First of all, career branding is not the same as personal branding. Personal branding is everywhere, and people are starting to develop their personal brands with earnest. But what about career branding? What’s the difference between the two? It’s really quite simple. Personal branding is all about you, what you do, and the type of person you are and portray. A career brand is part of your personal brand, focused on highlighting your current and past professional accomplishments.
Finding a job in this market is harder than it ever has been. Gone are the days of merely looking for jobs on boards. Job searching has evolved into a two-way stream of conversations, connections, and ideas with individuals from around the world.
To pass the competition, you must impress employers with your online presence, your résumé, and in person. To do this, you need to present the unique value you bring to the table. Think of it like this: You are the “product,” and your potential employer is the “target audience.” Your message must compel the target audience to purchase the product. A successful career brand does just that.
Here are a few tips to get you started:
Make Your Brand Sizzle
Determine what special “features” you have to offer that your competitors don’t. This could be any and all of your skills, work experience, and even volunteer experience—it’s all valuable. As a leader in your industry, you have a unique blend of qualifications, talents, expertise, and accomplishments to offer a potential employer.
Use the Right Mediums
Showcase these strong points where recruiters and hiring managers can see—LinkedIn, and increasingly Facebook and Twitter, are great networks for this. Engage in discussions with employers—start by asking questions. Your involvement shows initiative and won’t be overlooked.
Read The Complete Career Rocketeer Article
Guest Expert:
Greg Coyle is the co-founder and Director of Product Development at MyWebCareer. For the past year, Greg and his co-founders at MyWebCareer have been working on developing online tools for career professionals that enable you to discover, evaluate, and monitor your professional online brand. You can visit the beta at www.mywebcareer.com and get your free, personalized Career Score.
10 Things Seth Godin Taught Me about Social Media Marketing
With Seth Godin about to appear on stage in Orange County in just a few weeks time, there is a buzz around here about what new insights he will provide to us in 2011. And the event, in line with what Seth preaches about holding BIG events, is set to be HUGE – he will be speaking at the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, part of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts, a location that is host to the likes of Natalie Cole and the Vienna Philharmonic. In my eyes, but more importantly the eyes of the event organizer and friend Bryan Elliott, Seth Godin deserves to be on a similar stage. And Bryan made it happen. The greater Orange County community made it happen. We are all making it happen!
From a social media perspective, I have found a lot of great takeaways from Seth. The funny thing is that he never blogs or writes specifically about social media marketing, but his thoughts are so applicable to the situations that many of us social media practitioners face on a daily basis.
What have I learned from Seth Godin’s blog posts which, like Twitter, are so short and concise yet full of such deep insight? I went through my favorite blog posts from Seth over the last 12 months and chose those which I felt were gems in this respect.
If you live in Southern California and are looking for a free ticket to see Seth, keep reading for a chance to win
1. Social Media and Experimentation
2. Building Your Tribe (Through Social Media)
3. Content is the New Search Engine Optimization
4. Embrace Social Media and Become a Leader, Not a Follower
5. Engage with Your Customers, and You Shall Increase Your Engagement
Tips 6 - 10 And Complete B2C Article
From a social media perspective, I have found a lot of great takeaways from Seth. The funny thing is that he never blogs or writes specifically about social media marketing, but his thoughts are so applicable to the situations that many of us social media practitioners face on a daily basis.
What have I learned from Seth Godin’s blog posts which, like Twitter, are so short and concise yet full of such deep insight? I went through my favorite blog posts from Seth over the last 12 months and chose those which I felt were gems in this respect.
If you live in Southern California and are looking for a free ticket to see Seth, keep reading for a chance to win
1. Social Media and Experimentation
Sure, go ahead and test what’s testable. But the real victories come when you have the guts to launch the untestable. – A Culture of TestingYou can do all of the planning you want in social media, but the problem is that you are dealing with people here and hopefully trying to socialize with them. And the social landscape changes with every tweet. Without some experimenting and doing things untestable you might not achieve a real victory.
