They show this on Hulu.com a lot. The commercial is bad, but I have to laugh every time I see.
Business
How Men Screw Up Romance
Where have I been? I’ve been Tweeting!
I haven’t posted much recently partly because I have been using Facebook and Twitter a lot lately. Most of you probably know what Facebook is, but you might be wonder what heck Twitter is…
Well, it’s a free online service that you can post 140 character long updates. Kind of like a status update, things you see or what you’re doing. One of my favorites:
“Just saw random woman walking down biz 222 with a parrot on her shoulder.”
Crazy, but I did actually see that a couple of weeks ago!
You can do a lot of things with these updates. I use it to change my Facebook status. There is an app on Facebook for this. There is supposedly one for MySpace too, but I can’t seem to get it work. Another API I use is from Twitterfeed. This allows me to tweet (the act of postin on twitter) the headlines of my blog posts. I do this for both my personal and business blogs. So, I manually/randomly tweet as well as automatically tweet when TwitterFeed sends my latest blog entries to Twitter. Then this all also updates my Facebook status.
Now, all this isn’t even the most intersting part. Within Twitter people can follow and you can follow other people. That doesn’t mean if I follow you, you have to follow me. However, you shouldn’t just follow people willy nilly. Like anything there should be a reason: ie, they are in the same industry, you know them already.. you get the picture. What it means is you receive updates from the people you are following and vice verse. Right I’m following 25 and actually 25 prople are following me. Two of the people I’m following you may actually know. Lance Armstrong and Guy Kawasaki.
If you and someone else are both following each other you can then have conversations. There is an option to reply to what someone says: @reply. Or you can message them directly. So, what happens is, people have conversations.
You might be asking.. What’s the point? Well, I’m using it as another way to get my company name out there and find like minded people: Entrepreneurs, people interesting in social media, localizaion professionals, freelance translators. To name a few. One of the great things about it is that you can connect with people that you may otherwise never have had the chance to connect with.
You can check me out on Twitter by clicking on the Twitter button on the right side of the page. You can also set up your own account through the button if you don’t have one already.
The next step for me is to set up a central place for all my blog entries, twitter posts and other online activity. I know there are apps out there to do this. I just have to find the right one and get it done!
Does your online presence help your career?
Many of us have heard stories about someone that lost their job, didn’t get a job or even didn’t get their teaching certificate because of something that was posted online. Whether you use MySpace, Facebook, a blog or you just have a website about yourself. It’s a big joke to Google yourself. It may sound arrogant or self fulfilling, but you might want to check it out.
Careerbuilder.com recently posted and article on their sight One-in-Five Employers Use Social Networking Sites to Research Job Candidates, CareerBuilder.com Survey Finds. Surprised? Don’t be! It is becoming more and more prevalent that employers will check out potential candidates online. It’s happened to me too. Before I decided to go out on my own I was running my business on the side as a part-time consulting gig. I had an interview with another company and in the middle of the interview the interviewer asked me, out of the blue, “So, what’s Blackbird e-Solutions?” I was prepared for something like this to happen because I track and control what is online about me.
According to CareerBuilder.com 34% of the hiring managers they surveyed said that they found content online that caused them to dismiss the candidate. Here’s how it breaks down:
- 41% – candidate posted information about them drinking or using drugs
- 40% – candidate posted provocative or inappropriate photographs or information
- 29% – candidate had poor communication skills
- 28% – candidate bad-mouthed their previous company or fellow employee
- 27% – candidate lied about qualifications
- 22% – candidate used discriminatory remarks related to race, gender, religion, etc.
- 22% – candidate’s screen name was unprofessional
- 21% – candidate was linked to criminal behavior
- 19% – candidate shared confidential information from previous employers
But there is still hope. 24% said that they found something that helped them make their decision and they chose the candidate:
- 48% – candidate’s background supported their qualifications for the job
- 43% – candidate had great communication skills
- 40% – candidate was a good fit for the company’s culture
- 36% – candidate’s site conveyed a professional image
- 31% – candidate had great references posted about them by others
- 30% – candidate showed a wide range of interests
- 29% – candidate received awards and accolades
- 24% – candidate’s profile was creative
Careerbuilder.com also gives some tips for how to keep your presence professional and clean:
1) Clean up digital dirt. Make sure to remove pictures, content and links that can send the wrong message to a potential employer before you start your job search.
2) Update your profile regularly. Make sure to include specific accomplishments, inside and outside of work.
3) Monitor comments. Since you can’t control what other people say on your site, you may want to use the “block comments” feature.
4) Join groups selectively. While joining a group with a fun or silly name may seem harmless, “Party Monsters R Us” may not give the best impression to a hiring manager. Also be selective about who you accept as “friends.”
5) Go private. Consider setting your profile to “private,” so only designated friends can view it.
So, the lesson is go out and have fun with social networking, but make sure you monitor what is actually out there. You never know who is looking…
Really tired of “SEO Pros” from India friending me on Facebook!!
So, as many of you know I’m on Facebook. I use it for personal and professional reasons. So, I keep getting friend requests from people who work for some company in India. I’m not going to dignify them by giving their name or a link either, because that would just help them. They know who they are! But, anyway… What they do is friend you and if you accept they start chatting with you and throw a bunch of web addresses at you and then start asking for outsourced SEO projects. It’s really agressive and quite frankly annoying! And by the way.. the site is crap. The English on the site is very poor.
I made the mistake, twice now, of accepting the friend request. Dumb I know. The second time was a bit better. The person on the other end could kind understand what I was saying.. I think. The first one’s English was so bad he didn’t know that I was taking the piss out of him… or US English “making fun of him” 😉 …
So, seriously. If you are a self proclaimed “SEO Pro” from India.. don’t waste your time trying to friend me. Got it???