Sirona Says

Transformers 3?: Twitter Autobots Vs Spam Decepticons

The other day I went to see a truly awesome film - Transformers 2. Yes, it is escapism, cheesy and full of unadulterated action, but it is a great way to spend two and a half hours!

For those of you who are not transformer fans, it is a classic story of good Vs evil - the good  Autobots (led by Optimus Prime) Vs the evil  Decepticons (led by Megatron).

I just wonder, did the creator - Simon Furman - of The Transformers see the vision of Twitter or Facebook or spamming many years ago, just interpreting it in a creative way?
No, I haven't lost the plot here......just think about it for the moment.

What is currently the scourge of Twitter and Facebook? Spammers and merciless internet marketers!
They try to get us to part with money for the latest, quickest, 'guaranteed' way to make money, or they try and get all our bank details. They use many different ways to 'trick us' into clicking on their links - and, to be fair, some of them are very clever. While there are a few genuinely useful products out there, the majority are just deceptive money making schemes and malicious ways to gain access to your computer to take over the world!  I give you the Decepticons! 

In defence of the 'evil force' are Optimus Prime's 'Autobots'. They are all the automated tools that Twitter, Facebook, email systems and Firewalls etc use every day to try and stop the invasion of the 'evil' spammers and marketers - the 'Decepticons'.

Either side wins battles but every single day this battle rages on relentlessly.

Twitter has inadvertently helped the rise of these 'Decepticons', with the desire to produce ever shortening URL's like bit.ly, tinyurl etc. so that Twitter users can cram more into their 140 character limit. These have helped direct people to  websites that they wouldn't previously have gone near, and this, unfortunately, will only get worse.

The Autobots will fight back and will find ways of stopping them.....until the next time, and the next and the next. For the future of Twitter and the internet, we all need them to win more battles than they lose!

Can you afford not to be at the Social Media in Recruitment conference?

Last month saw the first Social Recruiting Summit in the Google offices in Mountainview, California. This month sees a UK conference - Social Media in Recruitment -  dedicated to using social media within recruitment, on the 16th July 2009 at the British Library in London.. It has been put together by Mike Taylor from Web Based Recruitment, and the subject matter being discussed includes:

• An overview of Social Media including social networking sites,
  blogs and podcasts
• How social networking sites such as Facebook can be used to get messages to your target audience
• How to use LinkedIn to promote your vacancies and source new candidates
• How to use Twitter, TwitterJobSearch.com and the Job Search Engines for recruitment
• The legal issues re the use of social media web sites
• Using online video to promote your company and your job  vacancies
• How to put together a social media strategy for your company
• The future - taking social media to the next level

Are you going on the 16th? 

If you are, let me know - it would be great to meet you there.

Is this what Twitter has become?

From the excellent Hubspot......

Is Twitter now becoming more akin to Robbie the Robot?

For me, it IS about interacting and engaging with people - is it the same for you?

Social Media at the EGBA

If you are in East Grinstead, West Sussex on the 24th June, then you may want to pay a visit here...
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I am doing a presentation on social media for business:

9.30    Using Social Media such as, Twitter, Facebook and Blogs – to grow your business
Sirona Social Media specialises in helping small businesses understand what social media means to them, and how they can use social media marketing to help them grow their business. Social Media like Twitter, Facebook and Blogs can be powerful business tools that should be a part of an online marketing strategy. They will help you further build your brand, engage with your community and drive new customer traffic to your website.
The presentation will be an overview of what social media is, as well as demonstrating how a business can make it part of their sales and marketing strategy.

So if you are around, come along - it will be worthwhile!!

Are you following me on Twitter? According to Career Rocketeer, you should be : )

I was very pleasantly surprised this week, to find out that I had been included on a "150 people you must follow on Twitter list", by the great website Career Rocketeer! Thanks guys!

They have compiled a list for people seeking career advice or job opportunities, developing your personal brand, taking the next step in your career or simply just want to keep track of news and updates from the career industry, Career Rocketeer has compiled and presents the ultimate, definitive list of who you should be following on Twitter, including authors and bloggers of and coaches and experts in personal branding and marketing, career and job searching, networking, social media, resume writing and more.

So if you want to take the obvious advice of Career Rocketeer and follow me on Twitter (!) then follow me at @andyheadworth

Essential tips for job seekers using LinkedIn to find a job

With jobless totals still rising, there is seemingly less advice (of the quality variety anyway) being given to job seekers. One thing that is surprising for me, is that many more people still don't use -and even worse- don't even know about the business networking site LinkedIn.
It is a great site to project yourself in the working environment, and while it may well be populated by large numbers of recruiters (a big criticism in the US I hear), is that such a bad thin when you are trying to find a job?