2. Building Your Tribe (Through Social Media)
The magic of the tribe is that you can build it incrementally, that day by day you can earn the asset that will allow you to bring your work to people who want it. Or you can skip that and wait to get picked. Picked to be on Oprah or American Idol or at the cash register at Borders.Anyone who has read the classic Seth Godin book Tribes understands the potential for social media to help provide the infrastructure to create a tribe, and that ideally community managers are building “tribes” of fans. While Seth’s quote was aimed at authors who wanted to get rich quick, his point is similar to what I wrote about in Why Social Media for Business is Like a Marathon. Building a tribe in social media will take time, but it can help you create a true platform of fans that will reward you over the weeks, months, and even years.
Getting picked is great. Building a tribe is reliable, it’s hard work and it’s worth doing. – No Knight, No Shining Armor
3. Content is the New Search Engine Optimization
I resist the temptation to optimize this blog for traffic and yield. I’d rather force myself to improve it by having the guts to write better posts instead. – The Non-Optimized LifeToo many people focus on SEO without focusing on content marketing. If social media is the new SEO, your content is what should separate you from your competition.
4. Embrace Social Media and Become a Leader, Not a Follower
Every brand, every organization and every individual is either running away from something or running toward something (or working hard to stand still).Almost every social media strategy consulting client I work with will be a pioneer in their industry in social media if they implement according to plan. Why? Because most of the competition is either fleeing from social media or doing the bare minimum to try to show that they are “relevant.” Guess what competition? It’s not working!
Are you chasing or being chased? Are you leading or following? Are you fleeing or climbing? – Running Away vs. Running Toward
5. Engage with Your Customers, and You Shall Increase Your Engagement
The customers you fire and those you pay attention to all send signals to the rest of the group. – Train Your CustomersIn social media, you truly get what you deserve. Treat your customers right and they will spread thanks and praises about you through their tweets and comments. Ignore them when they try to engage with you and that message will be sent to all of their tribes. Do something insensitive and, well, just ask Kenneth Cole what happened.
Tips 6 - 10 And Complete B2C Article
Why you should use LinkedIn BEFORE graduation
Working in the Career Center at my university, I have found many peers have never heard about LinkedIn, let alone used it. Many students don’t see its value and think waiting until after graduation to join will work.
However, joining LinkedIn before graduation can benefit students during their college and professional careers.
LinkedIn offers an easy way to break the professional networking ice.
Each social networking tool out there — from Facebook to YouTube — has its own unique purpose. For LinkedIn, that purpose is meeting, networking and communicating with other professionals with whom you’ve got something in common. Many students don’t want to feel left out of the social loop by not using Facebook. Similarly, not using LinkedIn means students will be left out of the professional loop.
LinkedIn contains fewer 18 to 24 year olds than other social networking sites.
The average age for the LinkedIn audience is 45. To college students, this might seem intimidating. However, this means joining LinkedIn gives students and younger professionals an edge over their similarly aged peers who have comparable experiences.
LinkedIn makes it easier to find internships or jobs while in school.
One day while browsing LinkedIn I noticed one of my connections (a former professor) knew someone who worked in my field within my somewhat small hometown. I asked my connection to introduce us. One thing led to another and after some conversations, I landed a (paid!) freelance summer gig at a couple of local newspapers. If it weren’t for LinkedIn, I never would have known that common connection existed and, most likely, would never have gotten the job.
LinkedIn helps students build and maintain professional networks efficiently and effectively.
While it’s always good to ask contacts for a business card, if you forget, you can go home and look them up on LinkedIn. I did this at a conference I went to last year. I met some wonderful students but none of us had business cards. Instead, we knew names and connected with each other on LinkedIn after the conference.
Read The Rest Of The Article
Ruth A. Harper, an Integrated Marketing Communications graduate student at St. Bonaventure University, has a LinkedIn profile. She also blogs and tweets.
However, joining LinkedIn before graduation can benefit students during their college and professional careers.
LinkedIn offers an easy way to break the professional networking ice.
Each social networking tool out there — from Facebook to YouTube — has its own unique purpose. For LinkedIn, that purpose is meeting, networking and communicating with other professionals with whom you’ve got something in common. Many students don’t want to feel left out of the social loop by not using Facebook. Similarly, not using LinkedIn means students will be left out of the professional loop.
LinkedIn contains fewer 18 to 24 year olds than other social networking sites.
The average age for the LinkedIn audience is 45. To college students, this might seem intimidating. However, this means joining LinkedIn gives students and younger professionals an edge over their similarly aged peers who have comparable experiences.
