Social Networking

Social Media After a Layoff, by Laura Wadzinski

Posted on April 9, 2010

A few months ago, I had a conversation with Laura, whom I’ve worked with in the past, about her recent job search experience. She had been part of a layoff, and her description of how social media had played into her job search struck me as something the Geek Girls Guide audience might be interested in. Sure, there’s the requisite “using LinkedIn to network” kind of angle, but what was truly unique to me was how social media (namely the Group feature on both Facebook and LinkedIn) had allowed this group of people to remain connected with each other long after the layoff was over.

In my own past, I’ve worked at a couple of advertising agencies where layoffs are a part of life. Lose a big client, and everyone braces themselves for the axe to fall. After a day of layoffs, both those who were let go and those who weren’t would generally meet at a bar somewhere and commisserate. And that’s about where it would end.

But that was before social media gave us the ability to organize ourselves on the fly. And Laura’s story illustrates how a group of people — like the ones let go from her company — can self-organize to continue to provide support to each other long after the layoff.

One of the books I highly recommend to anyone interested in learning more about what social media from a sociological (vs. tactical) perspective is Clay Shirky’s “Here Comes Everybody.” (Nancy likes to make fun of my for my Shirky fangirl tendencies, but what can I say?! Dude is brilliant.) The subtitle of his book is “The Power of Organizing Without Organizations” and Laura’s story below illustrates that point perfectly.

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This fall I suddenly and unexpectedly lost my job when my position as an interactive marketing planner was eliminated as part of a massive layoff. As you would imagine (or maybe you know) the days immediately following were extremely confusing and humbling. I know how to maximize every minute of a 50-hour week job and manage a household, but I felt paralyzed and unsure how to prioritize what to do first, next, or not at all after the layoff.

I began telling myself that I was well-equipped to attack the impending job search. After all, a job search is the equivalent of developing a marketing plan, of which I’ve spent the bulk of my career in practice. Furthermore, in my most recent position, I was responsible for developing online media strategy (including the use of social networks) for executive recruitment at my company. So I kept telling myself “I know how to work this thing”. Then I’d freeze up again.

Within a few days I had my resume updated and was ready to start connecting with my network of friends and former colleagues to help me identify job leads. The support, information and leads I have received from my established networks on Facebook and LinkedIn have been, and continue to be, incredibly beneficial.

As tactically-focused as I tried to be, there were moments when I couldn’t get through checking my pages without being brought to tears. Somebody I knew well, or even casually would tell me how sorry they were, tell me I was talented, offer up where they had connections, or ask for my resume so they could pass it along. The thoughts, the kindness, the offers affected me profoundly. The support and validation from my professional and social networks was as important as the job leads themselves. I expected some of the kind words and support. My networks are full of my friends.

What I did not expect was the creation and appearance of a unique group on both Facebook and LinkedIn. The groups were created by, and for, those individuals that were part of the layoff. I joined the groups, and would describe them as part job lead swap, and part support group. When a member comes across a job lead that isn’t a fit for them, they post it. Usually with an accompanying offer of an introduction to their connection and/or a recommendation.

Recruiters and curious outsiders began requesting entrance to the group and it was put to vote. Some people felt that the more accessible and visible our job search content was, the better (really great point). However, a majority voted for the Facebook group to stay closed so that we had a confidential and mutually understood place to go, so regardless of whether that day we needed a job lead, a place to vent, or a discussion thread about how to best navigate our severance benefits, it was a safe place to be. If an unrecognized request to join came through, the group administrator sent it out to the group so someone could vouch. There actually was a recruiter that got in on the first couple of days before the vote and she graciously announced that she would leave and connect with us on Linked In. We did vote to open the Linked In group to anyone who wanted to help with leads and connections.

The most important thing I learned about using social media in my job search is how powerful it is in delivering qualified job leads. It helped me avoid the atrophy of sifting through hundreds of openings that were not interesting, or that weren’t a good fit or that I didn’t have a connection to help me get in. When I did pursue leads, I was going in for my interviews with a recommendation from the connection who had posted the lead.

I also was reminded why I love working in the interactive media space. It is filled with so many smart, supportive, generous, creative people. Thank you.

