Too many businesses are just “doing” social without training… or worse… without a strategy.

We’re on a mission to sort that out for 2012, the first step is a week of training courses open to anyone:

The Get Social in 2012 training week is the 23rd – 27th January 2012 at the RT Media offices in Wimborne

• MONDAY 23rd: Introduction to Social Media
• TUESDAY 24th: I’m on LinkedIn, But…
• WEDNESDAY 25th: Twitter 101
• THURSDAY 26th: Facebook for Business
• FRIDAY 27th: Better Blogging

All sessions are 9:00 for a 9:30 start, finishing at 12:30.

Please contact Corli or Luke at RT Media on 01202 888192 or email Luke to book your place.

For more details, see Get Social in 2012

Extra super 2012 BONUS :: To help you on your journey here are 3 links I think are essential reading for 2012 (don’t forget all the things I bookmark as interesting can be found be clicking the delicious icon up there top right!)

1. Facebook makes up 52.1 percent of all sharing on the web in 2011
2. The psychology of social commerce explains why and how people shop together
3. Sony says choosing the right social network is critical, we agree!

This article was written for the appointment magazine (April issue).

The effectiveness of social media platforms as a means of finding a new job remains a hot topic of debate. Of the ‘big three’, LinkedIn seems to the most obvious fit for a career search. Certainly if you’re not one of the five million UK users now harnessing the power of this business-focused social network you could be missing out on a valuable addition to your job-seeking arsenal. But how to use it effectively?

Luke Williams, specialist trainer at SocialTech, provides some top tips for growing your network, optimising your profile, some of the general do’s and don’ts for job hunting on LinkedIn and outlines some strategies for finding that new job.

Top profile tips:

[To edit your profile go to ‘Profile’>’Edit profile’ from the menu at the top]

Have a 100% complete profile, including previous jobs and education. LinkedIn will tell you how complete your profile is on the right-hand side of the profile page and advise you which sections need completing.

The usual good CV writing tips apply when listing previous jobs and experience on LinkedIn. What are the things potential employers are looking for on your page?

If the job role you are looking for requires specific industry skills or qualifications re-arrange the order of sections on your LinkedIn page to bring these nearer the top. You can drag and drop sections by clicking and holding on the cross in the top-left of each section.

If you haven’t already, get a good headshot for your LinkedIn page. Try searching for a common name and look at how much the profiles with a picture stand out.

Update your “professional headline” – this is the sentence of text under your name on your profile page and is one of the few things that shows on search results. As standard this shows your current or most recent job title but it can be changed to highlight your position i.e. “Currently seeking a role in ___ in the ___ industry” – choose edit next to your name and the headline section is halfway down the page.

Have an up-to-date phone number on your profile – I’m always amazed at how many people do not have a phone number on their profile. Add your number in the personal information section on your profile page.

Note: your contact details are ONLY visible to your connections and not visible on your public profile.

Update the web address of you public profile to a more professional one. Change the public profile options with the edit link next to the URL (web address) In the public profile settings, update your public profile URL to a more friendly one i.e “linkedin.com/in/lukewilliams”, this makes it easy for you to remember and looks a lot more professional if you use it on a CV or in an email.

Grow your network including university classmates, former colleagues and friends. LinkedIn works best through a larger network. When you do a search for people on LinkedIn it will return results to you from your network, your connections’ network (up to three degrees of separation) and people you share a group with (see groups below). If your network isn’t large enough you won’t find or be found by people that you want to connect to.

When you invite someone to connect, always add a personal note. The standard note is perceived as rude by some and it is better to include a reminder of how you know that person or a friendly note that you are growing your network on LinkedIn with the goal of finding a new job.

Three quick tips for growing your network:

1. Import your email address list – LinkedIn will look for matches from your address book to emails used on LinkedIn. Select contacts/add connections from the main menu and follow the steps to sign in and connect to your hotmail, gmail or other web based email client. (You can also import an address book file from email programs like Microsoft Outlook using the ‘import your desktop email contacts’ link slightly lower down on the page.)
2. Post your public profile URL onto other sites like Facebook and invite people you know to connect.
3. Browse the “People you may know” section in the top-right of the home page. This list is based on mutual connections, or groups you share with others. It becomes more accurate once you have a more complete profile.

Please note: It is a policy of LinkedIn (that you have agreed to when you signed up) that you only connect to people you know – you should ask for introductions or use the InMail feature to contact people you don’t know (InMail is available with a job seeker premium account).

Finding jobs on LinkedIn:

Create and save advanced job searches. Select jobs from the main menu and then the advanced search tab near the top. Customise the search using keywords and the tick boxes. Once you’ve done the search you will see a ‘save search’ button in the top-right; this will also offer to send you email alerts for new jobs that match your criteria daily, weekly or never if you wish to just check jobs online.