LinkedIn makes it easier to find internships or jobs while in school.
One day while browsing LinkedIn I noticed one of my connections (a former professor) knew someone who worked in my field within my somewhat small hometown. I asked my connection to introduce us. One thing led to another and after some conversations, I landed a (paid!) freelance summer gig at a couple of local newspapers. If it weren’t for LinkedIn, I never would have known that common connection existed and, most likely, would never have gotten the job.
LinkedIn helps students build and maintain professional networks efficiently and effectively.
While it’s always good to ask contacts for a business card, if you forget, you can go home and look them up on LinkedIn. I did this at a conference I went to last year. I met some wonderful students but none of us had business cards. Instead, we knew names and connected with each other on LinkedIn after the conference.
Read The Rest Of The Article
Ruth A. Harper, an Integrated Marketing Communications graduate student at St. Bonaventure University, has a LinkedIn profile. She also blogs and tweets.
LinkedIn Tips for Job Hunters - Basic To Advanced
It’s been called “Facebook for grownups” and “the world’s biggest networking group.”
LinkedIn is both of those — and more.
Used correctly, LinkedIn can be one of the most valuable weapons in your job-search arsenal.
To get the latest and best tips, I interviewed Rob Mendez, an expert on LinkedIn and other social media, who helps job hunters via his CareerNetworkMinistry.com web site.
Here’s what we talked about.
“If you can’t find someone to champion you at an employer, you may have a hard time competing.”
Another tip: Know that first impressions count for a lot on LinkedIn.
How can you make these three items stand out effectively?
For a start, your name can repel more people than it attracts, so play it safe there.
What about the headline section of your profile? In a nutshell, make the most compelling claim or promise you can about yourself.
More Tips and Complete Article @ LinkedIn Tips for Job Hunters
LinkedIn is both of those — and more.
Used correctly, LinkedIn can be one of the most valuable weapons in your job-search arsenal.
To get the latest and best tips, I interviewed Rob Mendez, an expert on LinkedIn and other social media, who helps job hunters via his CareerNetworkMinistry.com web site.
Here’s what we talked about.
“First, you have to figure out your target audience and your goal with LinkedIn,” advises Mendez. “Use LinkedIn to network with as many people as possible, because it is not about who you know; it is about who other people know.”He urges job seekers to make connections at companies they want to work for.
“If you can’t find someone to champion you at an employer, you may have a hard time competing.”
Another tip: Know that first impressions count for a lot on LinkedIn.
“If someone searching LinkedIn and you pop up, they quickly see three things: your name, your picture, and your headline,” says Mendez.Your name, photo, and headline should be compelling enough to cause someone to click through and view your profile. Otherwise, people will move on to someone else.
How can you make these three items stand out effectively?
For a start, your name can repel more people than it attracts, so play it safe there.
“Some people include an e-mail address as part of their name, or numbers or special characters, in the hopes of being different. Yes, they stand out, but in an annoying way. LinkedIn is a professional network, so make sure your name looks professional,” advises Mendez.What about your photo? Again, the more professional looking, the better.
“It does not have to be taken at a studio. It should a headshot of you dressed up nicely. Not a body shot, not wearing sunglasses, not at the beach,” says Mendez, who recalls one profile picture of a man in a hammock.“If I am looking to hire someone, do I really want him working for me, based on this picture?”
What about the headline section of your profile? In a nutshell, make the most compelling claim or promise you can about yourself.
“If I search LinkedIn for a realtor, for example, I can find a thousand of them. The results will include headlines like, ‘realtor, realtor, realtor, real estate agent,’ etc. Then, one profile has this headline ‘I’ll sell your house within 30 days guaranteed or I will buy it for cash, even if it is a bad economy.’ That person just got my attention,” says Mendez.
More Tips and Complete Article @ LinkedIn Tips for Job Hunters
7 Tips for Using Your LinkedIn Profile to Land Great Projects
LinkedIn may not have the name recognition of Facebook or the popularity of Twitter, but what it does have is the reputation as one of the most effective social networking services for freelancers. Boasting more than 80 million users and counting, LinkedIn has something for everyone, from writers to designers, from podcaster to vbloggers.
Thanks to LinkedIn’s huge, active network of professionals, many seeking the perfect freelancers for projects of all shapes and sizes, you should make your LinkedIn presence just as important as your Twitter account, and probably even more so than your Facebook profile. In fact, LinkedIn can mean all the difference between you seeking out work, and having the work come to you.