Laura Wadzinski is a Client Services Manager at The Lacek Group. She has led strategic planning and project management both on the agency side and on the corporate side.

Podcast #4: MPR Technology Follow Up

Posted on December 8, 2009

I had the pleasure of talking to Kerri Miller on the Midmorning show on MPR this morning. (You can listen to the show here.) Her guest was Robert Stephens and I was a call-in guest for a short part of the hour. It is so hard to even try to touch technology in an hour’s worth of time. It’s even harder to speak to the cultural impact of technology in short bytes. We try to do all of that here on the Geek Girl’s Guide. But we try to do it in a way that encourages very broad participation. We want to open this up to audiences that may not normally be included in a conversation about technology. Of course when I finished the interview my head was spinning. The only logical thing to do was to keep talking to Meghan about the ideas we’d only touched on in the on-air chat. Here’s the resulting podcast. Enjoy!

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The New Face of Networking

Posted on November 1, 2009

Recently a financial services provider for Clockwork (the Geek Girls have day jobs at Clockwork) sent a note asking us where we network for business. I assume our contact was hoping to meet other small business owners like us and thinking that attending such events would be the best way to do that. Without thinking I started to answer, but it was tougher than I thought to come up with any kind of meaningful list of networking events that I attend regularly to connect with business contacts. I stopped trying and simply responded that the majority of significant connections I’ve made over the last few years have been made via social networking. In fact, I had tweeted only days prior that I was struggling with a particular experience with this financial services provider and, while I received several responses from competitors, I heard nothing from anyone from the brand itself. It was unfortunate, actually, because this is no small brand. In fact it’s huge. The idea that they seem to have a very minimal (if they have one at all) social marketing presence seems sort of backwards.

Later that day I did an informational interview with a freelancer looking to make new business connections for new work. While discussing her desire to find new opportunities and people in my network with whom I could connect her, I asked the question, ‘What are you doing with social?’ She responded by admitting, as so many people do, that she didn’t really see the usefulness of it — especially Twitter. I suggested that Twitter might actually be a very valuable tool in her quest for connections because, via Twitter, she’d have access to people she never would have opportunity to meet in any other setting.

Both of these conversations got me thinking about how some business and professional individuals still view social media. They see it as too much ‘social’, there’s not enough business value. The Geek Girls always say that we’re not here to sell our readers on social media. But I would suggest that those among you who still think it’s mostly fluff, might want to look start ‘listening’. Tune in to those people on Twitter that you know and respect in a professional capacity and then start to leverage their networks. See who they follow and start listening to more peripheral conversations. If you’re curious you should know that Twitter doesn’t work like Facebook because you can follow just about anyone. And if you decide to participate you have that option, as long as you are contributing in a relevant, authentic way. In essence, you can leverage your contacts’ networks to determine those among them that could be beneficial for you to know and, ultimately, introduce yourself to them and participate in conversations with them. It requires an investment of time and attention. But the opportunity is not insignificant.

When the Geek Girls are out talking to people about technology and social media I often talk about how we have opportunities to be better friends because of the connections social networks have enabled for us. I know that I am a better friend because of what these services bring to my relationships. Life is busy. Being a mom and a professional and a person with interests, social networks have allowed me to connect and reconnect with my friends on my terms. It may be late at night, I might be exhausted or in my pajamas, but I can make contact with my friends, catch up on their lives and their families and the things that are important to them, and remind them again that I care and I’m here. But these sorts of interactions are not reserved for our personal lives only. We can also make and foster new connections for business. And I would suggest that business networking is equally as difficult for some in real life for some of the same reasons. Using a tool like Twitter gives us access to people we need on our terms. We can learn from them, converse with them, make an impression on them, perhaps even influence them, all on our own time and our own terms. Perhaps even late at night in our pajamas.

I can join and participate in my professional associations, but my free time is so rare and so valuable that the events they produce really have to provide some serious value. Getting a babysitter or coordinating with the rest of my family or sacrificing family time or the time I need to actually get my work done are all difficult prospects. I am not alone. Most people I know are very selective about the traditional networking and continuing education events they attend. But when you consider the potential that social media offers, suddenly you’re confronted with the idea that there are now, for the first time ever, far fewer than six degrees separating each of us from just about anybody.