I have already written a LinkedIn beginners guide( Download LinkedIn for beginners here)  that will help all the LinkedIn newbies get started, but I just wanted to highlight a few tips that I find myself sharing with job seeking friends on a regular basis at the moment.

So here are my key tips for using LinkedIn to help job seekers looking for a job:

1. Don't sign up with LinkedIn unless you are committed to spend some time making it work. Networking is about investing your time, and if that is something that doesn't interest you, or you can't be bothered, then stop now, buy a book and sit on the beach all summer waiting for a job to come your way! (You will have a long wait!)
2. Profile. This is absolutely essential and something that you shouldn't take lightly. It should effectively be your online CV, and with this - unlike a paper cv - make sure you upload a decent looking photo  (headshot) of yourself. Make sure you have all the correct dates for your work history, and that it reads well with NO TYPO's! Don't forget, many employers check for online profiles before they interview people (whether they should, is a different conversation!), so you don't want any glaring mistakes making their decision for them.
3. You need to expand your LinkedIn network with as many people that know as possible. Get all you business cards out, go through your email contacts and spend some time writing down all the people you have interacted with, directly and indirectly. Then search for them on LinkedIn and invite them to your network. Size matters with LinkedIn - the bigger your network, then the bigger you 2nd and 3rd level search network will be. For example I have 872 connections which makes my overall search network 15,500,000 - quite a powerful tool isn't it?
4. HOT TIP! Make sure you join a number of the groups (that are relevant to your sector), as these will become part fo your search zone as well. Many groups can be joined simple by requesting to join. Once accepted (usually very quickly) the people in that group will become part of your search network!
5. Make sure you tell people that you are actually looking for a new job. You have two opportunities to do this on LinkedIn -in your personal profile, where you can explain what you are (by red line in example), and then in the status section (by green line) where you can update you statuses as often as you like. It may sound obvious, but if people don't know you are available, then they won't talk to you about opportunities!
   
6. Ask current/previous colleagues for recommendations. Fortunately, LinkedIn makes this easy, and takes you through this process well by prompting you. This is a great way of adding to your credibility, and your online profile by showing your strengths, and the fact you were a valued employee (well hopefully anyway!). Also if you are/were a manager, recommendations from your staff is as equally powerful.
7. Use the power of LinkedIn to help you find the people you need to speak to. Hopefully you will have highlighted a number of companies that you want to work for (if not, don't worry, I will cover this aspect soon in this blog). These may be entirely new companies to you, and you will have no names to start with. There are three things to do next:
   
   • Look at the 'company profiles' of the companies you want to work for. Find out what the background are of the people who work there. Have you got similar skills?
   • Find out where current employees have previously worked - check their profiles - have you worked for a similar company?
   • Find the names of hiring managers, or HR staff that work there. You probably will have to contact them offline, but having the contact name will be a great start.
8. Do it now! If you are currently working, don't wait for you to become unemployed to start using LinkedIn, start now! Build your network before you need it, then when you need it, it will be one less area to get started.

LinkedIn is a brilliant tool, and combined with other social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, it then becomes a very powerful tool to help find a job.
Don't forget to link up with me, if you haven't already done so - I will happily accept!

Why do you like using social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter?

Social networks are no longer the preserve of generation Y'ers, or the younger generation Z'ers. While they may have started with that in mind, now the demographics of the social networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are changing, and they are changing fast.
There was a time when if you mentioned social networks to people of a certain age (anyone over 30!), their eyes would roll and glaze over. This would be combined with a response of something like,"don't talk to me about those things, they are no good to me".
Well it seems that the 30+ age groups now think differently:

The fastest growing demographic on Facebook is the 35-44 year olds, closely followed by the 55+ year olds


The fastest growing demographic on Twitter is the 35-49 year olds

So if you are a generation X'er  like me, you fit inside one of these demographics, then (like me) you are probably using social media sites like Facebook and Twitter more than you ever have done. But why? And why is there also many people within these age groups flocking to the sites in a similar way?