Thanks to LinkedIn’s huge, active network of professionals, many seeking the perfect freelancers for projects of all shapes and sizes, you should make your LinkedIn presence just as important as your Twitter account, and probably even more so than your Facebook profile. In fact, LinkedIn can mean all the difference between you seeking out work, and having the work come to you.
Land Great Projects Using LinkedIn
Here’s how to land solid projects with your LinkedIn profile:- Build your profile to 100% completion. A complete LinkedIn profile is the most powerful tool in your arsenal. It carries the same weight as a college degree does by showing that you stuck things out to the finish line, rather than going in, signing up, and getting out when the going gets rough (or boring). As a freelancer, that’s the worst reputation to have. Period. To start, make use of the basics such as the summary and experience fields, as well as new features like the Skills and Publications sections. According to LinkedIn itself, a completed profile increases your chance of successful networking by 15 percent, meaning you have a greater chance of establishing connections, generating leads, and finding gigs that pay well.
- Pick a custom URL. If you’ve ever used LinkedIn (or Facebook for that matter), you’ve seen the person with a URL that looks something like: www.facebook.com/8297328Z028BZ. In other words, their URL is complete gibberish, and anyone who lacks a photographic memory would never, ever remember it. Instead of going down this road, you should personalize your URL to reflect what you do. You could change your URL to include your name, for example: www.linkedin/joeshmoe, but a better idea is to set it up so that it shows exactly what you do for a living and what you’re looking for. A LinkedIn URL like www.linkedin.com/freelanceeditor4hire will grab more attention than one that simply lists a name.
- Add lots of apps. Apps have become a huge part of the social networking universe, and LinkedIn has jumped on this train by adding more and more on frequent basis. With LinkedIn’s present set of apps, you can share presentations with SlideShare, show pictures of where you’ve traveled via Flickr, and even cross-promote your blog through the BlogLink app. The BlogLink app connects your blog to your LinkedIn site, so that any time you blog, posts are automatically published to your LinkedIn profile. In a nutshell, installing applications is a great way to make your profile stand out and gives you exciting ways to share content.
- Build an army of connections. If you’re stuck with just a few dozen LinkedIn connections, a group that may or may not include family members, it’s time you kicked things up a notch. Connections not only show that you’re active on LinkedIn, but they give the appearance–at least in the Web world–that you’re the person pressing palms and passing out business cards at the cocktail party and not the sullen person parked by the door. When building your connection pool, size matters, but remember that quality is also a major consideration. If you need to enlarge your pool by including your local dog groomer or cable repairman, you’ll probably need to uncouple yourself from them as you build up more connections with people working in your general field.
LinkedIn Search Updates – this is really powerful!
LinkedIn have added another feature today, LinkedIn Search Updates, that will help you to reach out a just that little bit further into the 90m people that are currently members of the site by giving you the ability to search what they are writing about and sharing with others on LinkedIn. And it can be incredibly powerful!
If you were aware of LinkedIn Signal announced last year, then this is it … or at least the first incarnation. It comes in the form of a rather innocent looking Search box that sits on your homepage just above the Updates that appear there – however, this is actually quite a revolution (and revelation) because of the access it now gives you to what’s being said across the whole of the LinkedIn network, rather than just your 1st level connections as is still the default situation on your homepage update stream.
For me it has the feel of the new Twitter search function but it gives you much more than that. As a result, I can really see myself using this a lot as a way to research topics of interest as well as find the type of people that I’m looking to connect with – this time of course doing so through what they’re sharing rather than simply what they’ve written on their profile.
If you were aware of LinkedIn Signal announced last year, then this is it … or at least the first incarnation. It comes in the form of a rather innocent looking Search box that sits on your homepage just above the Updates that appear there – however, this is actually quite a revolution (and revelation) because of the access it now gives you to what’s being said across the whole of the LinkedIn network, rather than just your 1st level connections as is still the default situation on your homepage update stream.
For me it has the feel of the new Twitter search function but it gives you much more than that. As a result, I can really see myself using this a lot as a way to research topics of interest as well as find the type of people that I’m looking to connect with – this time of course doing so through what they’re sharing rather than simply what they’ve written on their profile.