Don’t get me wrong, the Geek Girl’s also say that, whether you’re a brand trying to have a presence for social marketing, or a person trying to engage with friends, family or professional connections, we do not recommend that social networks take the place of real-time interaction. Social media is ‘in addition to’, not ‘instead of’. But wow, the potential for access and first contact is huge. Where you go from there is up to you. Don’t discount this social revolution on the web. It’s moving like this because there really is something to it. My recommendation is — start listening and see what you hear. And, if you’re the financial services provider I mention earlier in this post — call me. I’ve got a few tips for you.

Get A Life – Be A Facebook Fan

Posted on August 16, 2009

Recently a Facebook friend of mine noted in his status message that JCPenney’s fan page had over 43,000 fans. He received several comments on the post, one of which suggested that this number was proof that people on Facebook ‘have no life’. That comment got me thinking about why, in fact, it was important for JCPenney to establish this fan page (which, by the way, currently boasts more than 487,000 fans) and why those people that identify as fans actually do have lives — relatively thoughtful lives, in fact. It should be acknowledged that I am *not* a documented Facebook fan of JCPenney’s. I have no real attachment to the retail chain or the brand and I don’t do any work for them. But it is worth examining what value JCPenney could see from a Facebook fan page, and why Facebook members would want to make their brand interest and loyalty official.

Its funny how people that are *on* Facebook could actually call out other members of Facebook for having ‘no life.’ We all have our own reasons for being there, and when we joined the network, I doubt we expected that one of those reasons would be to declare our loyalty or interest in one, or many, brands. But the fact of the matter is – brands are recognizing the importance of ‘going where the people are’. And if current stats are correct – the population of Facebook makes it the 4th largest country on the globe. You can’t deny the sheer penetration of Facebook as a brand and a service. The opportunity to get in front of millions of users in short order surpasses that of any other medium.

Let’s face it, the past couple of years have been rough on people all over the world. The global economy has taken a dramatic nosedive and people don’t know which end is up or when they can expect things to turn around. Consumers need more than their base desires to influence purchases. They need a *reason* to buy. And they need a reason to choose one retailer over another. Only 14% of people actually believe advertising (according to Marketing To The Social Web by Larry Weber). The rest of the population needs something else. They need to trust products and brands. They need endorsements from real people, trusted friends and colleagues. They need relationships with brands. We don’t spend money as easily as we did a few years ago. We need reasons to part with our hard earned cash. Connecting with a brand on Facebook gives us the opportunity to have these kinds of relationships.

Connecting with brands in the social space is a two-way street. As a consumer, I enjoy that sense of exclusivity. I am part of this test audience to run ads by, or to extend special, Facebook-only offers to. Perhaps I am informed of sales and limited product roll-outs early. Or maybe I just see next season’s back-to-school line before the general public. I have an opportunity to plan ahead for shopping, perhaps set aside cash instead of tapping into credit. Whatever the case, because I have this relationship with a brand, in this case, JCPenney, I am a more active consumer, versus passive — someone waiting until I need something and then heading to the closest retailer to get it, or the retailer that dominates the market in which I reside. Because my experience with that brand is likely to be integrated into my experience with Facebook, I can participate in brand conversations, even passively, several times a day. JCPenney has nearly a half million fans currently. That leaves the potential for engagement with hundreds of thousands of consumers at least once every single day.And when you consider that a fan page is free — the investment is really around resources. The conversations themselves are already happening. Facebook is just another channel for consumer conversations. The primary difference being these conversations have the potential to be two way. And, and this really critical, consumers can contribute to the public conversation. The brand is on the hook to be exactly who they say they are. Because if they aren’t truly authentic, consumers will call them out in this very public space.

