help you get noticed

Remember, most positions are never advertised. Companies that have openings compile a list of possible candidates through their own searches.

According to author Richard Nelson Bolles in his job-hunting book “What Color Is Your Parachute?” the average hiring manager is scared to death that he will hire the wrong person. Anything you can do to calm that person down is a positive.

Incidentally, I highly recommend Bolles’ book. It is old media, but it is very effective. It helped me when I changed careers.

Here are seven things I would do if I were job hunting:

• If I didn’t have one already, I would create a LinkedIn profile. Studies show that 80 percent of human resources people make LinkedIn their stop with looking for a new employee. Although I not seen a reason why that is, I suspect it is because LinkedIn is a trusted resource.
• On that LinkedIn profile, I would make sure my former co-workers had posted recommendations about me. Again, employers seem to trust these more.
• Also on LinkedIn, I would join the groups that correspond with my profession. I would do that for three reasons:
  • Almost all groups have a jobs section. It’s a good place to start looking
  • It’s a great place to network. Tell people you are looking for a job. Probably 10 percent of my over 5,000 connections list themselves as “in transition.” Talking to others in your profession will give you a leg up in the job hunt.
  • It is a good place to demonstrate your expertise. All of the groups list questions and statement from members. Answer those questions and respond to the statements. Ask your own questions.
• Start a blog about your area of expertise. Several studies have shown that blogs are the most effective kind of marketing. However, blogs are also the rated the most difficult thing to do. It takes time commitment and consistency to produce a good blog. But, it is the best way to demonstrate expertise. Write about what you did in career, talk about how you solved problems and the challenges you faced. All things a human resources person wants to know. Make sure you link the blog to your LinkedIn profile.
• Create a personal web page. It is very cheap to buy a domain name through a service such as Go Daddy. Make is a “business” page with you as the company. Sell yourself as if you were a company.
• Create a video resume and post it on YouTube. Again, link it to your web page LinkedIn profile. This will give potential employers a chance to see and hear you.
• I know some of you are going to ask about Facebook and Twitter. Twitter is a good to tell people about your blog and ask questions. Facebook – well, I am not so sure. Yes there are now 375 million who use the service. But, there is so much noise on it. I will tell you one thing you should do on Facebook – if you have embarrassing pictures, or questionable posts, take them down. Many employers are now requiring employment candidates to allow themselves to be friended on Facebook by the company so the company can review the candidate. The last thing you want them to see is that picture of you in Key West, drinking from a beer bong. I know of companies that have passed on people because of such pictures.

Good luck.

Writers note: I would to thank all of you that signed up with Google Friend Connect. It is both flattering and humbling to know you think enough of this blog to make that commitment.

So, you review your new client’s needs and decide social media is the best course. Or, you are pitching a potential client and feel using social media would be the most effective way to meet their needs. The problem is the CMO and CEO are in their ‘50s and think The Wall Street Journal is the be-all and end-all of information dissemination. They think Facebook is a place where their kids waste time in mindless pursuits and tweeting is what birds do.

This is a more common situation than one would think. It is true that more and more major corporations are turning to social media for their marketing needs. However, there are still a large group of executives who frankly don’t get it.

As an aside, I have run into public relations executives who also don’t get it. They have told me they are taking a wait and see posture on social media. I get the feeling these people’s great-grandparents were buggy whip makers in 1908 when the first Model T drove by. They told themselves this automobile thing was a passing fad.

So, how to do you leap that hurdle?

So, how do you convince the person in charge that using Twitter, Facebook and other social media tools are the most cost effective – and just plain effective – way to market? It’s not easy, but it doesn’t have to be as hard as you would think.

The first step I take is to ask the person in charge if they use LinkedIn. According to the latest numbers I have seen, approximately 80 percent of employment managers go to LinkedIn first when looking to hire. So, the odds are fair to even that the CEO and CMO are at least familiar with LinkedIn. If you are really lucky, they have their own LinkedIn profiles.

The odds are also good that they don’t realize LinkedIn is a social media application. If they have a LinkedIn profile, explain they are already using social media. I often see resistance crumble at this point. Once they realize they are already using social media, explaining the rest is easier. You are not home yet, but at least you have hit a solid double.

But, what if they don’t use any social media?

Now, if they don’t have a LinkedIn profile, I sometimes show them social media’s dark side. “United Breaks Guitars,” the Motrin moms, and the Comcast stuff will often make the people in charge sit up and take notice. What I tell them is social media can kill your company before you even know you are bleeding. For instance, I have read estimates that United Airlines lost an estimated $100 million because of “United Breaks Guitars.” Watch a CFO’s ears perk up when he hears that number.

Of course, fear is not the only motivation you should use. After scaring them, tell them of social media’s successes. Southwest Airlines had one of its most successful fare sales ever primarily by using Twitter, Paula Berg, the airline’s manager of Emerging Media said at a conference I attended last fall. PepsiCo has pulled all its Super Bowl advertising. Instead of television ads, the soda company is going to spend $20 million on a social media campaign.

“… the Pepsi Refresh Project is about getting the global community to nominate projects that need funding in local communities, you upload your video/project profile, gather as many votes as you can by spamming the social sphere and the top projects will win finding from $5k multiple times per month up to $250k a few times every month,” according to the Digital Buzz blog.

There are a lot more examples of the successful use of social media. There are thousands of companies using Twitter. Ford, Honda, Jet Blue, the Marriot Hotel chain, Wachovia, and Sun Microsystems are heavily involved in it. You will find the same results for companies using Facebook.

Remember, most CEOs – especially in this business climate – don’t want to be a pioneer. They want to know that whatever you are proposing has worked for someone else. Once they know it has worked for others, they are willing to listen.

Now, if you find their competitors are already using social media, you have broken through another wall. Remember, those C-suite people are judged on results. Their board of directors, their shareholders, their lenders, analysts and journalists are all looking over their shoulders. Those company leaders do not want to discover they are losing market share to a competitor that is using Facebook or Twitter when they are not. In this case, they already see the benefit.

There is much more to talk about when it comes to pitching social media. I will cover more of the topic in next Monday’s blog.