- Firstly, the content on there is likely to be more business focussed so if you are looking for comments on a subject from people in a certain company or industry then you should have access to a greater quality here than elsewhere (in spite of many people linking up their Twitter account here without filter!);
- Secondly – and this is key – once you have your search results, the can then filter them further by connection level, company, time, location, industry as well as topics. This allows you to cut out all the “unwanted noise” and focus in on the information you really want to look at;
- Like on the rest of LinkedIn, you can then quickly and easily find out more about them by hovering over their name for you to then decide if you want to look at their full profile or connect. Immediately.
The best networking email you'll get all year
Experts and coaches remind us daily about the importance of keeping in touch with your network. If you're like me, LinkedIn just handed you the perfect alibi on a silver platter.
By Jodi Glickman, contributor
Did you get an email last month from your friends at LinkedIn with the following subject: "Jodi, 86 of your connections changed jobs in 2010"?
If you did, it is quite possibly the best networking opportunity email you'll receive all year. Experts and coaches remind us daily about theimportance of staying in touch with and taking full advantage of our networks -- but the challenge is not in knowing that we need to reach out, it's knowing how and when to reach out. If you're like me, LinkedIn just handed you the perfect alibi on a silver platter.
Here are three ways to take that email and put it to good use:
1. Congratulations!
I talk a lot about TOUs or "thinking of you's" -- TOUs are a great way to stay connected to your network. Wishing someone a happy holiday, congratulating them on a favorite team's sports win (Packers / Steelers anyone?) or congratulating a former classmate or colleague on a new job is a great way to ping someone in your network.
2010 was a year of big change. Take a minute to click through that infographic (I just love clicking on the faces and being directed to their profiles) and find out where you're friends and colleagues have gone.
What are they doing now? Was it a promotion, a lateral move or a new direction altogether? Whatever the case may be, send a quick note to say congratulations. It's a fast and easy way to reach out and share some well wishes.
Andrea, hello and congratulations!! I see that you've taken on a management role with Doctors without Borders, that's amazing! I hope you're enjoying your stint in Niger and I just wanted to reach out and let you know that I was thinking of you. I'll look forward to touching base when you're back in the states next year. Best, Jodi
2. Great to see what you've been up to
There's also probably a subset of people in that email who you haven't connected with in ages. Reaching out after losing touch is always hard -- everyone has friends and colleagues we admire who have fallen off our radar. Consider this email as a reset button on those relationships -- it gives you a perfect excuse to reach out today and congratulate a friend or colleague on that new job or comment on their recent activity:
Michael, how are you? It's been ages since we've spoken but I just wanted to reach out to say hello. I noticed that you recently left Deloitte so I wanted to touch base and see how things are going. I'm actually in the process of launching a start-up; I'd love to tell you more about it….
Read The Rest Of The Fortune Article
By Jodi Glickman, contributor
Did you get an email last month from your friends at LinkedIn with the following subject: "Jodi, 86 of your connections changed jobs in 2010"?
If you did, it is quite possibly the best networking opportunity email you'll receive all year. Experts and coaches remind us daily about theimportance of staying in touch with and taking full advantage of our networks -- but the challenge is not in knowing that we need to reach out, it's knowing how and when to reach out. If you're like me, LinkedIn just handed you the perfect alibi on a silver platter.
Here are three ways to take that email and put it to good use:
1. Congratulations!
I talk a lot about TOUs or "thinking of you's" -- TOUs are a great way to stay connected to your network. Wishing someone a happy holiday, congratulating them on a favorite team's sports win (Packers / Steelers anyone?) or congratulating a former classmate or colleague on a new job is a great way to ping someone in your network.
2010 was a year of big change. Take a minute to click through that infographic (I just love clicking on the faces and being directed to their profiles) and find out where you're friends and colleagues have gone.
What are they doing now? Was it a promotion, a lateral move or a new direction altogether? Whatever the case may be, send a quick note to say congratulations. It's a fast and easy way to reach out and share some well wishes.