The brand benefits too. They have a captive audience. They can monitor conversations they start. There’s viral potential around the content they put out. They are actively invited into the social experience of their constituency. They have opportunities to change audience perceptions around the brand. For instance – in the case of JCPenney, the conversation that ensued as a result of this Facebook commentary on the fan page was around private label blue jeans brands. Like Sears had Toughskins. It was news to me, but apparently JC Penney had a private label brand of their own. The comment centered around this group of friends and their history of experiences with the brand. But the brand has evolved. Those private label brands are no longer synonymous with low quality and JCPenney having a presence on Facebook gives them an opportunity to revise audience impressions of the brand and correlating products. This isn’t your mother’s JCPenney. This retail chain is all grown up. They are in tune with consumer expectations around trends, quality and price. And through their presence on Facebook they have opportunity to tell that story day after day.

This is really just the tip of the iceberg in terms of addressing the value to the consumer and the value to the brand. Once the conversation starts it is perpetuated by all of the players. But we aren’t so far away from brands any more that they aren’t listening to us, and we aren’t influencing how they evolve. One could actually argue that those people that signed on as Facebook fans of JCPenney early in this game really did have lives. In fact, they probably lead relatively thoughtful lives and hopefully are using these social connections to extend that thoughtfulness to their buying behavior.

The Five-Minute Guide to Monitoring Twitter

Posted on July 9, 2009

In a meeting last week, I was talking about social media (surprise!) and urging those present to listen to the social networks. We often say that — when it comes to social networks — participation is optional, but listening is critical. I promised that if we had five minutes to spare at the end of the meeting I’d show them how to monitor Twitter for their brand and URLs. (I did go over my five minutes, but only because their wireless connection was painfully slow!)

A few days later, I tweeted about my lesson and was barraged with requests to post instructions. So, with that, here is my five-minute Twitter monitoring guide:

1. Get an RSS Reader
RSS has got to be the least understood and most underutilized technology at the moment. Enough with the blank stares, y’all: RSS will change your life! You can read my three part series on how to get started with RSS if you haven’t started using it already (ten bucks says you’re probably using it via Yahoo! or Google and don’t even know it yet).

Anyway, to take the best advantage of my next two steps you’re going to want to have an RSS reader to monitor a couple of feeds. Bloglines is free and easy; you should be able to get an account set up in a few minutes.

2. Twitter Search
Visit search.twitter.com and enter in whatever terms you want to keep an eye on. Do this one term at a time. The search box works a lot like Google (put quotation marks around words or phrases that you want to do an exact search on). So, to monitor for Geek Girls Guide, I enter “geek girls guide”. Twitter also has some handy search guidelines here.

When you get back your search results, you’ll see an RSS icon on the far right of the address bar. Click that, and you’ll be taken to the feed page. Copy the URL from the address bar, and paste it into your RSS reader (if you’re using Bloglines, you’d click the Add link to add a new feed and paste the URL into the displayed field).

Add a feed to Bloglines

Rinse, lather and repeat for all the different words and phrases you want to keep track of.

Start with as many as you can think of; you can always remove low-value search terms from your RSS reader later. For example, I get a lot of value monitoring the “geek girls guide” search but much less value for the “geek girls” search (because many people use the words geek girls and they’re not always talking about Nancy and I!).

3. BackTweets
There are probably other services that do the same thing (and feel free to mention them in the comments) but I use BackTweets to monitor tweets for the url geekgirlsguide.com. The thing I love is that it also keeps track of links to my site that are “hidden” inside of shortened URLs (see below if you don’t know what that means).

Again, on the search results page, you’ll see the RSS icon. Click that, copy the feed URL and paste it into your RSS reader.

UPDATE January 2011: BackTweets no longer offers a free service. It’s $100/month (!!!). If you have discovered other free services that monitor links within tweets, I’m all ears!

Voila! You are now monitoring a social network. Nice work! Let me know how it goes.

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What are shortened URLs?
There are several URL shortening services that allow you to enter a long URL (like: http://www.geekgirlsguide.com/blog/2008/09/05/24/geek_chic_of_the_week_rss_part_i) and get back a small URL (like: http://is.gd/1rR6S). The small, shortened URL redirects to the same place as your long, ugly URL.

