Category

Communications

Aug 10
Love0

5 Reasons Not to Be a LinkedIn Hater

By Communications, Social Media

 

 

I was in a client meeting not long ago when the use of LinkedIn was mentioned.

“I hate LinkedIn,” a meeting participant said. Here’s why I think that’s a mistake:

1. Search plays a big role in the management of your reputation. When someone googles your name, (particularly if your name is unusual) your LinkedIn profile does appear.

Whether you like it or not, if you have created even an incomplete profile, it will show up in search engine results. If you have no profile at all, you are only frustrating the person who is trying to locate you (and what if they have a really great business deal or offer to extend to you; what then?)

2. Recommendations are third-party endorsements that say that you are who you say you are. Think about it; you wouldn’t hire someone to do plumbing or painting at your home without a referral from someone else, right? It speaks highly of you and your business to have a few recommendations from clients and colleagues visible in your searchable profile. (They’re also good to read if/when you’re having a really bad day.)

3. Avoid that awkward blind-date scenario by allowing a new business contact (with whom you’re meeting for the first time in person) to see you and know a bit about you beforehand. It’s a courtesy in today’s business world, and expected. A fully completed profile should have a photo of you so if you’re meeting for coffee, your contact will know who to look for.

4. Maybe it’s not you (maybe it is), but someone in your company is responsible for website traffic. Give them a leg up by listing the company website and going the extra mile by giving it the right name instead of accepting the default settings of “My Company” and/or “My Blog.”

5. LinkedIn is easy; it’s people you know (not those you don’t or those you used to know, long ago). It’s not scary and does not have the privacy issues that Facebook often faces. No one plays games like Candy Crush or posts quizzes on LinkedIn. It is a social network designed for online business networking; that’s it. Its simplicity and clarity of mission make it an important component of your overall social media strategy, whether that strategy is personal or on behalf of your brand or company.

LinkedIn has stood the test of time and consistently added smart upgrades to remain current but true to its original purpose. Don’t hate LinkedIn; it’s there for you to use to succeed. See you there.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/marijeanoldham

 

Jun 26
Love1

Whoops! I’m Two People on Facebook

By Communications

Do you have two profiles on Facebook? If you do, your intention was probably to have a “professional” profile and a “personal” one.

Guess what? This is what you’ve done instead: you have given others reason to have the following reactions:

  1. In a search, they are unsure which one of you to connect with — are you friends or professional contacts? Whose decision is that?
  2. Hey! I thought we were friends! Why now are you shifting me over to your “business” self?
  3. What are you up to personally that you feel like you need a totally different profile to protect your “private” self?
  4. You really don’t understand Facebook, do you?

None of the reactions others have to you and your dual Facebook personalities are positive, are they? Furthermore, why on earth do you want to complicate your life by having to manage two different profiles?

You’re also making yourself vulnerable by violating Facebook’s terms of service — you know, that thing you clicked YES to and never actually read? Here’s a section:

See that part about not creating more than one account? If you end up having a hacking problem or other security breach, you’re going to have a really tough time getting anyone at Facebook to help you if you’ve violated any of these items. Just sayin’.

How to Stop Being Two People on Facebook

You’re going to have to deactivate one of your personalities. More than likely, its the newer one, the one you decided to create for a more “professional” appearance. Log in to that account.

Go to Account –> Account Settings –> Deactivate Account.

Now, I understand that you still have this conflict; that there are parts of your life you want to share with friends but not necessarily colleagues or business prospects. The way to manage that is with lists.

This will help: How to Create Lists, Save Some Privacy on Facebook in Five Easy Steps.

Really! Do it today!

Read this, too: My friend Michelle (Golden) Rivers has a great post on this topic as well — Managing Your “Private Life on Facebook While Developing Business.

Jun 22
Love0

Google to Save America with New Job Search Function

By Communications, Social Media

The announcement came from Google this week: Google is going to make America great again help Americans find work. Could Google, with its new job search function, pulling in job listings by geography into a user’s search results, be the tool that helps people throughout the United States find the work they seek?