Andrea, hello and congratulations!! I see that you've taken on a management role with Doctors without Borders, that's amazing! I hope you're enjoying your stint in Niger and I just wanted to reach out and let you know that I was thinking of you. I'll look forward to touching base when you're back in the states next year. Best, Jodi
2. Great to see what you've been up to
There's also probably a subset of people in that email who you haven't connected with in ages. Reaching out after losing touch is always hard -- everyone has friends and colleagues we admire who have fallen off our radar. Consider this email as a reset button on those relationships -- it gives you a perfect excuse to reach out today and congratulate a friend or colleague on that new job or comment on their recent activity:
Michael, how are you? It's been ages since we've spoken but I just wanted to reach out to say hello. I noticed that you recently left Deloitte so I wanted to touch base and see how things are going. I'm actually in the process of launching a start-up; I'd love to tell you more about it….
Read The Rest Of The Fortune Article
Ten Things I Learned from Two Months on Foursquare
By Sree Sreenivasan
DNAinfo Contributing Editor
I tell my students there's no need to jump onto a new social-media service until you know it can fit into your workflow and your life. What I mean is that there are so many new things coming at you all the time that it's impossible to keep up, and you shouldn't feel any obligation to try everything right away. Wait until you can be sure it makes sense for how you work and live.
Take Foursquare, the geolocation service. Even though I make a living, in part, by doing all this social media stuff, I avoided using Foursquare as long as I could. I mean a guy has only got so much time he can use for virtual relationships before he jeopardizes his real-life relationships.
So I've been teaching social media by focusing on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, skipping Foursquare.
But over the last two months, I have been testing Foursquare and am now convinced it has real potential for journalism, for businesses and everyday folks. Like all technology, it may not be appropriate for everyone, but we should all at least be familiar with it.
Here's what I've learned:
• FOURSQUARE'S STATS ARE IMPRESSIVE: Foursquare launched officially in March 2009, and has seen dramatic growth since. It had about 250,000 users by the end of 2009; surpassed 3 million users in August 2010; and crossed 6 million in January 2011.
There have been more than 381 million check-ins, from all countries on Earth (North Korea was the last to have a check-in). It had just two employees (co-founders Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai) for the first eight months of its existence; a year ago, it had seven employees. Today, the Cooper Square-based company has about 50 employees (26 of them engineers). You can see more stats in a Foursquare blog post, "Our year of 3,400% growth."
While there's been talk of buyout offers and a $250 million valuation, Selvadurai denied that figure at a Manhattan event last week.
• FOURSQUARE IS MORE THAN JUST A GAME. IT'S BUSINESS: Even though it's built around a game - check-in at locations to earn points and compete with friends and strangers, it's much more ambitious than that. Visit a place often enough and you can be its "mayor," and there are starting to be benefits of that beyond just bragging rights.
A recent example, I was with my kids at a restaurant and we were going to order dessert, but we saw that restaurant's Foursquare page showed a incentive to get ice cream at a nearby Ben & Jerry's — and that's what we did.
Foursquare encourages people to try new places, especially restaurants and bars. Even at restaurants you know well, Foursquare's "tips" section can give you suggestions for new dishes to try.
Companies, brands and others who want to connect with consumers are using Foursquare in interesting ways. Some examples: History Channel offers historical background when you check into certain locations; celebrities use it to connect with their fans and followers; Sports Authority puts your name in a prize drawing for checking-in; Jimmy Choo creates a scavenger hunt in London with clues via check-in.
Everything is local, so Foursquare can work well whether a company has one location or thousands of locations.
• FOURSQUARE IS JUST GETTING STARTED: I like to say that Twitter is where the general web was in 1996 in terms of its potential, usage and scope. But geolocation is even further behind. It's just getting started and those who can learn how to use it well will get a headstart on the rest. And that can have serious business implications, especially for industries such as travel, food, entertainment, sports, museums and more.
• THE FOURSQUARE EXPERIENCE CAN BE IMPROVED: Because it's still early, there are ways in which Foursquare can improve the user experience.
Since anyone can create venues, there's a proliferation of locations that leads to confusion about which ones are official venues and which ones are not. For example, a search for "JFK" brings up 50 venues in the system - many of them overlapping. People have limited time to use this, so creating "verified venues" and deleting incorrect ones has to be a priority for Foursquare. There's system for an owner to claim a venue, but it's far too complicated and cumbersome.
Its Nearby Specials feature has tremendous potential, but needs to be used more often by local merchants to lure foot traffic. That requires training and encourage by Foursquare (here's a link to the 167 items in the Foursquare for Business FAQ).
