Just How Big Is Social Media in England?

At the first Social Recruiting Summit at Google, I met Matt Alder. He is from the UK and an innovator in digital recruitment marketing. You can find out more about Matt at http://recruitingfuture.com.

 We’ve had an opportunity to meet at other conferences. Since Matt and I work in the same industry, yet in different countries, I’m amazed at how our challenges in social media are similar.

Check out this video from Simply Zesty with the latest statistics regarding social media use in the United Kingdom:

Any surprising stats?

Social Integration - Video and Slide Deck

 The 3rd Social Recruiting Summit kicked off last night with another fun tweetup at Crave at the Mall of America. Thank you to LinkUp for sponsoring this upbeat and well-attended networking event.

Below are is the slide deck from my Social Recruiting Summit presentation at Best Buy on Social Integration. I'm grateful for the support from ERE.net, Shannon Seery Gude, VP of Digital & Social Strategy at Bernard HODES Group and Heather Polivka, Director of Employment Marketing with UnitedHealth Group. I was overwhlemed by the support of my friends and family, including my Dad who was in the audience.

Social Integration - Social Recruiting Summit 2010

VIDEO:
Thank you to Jeremy Langhans and Ronnie Bratcher for capturing a UStream video of the presenation too. You can find it here: http://bit.ly/9iKfoe. More ideas and photos will be posted soon!

20 Impressive Internet Statistics

Jesse Thomas of Jess3.com created a video of some recent internet statistics. As these numbers continue to grow, how is your organization identifying and recruiting the best talent online?

Now You're In Control of Your LinkedIn Profile

According to Aaron Bronzan on the official LinkedIn blog:
"Starting today, we bring you the ability to reorder the sections on your LinkedIn profile via drag-and-drop. This enhancement, one of the more highly-requested features from our users, gives you the ability to highlight the skills, expertise, and/or experiences that make you stand out.

Your profile is an important part of your online professional identity. At LinkedIn we’d like to provide you with all the tools you need to build and maintain a profile that can showcase your unique professional value. Now you’re in complete control over your professional brand."

Here is a quick demo of how it works:

"The ability to reorder the sections on your profile is just the first of a huge number of enhancements that are coming to your LinkedIn profile in the upcoming months. And, as always, we’d love to hear your thoughts, ideas, and suggestions about how LinkedIn can help you to represent, manage, and share your professional identity."

Thanks to my friend, Jennifer McClure, for breaking this news via Twitter.

The Coca-Cola Company's New Social Media Principles

In this video, Adam Brown, of The Coca-Cola Company, shares some insights regarding their new social media policy, known internally as their "Online Social Media Principles". All Coca-Cola associates who wish to represent Coca-Cola, must complete a company social media certification program.

If you would like to review Coca-Cola's new social media policy, you may download the pdf here: http://bit.ly/ccsmpolicy. Thank you to Digital Buzz for breaking this story.

VIDEO: Waving Goodbye to 2009

Here is a quick wrap up of the year's events in a Google Wave:

At the end of the video, Google challenges us to start discussing the possibilities for next year in a set of multiple waves at http://www.discuss2010.com.

The Google Story In Two Minutes

When I visited Google in June, it exceeded all of my expectations. Here is a well-done and entertaining look at the history of Google in two minutes:

The Best Conversation About LinkedIn I've Ever Had

This is a guest post by Bill Seaver of MicroExplosion Media. While attending BarCamp Nashville, I saw Bill give an outstanding presentation. I enjoyed meeting Bill and other talented members of the Nashville technology and media community. Bill and I had a great conversation about LinkedIn and other social media tools. Thank you to Bill for compiling this blog post and producing the accompanying video:

That title pretty much describes my feeling about this conversation with Jenny DeVaughn of Social Precision in Atlanta. I met Jenny at Barcamp Nashville last month and realized she has expertise in LinkedIn…something I have been less than enthusiastic about in the past.

In this video, Jenny provides excellent insight into how to think about LinkedIn.

The biggest takeaway for me is that LinkedIn is NOT a communication tool like Facebook or Twitter. It’s a research tool. If you make that distinction, it changes everything. Jenny shares some of the ways (some of which are almost scary) you can tap into LinkedIn for business research, business development, networking, and competitive intelligence.

If you’re trying to figure out where (or if) LinkedIn fits into your social media strategy, I think the 12 minutes in this video will be helpful. I know it’s got me rethinking LinkedIn.

What You May Have Missed In LinkedIn from Bill Seaver on Vimeo.

VIDEO: Social Recruiting Summit #MonsterSocial Tweetup

Click here to view more photos from the event on Flickr taken by Alana Lombardi.

Thank you to Eric Winegardner (and his colleagues from Monster Worldwide), Alice Joy with 675 Bar, Kathy O'Reilly, Ernest Feiteira and Kathleen Smith for making the tweetup a reality. We appreciate everyone who joined us for the tweetup. Although I love keeping up with my professional network using social media, it is so much more fun meeting in real life.

VIDEO: Social Media ROI

Your social media strategy must be a part of your comprehensive marketing plan. Tactical components from a social media campaign can fail, if they are not properly aligned with your company's goals. There is a return on investment (ROI) when using social media tools and it can be measured. Don't believe me? Watch this video:

VIDEO: The Best Private Social Network for Corporations

Launching in 2010, Salesforce Chatter seems like the ultimate private social network for corporations. According to WebProNews, it lets users collaborate securely in real time with: Profiles, Status Updates, Feeds, Groups, Social Apps, Google Docs, Twitter, Facebook and more. Users are also able to build customized applications. Plus, this is all accessible via your mobile device, like an iPhone or BlackBerry.