Improve your chances of finding work by getting involved and joining groups on LinkedIn – look for your university or college alumni, industry groups and professional bodies (IOD, CIMA, CIPR etc.). Answer questions within the groups to demonstrate your expertise. Some groups will also contain job listings.

Identify and follow companies for which you would like to work. If there are specific companies you would like to work for change the option next to the search box in the top-right to companies and search for the name of your target company. Once you are on the company page you will see a ‘follow’ button in the top-right hand corner. You will then be notified of any new jobs posted by this company. Some organisations monitor who is following them and, if (as above) your headline reflects that you are looking for work, they may well contact you despite having no jobs listed if they are looking for someone with your skills and experience.

If someone in your network is connected to a person who works at the chosen organisation it will show you how you are connected to this person on this page. You can ask for an introduction by clicking on that person’s picture and selecting get introduced through a connection on the right hand side of their profile page.

I really hope you found this article helpful, there are so many ways to use LinkedIn to find work and I’d love to hear any of your suggestions in the comments below.

Excellent seminar this morning on Social Media by Luke @socialtech I’d recommend his straight forward nongeek approach (@poolefamilylaw)

…I thought I’d share with you all one of my secret special training methods…

Any time I use a “buzzy word” (yuk), technical term without explanation or unnecessary acronym… I invite my clients/audience/hecklers to point it out. I keep a score, then donate £1 to charity for each one.

On Wednesday I raised £1, this make me happy.

That makes £8 in the last few months, which I’m donating to the relief effort in Pakistan + a bit more I’ll chuck in myself.

At first it was quite hard but as time’s gone on I think this simple thing has made a big difference to my workshops.

Sssshhh don’t tell anyone, ok?

It used to be that the status updates on LinkedIN were actually quite useful, to see what people were up to, get a snapshot of what they are/were working on… but alas no more.

Given the option to link a twitter account to LinkedIN (good) most people have chosen to send ALL tweets to LinkedIN (bad) rather than use the selective “#in” option which only sends selected tweets to LinkedIN (good).

The result?

The status updates are all RT’s (the twitter version of forwards) and off topic, no where near as useful as it used to be.

To me, it devalues the activity stream quite a bit – which is kind of a pity as the other things on there are still great – Q+A, groups, events…

Have you noticed this too, or is it just my network of people?

Please, if you link twitter and Facebook together use the selective updates function – make sure your messages are “fit for purpose”, does everything you tweet, really need to be on LinkedIN?

Select “edit my profile”, then click on the “edit” link next to your twitter username and select the option highlighted below.

Next time you want to send something to LinkedIn just include “#in” in your message.

Thanking you in advance… Luke.

———

Luke Williams on LinkedIN – I run 1/2 day LinkedIN courses in London and Bournemouth if you’d like to make more of this great business platform.

LinkedIn is changing its homepage quite a bit – there’s a good write up on Mashable – it’s not live for all users yet, so if you don’t see it, you will soon.

Really though, this post is more about….

Change #2

Since August, I’ve been delivering most of my training under the joint venture I set up with Web Matters (as Web Matters Training) – it’s worked very well for both of us and I’m proud to say we’ve now partnered up with 2e2 to provide a range of Social Media for Business Courses (launching in Feb ’09) based at their London (Victoria) training facility.

In line with this, I felt I should add “Trainer at Web Matters” to my LinkedIn profile, as the 2e2 venture is a partnership with WMT and it would make it clearer for anyone looking at my details via that site.

I’ll post again once the course details are live. Its a great opportunity and if it goes well, we’ll be looking to expand to their other centres around the UK – exciting times.

I have been working on a new seminar for people who want to take the first tentative steps to being their own boss and run their own small or micro business, but are worried about the risks and uncertainty involved.

I’ve certainly faced these worries myself and have found, through experience, discussion and education in the MBA programme, that there are concrete, actionable steps you can take to reduce those risks and clarify much of that uncertainty.

That’s why I have created a 2-hour seminar, aimed at giving people the confidence to take that first step. And where does that journey begin? With the idea, of course!

This low-cost, high-value seminar, Shape Your Idea: How to Find a Business Idea and Tell if it’s a Good One, will give attendees the tools and knowledge to be able to find ideas, assess and refine those ideas, value those ideas and start planning the execution of those ideas.

So if you find yourself in those uncertain shoes, you can find out more here, or register a place now. You never know, it might change your life!

Perhaps you’ve tried twitter but didn’t “get it”?

Spending too much time on twitter and not seeing any benefit?

Can’t see how to measure ROI for twitter, or to develop an effective business strategy?

You need our Twitter Training – the first of our Wednesday evening sessions.

A 2 hour hands on workshop for business (or brand) use of the micro-blogging service, twitter. Covering everything you need to know to create and manage a successful business twitter account.

More details on twitter training in Bournemouth