Its Tips feature — users leaving suggestions for things to try at particular venues — is terrific, and users should be rewarded for leaving them. While it's an international service, during an week-plus stay in Jamaica, I couldn't find any places to check-in to (might have been trouble with the GPS system). The service works better on iPhone and Android than it does on Blackberry — something thatc is true of a lot of Web 2.0 services.
A note to businesses, event organizers, etc: Please put your venue's Foursquare name into your physical signage, virtual invitations, etc. Just as it's now useful to announce a Twitter hashtag before an event, announce your Foursquare name, too.
And a note to users: Please avoid connecting your Foursquare check-ins to your Twitter or Facebook accounts. Most of the time it just comes across as you showing off the good time you're having while the rest of us are sitting at home. Unless you are sharing useful info — discounts or special deals — it gets really irritating.
• GEOLOCATION IS HERE TO STAY: The idea of sharing not just what you are doing, but where you are doing it means that geolocation services like Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt, etc., are going to be the next social-media frontier. Facebook and its 500-million-user empire launched Facebook Places last year and while it hasn't drowned out Foursquare yet, you should never count out Facebook.
Does co-founder Selvadurai worry about Facebook Places? He told a gathering in New York last week that I attended, "We know there is room in the market for more than one service. We knew that others were going to do this." Why will Foursquare succeed in the long run? According to him: "better tools and better data."
• FOURSQUARE HAS USES I HADN'T THOUGHT OF:
DNAinfo Contributing Editor
I tell my students there's no need to jump onto a new social-media service until you know it can fit into your workflow and your life. What I mean is that there are so many new things coming at you all the time that it's impossible to keep up, and you shouldn't feel any obligation to try everything right away. Wait until you can be sure it makes sense for how you work and live.
Take Foursquare, the geolocation service. Even though I make a living, in part, by doing all this social media stuff, I avoided using Foursquare as long as I could. I mean a guy has only got so much time he can use for virtual relationships before he jeopardizes his real-life relationships.
So I've been teaching social media by focusing on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, skipping Foursquare.
But over the last two months, I have been testing Foursquare and am now convinced it has real potential for journalism, for businesses and everyday folks. Like all technology, it may not be appropriate for everyone, but we should all at least be familiar with it.
Here's what I've learned:
• FOURSQUARE'S STATS ARE IMPRESSIVE: Foursquare launched officially in March 2009, and has seen dramatic growth since. It had about 250,000 users by the end of 2009; surpassed 3 million users in August 2010; and crossed 6 million in January 2011.
There have been more than 381 million check-ins, from all countries on Earth (North Korea was the last to have a check-in). It had just two employees (co-founders Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai) for the first eight months of its existence; a year ago, it had seven employees. Today, the Cooper Square-based company has about 50 employees (26 of them engineers). You can see more stats in a Foursquare blog post, "Our year of 3,400% growth."
While there's been talk of buyout offers and a $250 million valuation, Selvadurai denied that figure at a Manhattan event last week.
• FOURSQUARE IS MORE THAN JUST A GAME. IT'S BUSINESS: Even though it's built around a game - check-in at locations to earn points and compete with friends and strangers, it's much more ambitious than that. Visit a place often enough and you can be its "mayor," and there are starting to be benefits of that beyond just bragging rights.
A recent example, I was with my kids at a restaurant and we were going to order dessert, but we saw that restaurant's Foursquare page showed a incentive to get ice cream at a nearby Ben & Jerry's — and that's what we did.
Foursquare encourages people to try new places, especially restaurants and bars. Even at restaurants you know well, Foursquare's "tips" section can give you suggestions for new dishes to try.
Companies, brands and others who want to connect with consumers are using Foursquare in interesting ways. Some examples: History Channel offers historical background when you check into certain locations; celebrities use it to connect with their fans and followers; Sports Authority puts your name in a prize drawing for checking-in; Jimmy Choo creates a scavenger hunt in London with clues via check-in.
Everything is local, so Foursquare can work well whether a company has one location or thousands of locations.
• FOURSQUARE IS JUST GETTING STARTED: I like to say that Twitter is where the general web was in 1996 in terms of its potential, usage and scope. But geolocation is even further behind. It's just getting started and those who can learn how to use it well will get a headstart on the rest. And that can have serious business implications, especially for industries such as travel, food, entertainment, sports, museums and more.