Well, before you get excited and think I can give you the magic answer I can't (although I wish I could!!) All I can suggest some of the reasons why I use them more. Everyone will have their own ideas and reasons and I would like to hear yours, but just to get started, here are some of my reasons why I love the social media networking sites:

1. It started as a curiosity - a sort of 'what is all the hype about' approach. I started with LinkedIn two years ago, using it as a tool for my consulting business. Then Facebook and Twitter followed last year - and as a person that likes to build relationships for business etc I became an evangeliser very quickly when I saw how great these sites are for that.
2. They are all great for business. I find that I use LinkedIn, Facebook and particularly Twitter for building new business relationships and identifying new opportunities. I have met some fantastic contacts on these sites, that I would never have got access to otherwise.
3. Fonts of knowledge. They really are a tremendous source of mind blowing amounts of information. The recruitment /HR/ consulting space is well catered fro on all the networks, and the links, websites, ebooks, interviews, product knowledge etc etc that people post on these sites is just brilliant.
4. Sharing. It gives me the chance to really share information tips, experiences, contacts etc with a whole diversity of people around the globe. This blog is read worldwide, and I love being able to share my opinions and advice with many people - and the social networks just help me do that. Getting 'thank you's' from job seekers in America, Canada and New Zealand, really does make me feel good, and just drives me on further to share more.
5. Access to people you wouldn't normally get anywhere close to. Social media has broken down many barriers within the business world (and the celebrity world of course), and it allows 'normal' individuals to enter dialogue with high profile individuals that previously would have been out of bounds. Of course you still have to go about it in the right way, and make contact in a correct and respectful way, but at least you have a chance to engage with them. They may of course choose to ignore you, but hey, they did that before didn't they??
6. Engaging. Contrary to what people think about social networking - they are very engaging, and it both allows and facilitates conversation, relationships and opportunity.
7. It is fun!!

So as a generation X'er  who sits firmly in the 35-44 year old demographic ( I will let you guess which end!) I am thoroughly enjoying using social networking sites, and I am always open to exploring new ones.

What about you?

What do you like about social media?

Is this what happens with Twitter, Facebook and Blogging?

Guy Kawasaki's excellent Twitter as a Business Twool presentation

I came across this over lunch today, and really felt it was worth sharing with you all, especially if you are new to Twitter and are trying to get your head around it!  It is from the brilliant Guy Kawasaki, the well respected innovator.

It is a presentation by him showing how Twitter is a breat business twool and should be used so accordingly. And if you are not using Twitter for your business yet, now is the time to ask youself why not! 

Enjoy.

Have you started using Twitter yet? If not why not? If you, are then you can follow me at @andyheadworth

Ten Ways to use Facebook to find a job

There are many tools out there in the social media space, and you could be confused by trying to cover all of them - especially if you have recently lost your job and need to find a new one. But for me it is about getting a balance with using a smaller number social media tools that stand the most chance of being effective AND suit you to engage with on a regular basis.
So for me they are LinkedIn, Twitter, Blogging and of course Facebook. This then gives you an even spread across the business focused LinkedIn, the immediacy and 'freshness of Twitter', the personal brand building of blogging and the social networking that is Facebook.

Up until recently Facebook has been the preserve of social networking only, with any overt activity on the job front being somewhat frowned upon. However, two things have changed that - the first being the recession and the need for many people to find new employment, and second, the sheer speed at which Facebook is growing globally - literally millions every week! So now individuals, companies and recruiters are becoming more focused on using Facebook, both from candidate searching and job finding perspective..

I have looked at how you can use Facebook in the most effective way to to help job seekers find a job, and recruiters find the job seeker - both of which are very important in the proactive part of the job marketplace.
So here are ten ways to use Facebook to find a job:

1. Don't forget the public nature of Facebook
While I am sure you do appreciate the public nature of information on the internet, don't forget that just because you are looking for a job. You must assume that everything you write is available for public consumption, and that means any future employers. Many companies now do some internet searching and check the validity of their future employees - yes I know they will all tell you they don't, but I can confidently tell you that's rubbish, they do!
So if you have a profile on LinkedIn and other sites, make sure they all tell the same story! Also make sure your details are all accurate. As I tell everyone, don't put anything on your online profile that you wouldn't want an employer to see.

2. Pimp your profile.
You need to ensure that you have a full profile, and that it reads akin to a CV or Resume.What you must remember is that when companies or recruiters are searching for candidates, they are 'conditioned' to view prospective candidates in a traditional way (right or wrong). So in the art of stating the obvious - give them what they expect.
It is important to highlight your assets and project an accurate representation of yourself. Make sure your education history is correct, with correct dates; your employment history need to be correct, again with correct dates - and just in case you think you can get away with changing the dates, don't even bother - it is very easy to check! ; list any volunteer work or work done through your degree (sandwich courses); check your group memberships  -you may want to remove some of the more 'seemed fun at the time' groups you joined - would you want an employer to see them?