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Social Media Blog Carnival – Not Quite SXSW Edition

by on March 16, 2009 in Social Media

Chalk it up to the hubbub around SXSW or the challenges of restarting a blog carnival, but I was a little underwhelmed by the entries this week. We received what looked like two or three authentic submissions. The rest of the submissions were sent via carnival submission software which I have come to loath in ways that rival spam blog comments and robo-calls from political candidates around election time. If the whole point of “social media” is that first word, then don’t go doing things that are genuinely anti-social. And particularly not when your host writes a blog focused on building better marketing relationships.

However, as omnipotent host, this gives me the opportunity to deviate a bit from the fare you might normally expect from this carnival. This week, you’ll find great reads from some usual sources but also social media-related entries from the world of human resources and nonprofits. I hope you find them entertaining and informative.

So, without further ado, I present nine blogposts that meet the high quality and fine standards of both the Social Media Blog Carnival and Gravit8 Social Marketing:


My Boss Doesn’t Get It: Championing Social Media to the Man from Jordan Viator and Connection Cafe.
This is a recap of a Friday SXSW session called My Boss Doesn’t Get it: Championing Social Media to the Man. If you’re trying to figure out how to pitch social media to your boss or your boss’s boss, the recommendations here are well worth reading.

100 Best Blogs for Young Entrepreneurs from Online College Degree.
Many of the blogs listed in this post are new to me. Even though many of them are geared toward young entrepreneurs, there are several that will appeal to entrepreneurs of all ages.

Even with a vibrant community you can still fail from Francois Gossieaux and Social Media Today.
I was a membership director in the association world for nearly a decade and am familiar with the ins and outs of cultivating communities. This post discusses two of the biggest challenges to continued success with any online community.

Recruiting, Social Media, and Candidate Evaluation from Laurie Ruettimann and Punk Rock HR.
We all know the pitfalls that befall all of us in this age of Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter: we can inadvertently reveal personal details or secrets that probably won’t go over well with potential employers. This post offers a caution to hiring managers and HR professionals to not believe everything you see when it comes to evaluating a potential job candidate.

Resources for the other 77% from Steve Boese’s HR Technology.
A high number of HR executives consider skills in “new media” to be vitally important but don’t offer training to bolster these skills inside their own organizations. This post offers HR staff an annotated listing of useful suggestions and resource links.

5 People Who Broke the Rules of Social Media and Succeeded from David Spark and Mashable
This post received a lot of attention among fellow Twitterers this week for good reason. Listen, if someone tells you how social media should work or proclaims there are rules that should be followed, you should call them a hack and proceed to do your own thing. There really are no set rules. The beauty of social media is that it is experiment friendly so feel free to go out and follow your intuition. If it works, that’s fantastic learning; if it doesn’t work, that’s also fantastic learning.

How to “Friend” Someone on Facebook & Hide It From Your Status Updates from Tim Watson and MakeUseOf.
We all have people in our lives who we know and yet still don’t want them to know everything we do. If you’re connected to a mom, dad, grandma, boss, or other individual who really doesn’t need to see your latest status update about being hungover after too many margaritas, then this might be a good tip to follow.

Are Blogs Losing Their Authority To The Statusphere? from Brian Solis and Techcrunch
Whether or not you still think Technorati is still a relevant source of determining blogging authority (personally, I think Technorati’s importance declined years ago), Solis asks a pertinent question: Will we need a separate Technorati-type index for measuring the authority of content publishers on Twitter and other micro-media in their own right?

Who Had the Better Media Strategy? CareerBuilder vs. Monster from Anthony Young and Advertising Age.
A well-considered and thorough assessment of how the two online job posting giants fare in categories such as online advertising, Super Bowl strategy, and organic search. Note the comments made to their respective responses to the recession.

So, was there a winner this week? I’m going to exert my omnipotent hosting privileges and declare it a nine-way tie. But don’t let my ambivalence get in the way of you determining a champion. Do you have favorites from above? Did we miss a great post from last week? Be social and post a comment below.

Social Media Carnival Rises From The Dead

by on March 6, 2009 in Social Media

Involved with social media? Want to expand your reach and amplify your voice? Then, it’s carnival time, baby! The good folks at New Media Lab are raising the carnival from the dead. Hosting this week is fellow Austinite Jack Leblond. There’s still time to get in on the fun. Nominate your post (or even someone else’s post) by this Sunday to be a part of the first round.

Next week it’s my turn to host. Let’s see what social media goodness is out there.

JobAngels And The Potential Of Social Media

by on March 6, 2009 in Social Media

When an opportunity to make a positive and revolutionary change in the world lands in your lap, you just have to leap on it and grab hold with both hands. For me, this opportunity takes the form of JobAngels. It all started with just one tweet from Mark Stelzner who asked what would happen if one person would help just one other person find work. In less than 140 characters, it simplified what is the most critical issue facing millions of people.

Not that the answer to this pressing problem is simple. Finding work at any time can be a frustrating experience; add a crappy economy to the mix and it can be an excruciating, soul-devouring exercise. I witness this happening to the handful of people I’m working with currently as a JobAngel. Our identity is often intertwined with our working persona so when we lose our job, we don’t quite know how to cope with the change. It’s an emotional rollercoaster ride where you really don’t know how far down you’ll go.

What does this have to do with social media? As it turns out…EVERYTHING. When you lost your job and a part of your identity, the worst thing you can do is become a hermit. This is a time when your social network is a gift. You need to know what there are caring people out there who do give a damn about you, who will lend you support when you need it, who will connect you to others who can help. Of course these aren’t new things, but social media increases the potential for widening and deepening personal relationships in new – and extraordinary – ways.

Back to JobAngels…I’m the Chief Technical Officer, which is really just a fancy way of saying that I’m the person who makes sure all the technology works well. The soon-to-be launched community site that I’m developing will hopefully incorporate the best of what makes social media special. We want for folks to have the ability to build meaningful relationships with others, share resources and information, and ultimately connect them to work that matches their talents and passions. Plus, here’s my personal hope that will be the cherry on top of it all: that we demonstrate the potential that social media has to make this world a better place.

There will be much more to come as I offer some experiential lessons on how this online community continues to take shape. I think there will be many ideas and practices that you’ll be able to incorporate into your organization’s own community strategy. Oh, and if you’re willing to be a JobAngel (or especially if you need help finding work), reach out to me or connect with our team. We’re at Twitter (@jobangels and #jobangels), LinkedIn, and Facebook.

Stop Talking Social Media, Start Talking Conversation…

by on January 26, 2009 in Social Media

The term “social media” is now so amorphous, encompassing so many things that it’s lost a lot of its meaning. That’s not to say that it’s unimportant or irrelevant…quite the opposite.

Instead, let’s talk about what social media really is and what it can do. Let’s talk about conversation. Let’s talk about collaboration. Let’s talk about outreach. For nonprofits and companies, these are the things that matter, that are going to diversify your constituent or customer base, that are going to lead to long-term vitality. Social media is just a tool to help you achieve these things.

On February 12 at noon CST, I’ll be collaborating with Small World Labs on a webinar titled Top 3 Social Solutions for Acquiring and Retaining Members in 2009. We’ll be addressing how nonprofit associations can use social solutions can successfully use tools that are out there to better engage in conversation, facilitate collaboration, and promote outreach. And while the audience is geared toward the association executive, there will be plenty of advice on how to bring these ideas into other nonprofits and forprofit companies.

Make this the year that you engage in social media in a new way. You can register here: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/443369303