Build a Professional Reputation with Social Networking
After graduate school, I got my first job from an advertisement in the newspaper. In those days, professional, high paying jobs were listed side by side with the clerical, adminsitrative, and manual labor opportunities. And when I hired my first employee a few years later, I looked there, and then on www.Monster.com
But I don’t use those resources today. Whether I am looking for clients or employees, I use social networking to expand my professional reputation and attract people to my company.
I found a great post on Expediant Means on how to do just that. Here are a few of the authors suggestions.
- Move beyond your resume. Establish yourself on Linkedin and build your network. Ask for recommendations, join and be active in groups that match your expertise and interests.
- Start a blog. Leverage what you get paid to do at work and connect it to your passions on your blog.
- One word, Twitter. People who are active on Twitter are very well connected. They really “get it” when it comes to social media and are interested in helping people, not just stroking their egos.
- Set-up a FriendFeed conversation.
- Promote, promote, promote. Communicate with your network to drive traffic to your sites and elicit comments and interests
To this list I would add Build, Build, Build your lists. When you go to conferences or networking events, invite others to connect to you, follow you on Friendfied or Twitter, and post to your blog. Reach out and do the same for them, and create a truely interactive relationship.
This is a great posting that covers many things that seem to help a lot. There are many people who are scared by some of this type of stff however. What is the best way for them to overcome these fears be they with technology or with the networking? My suggestion is to just get out there and do it! You will learn how to get better as you go and there are definitely ways that you can also learn from experts in these areas. Also, make sure to use free resources as well like smallerindiana.com and other similar resources!
Graham,
I completely agree about the getting out and doing it! A year ago all of this was pretty intimidating and I just keep writing and writing and trying different things. Some work better then others, and those are the ones I repeat!