Why do people use them?
It’s nice for people who are sharing links because if you’re emailing a link to a friend you know the URL won’t wrap into several lines of the email and become unusable, or — if you’re tweeting — it doesn’t take up too many of your precious 140 characters. The most well-known service is probably TinyURL, but there are many others (my favorite is is.gd).

Doing Social Media “Right”

Posted on July 7, 2009

When we launched the Geek Girls Guide, we didn’t realize that we’d be talking so much about social media. But, at this point, it’s the topic that everyone wants to discuss. Recently, someone referred to Nancy and I as “social media experts.” That label makes me shudder.

Here’s the thing: the web has always been social. AOL, chatrooms, the BBSes of yore, all of these were ways for people to use technology to connect with other people. So none of this is really “new” — it’s just that the tools and technology are more accessible than they’ve ever been.

Back in the day, it was just us geeks talking to each other. Now our moms and grandmas are here, too! And because of that — because more people than ever are using these tools — this is all new. No one has really figured out how to do social media “right” as a company or business. What’s the right mix? What kind of investment is needed? How can companies engage effectively? Who is in “charge” of social media within a given company? How can it be measured? We’re all learning. So as far as I’m concerned, there are no social media “experts.”

The companies that are in the best position to take advantage of experimenting with social media tactics are small companies. They’re nimble, not constrained by the beauracracy of large organizations, and are — generally — less afraid to try new things (because, of course, the risk of public failure is lower than with a huge company).

With that in mind, I came across this blog recently (via Geek Girls’ pal Sharyn Morrow) and thought it was a beautifully simple example of how a company can do social media “right.” It’s not totally perfect, but they are doing many things well. And I commend them for jumping in.

The blog (ATTN: Anna’s True Thai News) is for one of my all-time favorite Minneapolis restaurants, True Thai (Seriously, if you ever go there get the kabocha squash curry. Trust me.) and here’s what I think they’re doing well:

1. Tying it all together.
They link to their blog and Twitter accounts on their homepage. Nicely done. (Even better if you can integrate your blog seamlessly into your site, but if you’re doing-it-yourself at least linking from your homepage is a great step.)

The Twitter profile links to the blog, and I think they should link to the main web site (because it’s hard to find the main web site from the blog) but overall they’ve done a good job or making sure that all of their social media tactics are tied together (blog, Twitter, Flickr).

2. Having some personality.
The link to Anna’s blog from the True Thai homepage says, “The queen of all curries commands you to read her blog.” It’s charming and fun. What’s not to like?

3. Updating regularly, but not obsessively.
The blog has a a new post every few days. Even better is that the posts actually say something of value.

Their tweets are more sparse, but also packed with value (like an alert that the closest highway was closed and customers would need to take an alternate route).

4. Talking like a human.
Reading the blog and looking at the photos on Flickr give you a sense of Anna’s personality, which makes you feel more connected to the restaurant.

5. Inviting dialogue.
What gave me the idea to write about True Thai’s blog was this post on the difficulty of serving vegan/vegetarian food. Anna is up front about her challenge as a restaurant owner, and is opening a dialogue with people. This is the whole point of social media: to facilitiate and participate in conversations with the audiences that are important to you.

And how about this – an APOLOGY for an evening on which the restaurant was understaffed! How many times have you had crap service at a restaurant? Can you even imagine the restaurant owner apologizing for it publicly and explaining to you why that happened? I wasn’t there that evening, but this apology post — just like the personal “voice” in the posts I mentioned earlier — makes me feel even more connected to this place. I have to imagine it has the same effect on other customers as well.

In general, they are being a good social media citizen. They’re participating in the community, not just braying marketing messages. They’re open, honest and imperfect. The social networks are just that — social. To fit in to the social networks, be social. Be human.

And hey, if you need more encouragement to just jump in — AdRants published a great post on Twitter last week that includes one of my favorite social networking analogies: the cocktail party.

08/11/2009: Heavy Table has a great interview with Anna from True Thai about the restaurant and her blog.