It will be sold for a monthly fee of $50 per user and includes Salesforce Chatter, Salesforce Content and Force.com. Check out the quick video introducing Salesforce Chatter:

Google + Your Social Networks = Google Social Search

By using the social networks you have claimed in via Google Profiles and your Gmail account, you can see comments, photos and connections from your network using a new labs project called Google Social Search.

In this video, Google's own Marissa Mayer, Vice President of Search Products and User Experience demos Google Social Search and compares it to the current search capabilities of Google.

Bottom line: If you include your social networks (FriendFeed, Twitter, Picasa, Blogger, etc) in your Google profile, you are giving Google permission to index that information for your Google Social Search results. At this time, Facebook is not included.

You can access this experimental project and others here.

Preview LinkedIn Profile Organizer

LinkedIn steps up its client management capabilities by launching Profile Organizer.
Check out the 60 second video demo:

Profile Organizer costs $24.95 - 499.95 per month depending upon the number of messages, profiles and folders you may use.

Since I have over 17,000 first level connections on LinkedIn, I wonder if this is the best way to organize my contacts from LinkedIn. Would you prefer to keep this information organized in LinkedIn or export the data to another resource?

New Media Atlanta - Social Media Rockstars

The New Media Atlanta event was a trending topic on Twitter for a reason. One of my favorite highlights was having a conversation with Chris Brogan, President of New Marketing Labs and co-author of Trust Agents. Chris was down-to-earth, sincere and well-mannered. He doesn't just teach others how to build trust. Chris leads by example.

Here is my video montage of New Media Atlanta:

Congrats to the New Media Atlanta organizers and volunteers on a wonderful event!

Are You Ready for 4.0?

The Economist magazine's Media Convergence Forum is being held next month in New York City to discuss the rapidly changing media landscape: decrease in the traditional forms of media, increase in online social networks and the adoption of digital/mobile technology by consumers.

This promotional video for the event certainly sets the stage for a lively debate among the confirmed speakers, which includes:
Barry Judge, Chief Marketing Officer, Best Buy
Bonita Coleman Stewart, Managing Director, U. S. Sales, Google
Terry Davenport, Senior Vice President, Global Marketing and Brand Strategy, Starbucks

Are you ready for the next innovations in media and technology?

Moments Captured at the ERE Fall Expo 2009

The ERE Fall Expo was a success thanks to the hard work by David Manaster, Todd Raphael, Scott Baxt, Kevin Plantan, Brendan Shields and the rest of the organized ERE team! My photostream of the event is available on Flickr. Here is a quick video of some fun moments that I had at the event:

Even though we are in a recession, I have attended more conferences and networking events this year than I have in my recruiting career. Next week, I'll be leading a discussion on social recruiting at Recruitfest in Canada. At the SHRM-Atlanta Annual Conference, I will be giving two social media presentations. In November, I wouldn't miss the Social Recruiting Summit in New York City.

It is crucial that you continue to grow and develop your business relationships. The power of social networking is enhanced and solidified with face-to-face communication. This will never change.

Will @ewmonster Attend Recruitfest?

While at the ERE Fall Expo, I had the opportunity to spend more time with Eric Winegardner, also known as @ewmonster. Eric is an active networker to say the least.

I heard a rumor that Eric was also attending Recruitfest so I went to the source. Scott Wilde also helps me with this inquiry.

Off camera, we discussed the importance of attending conferences. You gain awareness into our industry that you simply cannot learn at your desk. The in-person networking has unlimited ROI.

There's still time, so Eric and I hope to see you at Recruitfest.

Bad Tweets Vs. No Tweets

While watching the MTV Video Music Awards (VMA's), Taylor Swift started to give her acceptance speech for Female Video of the Year. Kanye West boldly interrupted the show. He thought Beyonce had one of the best videos of the year and should have won.

Kanye could have waited until the event was over and had a traditional interview with the press. He chose to grab the moment and literally the microphone.

According to TwiGUARD, this caused a huge spike in Twitter traffic and became a trending topic. MTV is live-blogging the event and also tracking all of the fast-paced tweets. This unexpected drama was given top billing. I'm sure Kanye's publicist and management are not taking the night off.

Kanye West's name was actually booed when it was brought up later by P. Diddy when he presented the Best Male Video of the Year.

For an artist like Kanye West, who seems to enjoy controversy, is it better to get bad publicity or no Internet traffic at all?

Update on Sunday, September 13, 2009 at 11:15PM by Jenny DeVaughn

UPDATE:  Beyonce showed the power of doing the right thing and gave someone else the spotlight.

During Beyonce's acceptance speech for the MTV Video of the Year Award for "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", she asked Taylor Swift to come out to give her acceptance speech instead.

Glad this post has a better ending and a high volume of tweets about being first class.

Social Media Revolution

Are you ready for the social media revolution?

With the support of my professional colleagues, family and friends, I have decided to follow my dreams and launch a social media consultation firm.  It is an honor to have the opportunity teach individuals and companies how to pay-it-forward using digital tools to reach their goals.  Thank you for your interest in my new venture as the Chief Enthusiast Officer (CEO) of Social Precision.