• THE FOURSQUARE EXPERIENCE CAN BE IMPROVED: Because it's still early, there are ways in which Foursquare can improve the user experience.
Since anyone can create venues, there's a proliferation of locations that leads to confusion about which ones are official venues and which ones are not. For example, a search for "JFK" brings up 50 venues in the system - many of them overlapping. People have limited time to use this, so creating "verified venues" and deleting incorrect ones has to be a priority for Foursquare. There's system for an owner to claim a venue, but it's far too complicated and cumbersome.
Its Nearby Specials feature has tremendous potential, but needs to be used more often by local merchants to lure foot traffic. That requires training and encourage by Foursquare (here's a link to the 167 items in the Foursquare for Business FAQ).
Its Tips feature — users leaving suggestions for things to try at particular venues — is terrific, and users should be rewarded for leaving them. While it's an international service, during an week-plus stay in Jamaica, I couldn't find any places to check-in to (might have been trouble with the GPS system). The service works better on iPhone and Android than it does on Blackberry — something thatc is true of a lot of Web 2.0 services.
A note to businesses, event organizers, etc: Please put your venue's Foursquare name into your physical signage, virtual invitations, etc. Just as it's now useful to announce a Twitter hashtag before an event, announce your Foursquare name, too.
And a note to users: Please avoid connecting your Foursquare check-ins to your Twitter or Facebook accounts. Most of the time it just comes across as you showing off the good time you're having while the rest of us are sitting at home. Unless you are sharing useful info — discounts or special deals — it gets really irritating.
• GEOLOCATION IS HERE TO STAY: The idea of sharing not just what you are doing, but where you are doing it means that geolocation services like Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt, etc., are going to be the next social-media frontier. Facebook and its 500-million-user empire launched Facebook Places last year and while it hasn't drowned out Foursquare yet, you should never count out Facebook.
Does co-founder Selvadurai worry about Facebook Places? He told a gathering in New York last week that I attended, "We know there is room in the market for more than one service. We knew that others were going to do this." Why will Foursquare succeed in the long run? According to him: "better tools and better data."
• FOURSQUARE HAS USES I HADN'T THOUGHT OF:
The Race to Create a Web of Reputation
One of the big issues with the ongoing explosion of social media, whether it’s blogging or Twitter or Facebook, is a lack of effective ways to filter the signal from the noise — in other words, to figure out who we should pay attention to. Facebook relies on your existing social graph, while Twitter uses its own internal algorithms to suggest people you should follow, and LinkedIn uses your professional status and co-workers or contacts as the benchmark. But the race continues to try and measure online reputation in an effective way. Should it be based on activity? Number of followers? A ranking system in which people can vote on you? All of the above?
One of the latest to jump into this race is Mixtent, which launched today with a voting-based system that uses data from your LinkedIn profile once you log in with your credentials (and will also pull in your Facebook info if you connect that as well). The company says it is “building a professional reputation graph on top of the main social and professional networks” in order to help people hire others and get hired themselves. If Mixtent looks a little familiar, that’s because it appears to be almost identical to a LinkedIn-based game known as Cube Duel that got some attention a couple of weeks ago, in which users vote for co-workers and can “unlock” various badges, and so on.
In trying to measure who has the highest reputation among your co-workers, and therefore who is best qualified to either recommend you or be recommended themselves, Mixtent is going after the same kind of market that other startups such as Honestly (formerly known as Unvarnished), Namesake and BranchOut are aiming at — namely, the professional end of the social web, in which people are looking to network for jobs. In the same way that Mixtent is based on the LinkedIn network, BranchOut uses Facebook as a platform, and leverages all of the people you are connected to via your social graph who might work (or used to work) at other companies.
One issue for BranchOut that I wrote about when the service first launched is that Facebook is primarily personal, and so the overlap between that part of your life and the professional side is haphazard at best, and useless at worst. In a similar way, the game-like aspect of Mixtent might not jibe well with the more professional aspects of LinkedIn for some users. Honestly, meanwhile, is trying to create a reputation-based network that achieves the same thing as LinkedIn or BranchOut — a way of measuring a person’s skills within a certain professional context — but allows for anonymous (and therefore theoretically more honest) input about the people who are being ranked.
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