The Rules of Engagement (or Why I Said Oprah Doesn’t Get Twitter)

Posted on May 4, 2009

A couple of weeks ago Ashton Kutcher gave me a virtual smack on the nose. Don’t worry. I don’t plan on making this my claim to fame. I had tweeted moments before that he and Oprah didn’t seem to get that Twitter is about ‘tweeting AND listening’ and this was his response. I’ll say here what I said to my buddy Ashton in my reply – I want to be wrong. But I don’t think I am. See, engagement is a two way street. Social media isn’t taking off the way it is because we can more easily push information to the masses, that’s just part of it. It’s become a social phenomenon because of the interactive element – we put information, opinions and content into the universe and people respond to it. We have whole conversations, sometimes in 140 characters or less. But we have them. And sometimes we have them with people we might never have known or connected with had it not been for this digital network. I’ve always said that the web is the great equalizer – it gives us access to people and ideas that 20 years ago would have been impossible to touch. What’s more, because of the web, we can influence those ideas. Social media has taken that a step further by adding immediacy to the equation. I can tweet a question, a news link, an opinion, a conversation starter, and I get an immediate, and sometimes very diverse set of responses. It’s conversation in real time.

Before I got too far down the road in this discussion I wanted to make sure that my perspective on Twitter was accurate. What was the point? I mean — I see what the value is, and how it has evolved, and how the audience has responded to it. But I wanted to understand the thinking that was the impetus for Twitter. I happened upon this February article from the Los Angeles Times that discusses that very thing – why Twitter came to be. The article is sort of fascinating. But the piece that I found really intriguing was this:

The whole bird thing: bird chirps sound meaningless to us, but meaning is applied by other birds. The same is true of Twitter: a lot of messages can be seen as completely useless and meaningless, but it’s entirely dependent on the recipient. So we just fell in love with the word. It was like, “Oh, this is it.” We can use it as a verb, as a noun, it fits with so many other words. If you get too many messages you’re “twitterpated” — the name was just perfect.

“Meaning is applied by OTHER birds.” My issue with Oprah, and even Ashton, is that this social universe isn’t just about collecting followers. It’s about conversing with them. It’s tweeting and listening. It’s hearing them. Real engagement happens between people, not from them. So, while Ashton’s 1 million plus followers, and Oprah’s nearly 900,000 followers are impressive (to someone, I’m sure), they aren’t really the point. When I responded to Ashton’s reply to me I also said that I worry that this kind of communication will just be an extension of the celebrity bubble. I can expand on that here, because it’s my blog and I get more than 140 characters. Those beautiful people in Hollywood that entertain us on the big and small screens are called celebrities because we celebrate them. They are created and supported like any brand and, after a while, they are so insulated from the realities of everyman that they buy into their own celebrity. I mean, come on, how can they not? It’s the only world they know. And we’re as guilty of it as them – -we’re the ones who elevate them and give them this kind of power and hang on their every word. So Oprah really demonstrated a kind of entitlement that must come with celebrity when she signed up for Twitter, tweeted other celebrities right out of the gate, followed only 11 people (to the 900,000 following her), and now tweets every few days about random stuff (when she remembers to tweet). She’s not really responding to anyone. She’s not hearing people respond to her. Essentially what’s happening here is Twitter is another channel for Oprah to broadcast her wisdom.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m no different than any other woman in this country. I love Oprah. I would vote for her if she ran for president. But I still don’t think she gets the *social* part of social media. And that’s fine too. She doesn’t have to. She’s OPRAH, for god’s sake. But what an amazing missed opportunity. For her and for us. Am I naive enough to think Oprah should respond to every nutjob who tweets in her direction? No. Am I stupid enough to think Oprah needs to bump up the people she follows to 900,000? No. But I do wish she’d take an interest in people that aren’t Larry King or Ashton or Demi. Because that’s the beauty of what’s happening here. It’s not our perfect figures or faces, our wallets or our celebrity that matter here (in the social media space). It’s our ideas. It’s our participation. It’s what we add to the experience. It’s how we listen to and respect and interact with others. We’re just birds. Oprah is just a lone tweeter. Tweeting at a wall. A lone bird isn’t music. It needs other birds to create a sound that stops you dead. That cacaphony. That symphony that gets you looking up and smiling and realizing what happens when birds are truly engaged. Oprah needs other birds.

Social Networking

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Summary

Other Resources

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