As a search engine, Google has proven it is the best. Google is a full 43% ahead of its nearest competition, Bing. With stats like that, you have to wonder, why do other search engines even bother? I, for one, have never heard anyone speak of a “Bing ranking.”

The job search function is really promising. It’s rather time consuming to go from site to site (LinkedIn, Ziprecruiter, Snagajob, Glassdoor, and many more) in one’s job search. Streamlining the process can only help the unemployed or dissatisfied find their next, great opportunity faster.  In a quick test, I searched Marketing Jobs in Charlottesville and got back a solid list of opportunities, the first several the most recent and relevant, in under a second. The second page of results provided a dropdown that displayed employers and let me filter out different parameters. Pretty nifty.

It still takes the future employed persons of America following through, applying, showing up for interviews and doing a good job when they get hired, but I have hope that this will benefit some seekers to get off the couch and into the office.

Apr 11
Love0

United’s PR Opportunity

By Communications, Public Relations

Some people like to play fantasy baseball. I play fantasy public relations.

By now, you’ve heard about the doctor who was forcibly dragged from his United flight to Louisville, Ky when a flight was oversold and seats needed to be made available to United staff.

 

In the wake of the incident, the airline’s CEO released a statement that surely, no PR professional touched.

 

There’s universal agreement among PR pros and the general public that this was a PR failure of epic proportions.

What United Should Do Now

  1. Apologize for the mistreatment of a passenger and take steps to insure nothing like this ever happens again.
  2. Stop overselling flights, and lead the industry in changing policies to make air travel humane, courteous, and pleasant again. (This is where the fantasy comes in because airlines will always oversell flights, hedging against no-shows and missed connections, to make the most money possible on every flight).
  3. Ask the CEO to step down. This guy is a disaster in a crisis. Not what you want in an airline.

If United does this, and puts in place a new CEO with a strong relationship to their PR team, they will be on track to salvage what has become a terrible reputation. The likelihood that any of this will occur is small, because, realistically, our attention span for this kind of thing is short. As passengers, we have limited choices of airlines going to the destinations we seek. We need to select the least expensive option when we shop for airline tickets and our morals will only last so long when we need to fly somewhere. We will keep flying United, even if, for now, we’re determined to do otherwise.

Mar 01
Love0

Distracted: Lack of Focus and Attention is Making our Lives Worse

By Communications

Numerous PSAs inform us that distracted driving is bad, something we all know, yet continue to practice. It’s hard for us to sit through even a half-hour TV show without checking our phones numerous times. The embarrassingly messed up  Best Picture Award announcement at the 2017 Academy Awards was blamed on an accountant distracted by a tweet.  Children whose parents pay more attention to their mobile phones are acting out to get the attention they need.  We’re failing at paying attention in ways that are inevitably making our lives worse.

Too many of us believe in the fallacy that multitasking makes us more productive and effective. We know better, but we’ve all become experts at distracting ourselves. It’s hard to sit quietly and wait for an appointment, accompanied by nothing but our own thoughts, without checking our phones. When I’m on a deadline, or working on a client or writing project I do manage to shut everything else out. I need to. I know that the results are far better when my total attention is focused. I don’t take calls or look at texts; I don’t stop to check social media sites. I just write. Sometimes I even disconnect from wifi so I’m not tempted to take a little break. It works.

Over the weekend, there was a popup, sudden, severe storm that caused a power surge at my home. The modem failed and since Saturday, our home has been internet-free while we wait for the replacement to be shipped and installed.

It’s been surprisingly freeing.

Work has happened just in the office or at meetings. Entertainment is in interaction with one another or reading books. It’s so tempting to continue internet-free at home for longer, to see if we can resume better habits of paying attention, of focusing on one another or on the tasks at hand. I keep seeing evidence of distraction hurting people around me. I think it’s important to take stock of how distracted we are, and how much we’re allowing distraction to happen, before we lose what matters to us.