PR 101

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.

I read a story the other day from the online Kansas City InfoZine about how easy it is to trick Facebook members into revealing personal information. This is a hacker’s dream.

IT security and data protection company Sophos “created two fictitious users with names based on anagrams of the words “false identity” and “stolen identity”. 21-year-old “Daisy Felettin” was represented by a picture of a toy rubber duck bought at a $2 shop; 56-year-old “Dinette Stonily” posted a profile picture of two cats lying on a rug. Each sent out 100 friend requests to randomly chosen Facebook users in their age group.

Within two weeks, a total of 95 strangers chose to become friends with Daisy or Dinette – an even higher response rate then when Sophos first performed the experiment two years ago with a plastic frog. Worse still, in the latest study, eight Facebookers befriended Dinette without even being asked.”

Of those who responded, 89 percent of the 20-somethings and 57 percent of the 50-somethings gave away their full date-of-birth, Sophos said. Nearly all the others hid their birth year, but this is often easy to calculate or to guess from other information provided. Even worse, just under half of the 20ish crowd, and just under a third of the 50ish crowd, gave away personal information about their friends and family.

I hope I don’t have to explain why doing what those people did is a huge, huge, snafu. I am sure most of you have heard of the researchers who were able to figure out social security numbers just from the information posted on Facebook.

Be Careful

The lesson from that story and others is be careful. The Internet is kind of a like a major city. It has high-end areas, middle class areas and its downright dangerous areas. The people who create those dangerous areas will try to move into the other two because that’s where the money is. If you exercise some common sense, you probably won’t have to worry too much about the bad areas.

I say you won’t have to worry too much because a little healthy paranoia will keep you safe – in life and on the Internet. Put another way; exercise street smarts when you are out there.

My rule is I only post information that is already public.

Yes, there are dangers lurking out there, but by using a little common sense, trouble can be avoided.

Do simple things and you should stay out of trouble. The biggest thing to do is be careful who you share your information with. I probably get somewhere around two dozen requests Twitter follow requests each day. I accept maybe half. Multi-level marketers, get rich quick schemes and other things of that ilk always get rejected.

I have a policy that I never, ever open a link from a Twitter direct message – even if I know the person who sent it. As I am sure you have noticed, many Twitter accounts are being hacked. The hackers use those accounts to send out viruses and other malicious things. I have the same rule for email – unless I know the sender.

As for Facebook, I am very careful who I share information with. That is why I have almost 5,000 LinkedIn contacts and only slightly over 400 Facebook contacts. Generally, the people I follow on Facebook have to already friended people I know.

Also, when I search, I very careful what links I open. Hackers have figured out how to create legitimate looking sites. If the site seems the least bit strange, I don’t open it.

That doesn’t mean pull your horns in though

Social media is here to stay. It is taking over, not going away. So, don’t shy away from using it. That’s just counterproductive.

There are some things you should do and not do when you use social media. They included:

• Post picture of yourself – not your dog or the sunset, a short biography and a link to blog or a website (if you have either) when you join any site. Don’t worry, this is not the kind of information that will be much help to a hacker. I wouldn’t put my street address or zip code in, but other information is okay. Those links are important. It will drive your readership up.
• Use your real name. I find it hard to take anyone seriously who uses a name of say “seoguru” or “happygirl77.” You are building your brand here, remember. You want to use a real name.
• You know those Facebook or MySpace pictures of that great Spring Break – the one where you posted pictures showing off the sayings your friends painted on your half-naked body when you passed out? Take them down and hope no one circulated them. I know of hiring managers who decided against hiring someone based on similar pictures.
• Social media means being, well, social. If you join a site, participate. If you join a LinkedIn group, answer questions, or post of your own. On Facebook link to interesting articles and comment on other people’s postings. On Twitter, recommend good people to be followed on #FollowFriday, retweet interesting comments, and post good stuff yourself.

A note about using Twitter – my rule on Twitter is the first time you post what you had for breakfast, or what cute thing your dog did, I will stop following you. To me, Twitter is a site to share information and debate questions, not get cute.

I hope those tips help.

Now, an announcement: starting this Wednesday, I will be posting an addition to PR 101. This new section will be my take on various advertising, marketing and public relations campaigns. It will be on the same URL: http://www.pr101.biz

I see my Monday blog as a kind of primer on marketing, public relations and social media. There is some opinion in it, but basically, I hope you are reading to learn what I know. I appreciate all of the hundreds of people who read and comment.

Because I try to keep the Monday blog to around 1,000 words – long for a blog I am told – I don’t have the space to say everything I want. So, I am starting the Wednesday blog. I don’t have a title for it, so suggestions are welcome. I do expect to start some debates; in fact I want to start some. It is how we all learn.

So please give it a read this Wednesday. Thank-you.