Changes in LinkedIn Profiles

Is your LinkedIn profile 100% complete? Are you sure? LinkedIn has recently changed how it determines if a profile is 100% complete. If you haven't checked your profile recently, you may want to do so (although you should be visiting at least once a day!) What you thought was complete may not be. If your profile is not complete, you are not alone. LinkedIn estimates that approximately half of all profiles are complete. That means that around half are not. 

According to The Power Formula for LinkedIn Success author Wayne Breitbarth, here is a list that explains what you need for a 100% complete LinkedIn profile:

First job position:  20%

Confirm first job position:  5%

Describe you current position:  5%

Industry and postal code:  5%

Second job position:  20%

Add 5 skills:  5%

Add your education:  25%

Add a photo:  5%

Add at least 50 connections:  10%

What has changed? Recommendations, a summary and specialties are no longer required for a 100% completed profile; however, specific skills and more than 50 first-level connections are now required.

The connections aspect is pretty self-explanatory. The more quality connections you have, the more networking opportunities that are available to you. Also, your profile is visible to that many more people who may have a connection to you.

The other consideration for a complete profile is the addition of skills. Obviously, the more skills you have listed, the more keywords are tied to your profile. Be sure to list at least five skills but really, you should list as many as possible. Again, because these are keywords, more higher the number, the higher you should rank in a LinkedIn search.

No Photo Available or Why You Need a Good Photo On Your Profile

Face it, humans are visual creatures. From time we are born, we seek to focus on another human face. As we get older, we also seek to avoid the camera at all costs! However, one of the most important elements of a person's social media profile is a photo. And yet, one of the elements that is missing from their profile is a photo.

All of the sites stress the importance of a photo—LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and dating sites encourage the user to upload photos. For better or worse, people want to see what the person at the other end of their communications looks like.

As a photographer, I have done promo head shots for professionals and completely understand their reluctance to get in front of the camera. It's not my favorite place to be either. But I know from personal experience that a photo is a necessity.

For a long time, I had a photo that was taken of me while I was on a photo shoot. It is a cute, funny photo that illustrated what I was doing at the time I started my LinkedIn profile, which was working full-time promoting my equine photography business. However, as I wound down the business and I started focusing on my career in marketing, the photo became less relevant. I wasn't connecting with other communications professionals and I really believe the photo was part of the reason. Finally, I broke down and made an appointment at a photo studio and had my own headshot done. Was it fun? Not really! Did I do some Photoshopping to the image? You bet I did! However, it has resulted in more connections and I believe the new photo is part of the reason. You can see the new photo on my profile here on my blog. Will I use this photo on my personal Facebook page? No, because Facebook is not the tool I am using for my professional development. I will use it with a Twitter profile once I establish a professional handle.

I have noticed other profiles that either don't have a photo at all or have a photo that doesn't illustrate them in a clear manner. I have also noticed this on dating sites! There are any number of profiles that simply don't have a photo—hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if you don't have a photo, you aren't going to make a match! Your profile will be passed over almost every time. This doesn't have to be a professional photo but should not be 10 years old either (yes, this has happened to me!) and should be in focus. As a side note, you probably don't want to use professional, modeling photos for your profile—no one will believe the photos are really you!

In the end, if you have a LinkedIn, Twitter or business Facebook page (or a dating site profile), take advantage of a good profile photo. You'll be glad you did.

Social Media and the Courts

It seems that nothing is private anymore, not with the advent of social media and people's inclination to post/upload photos of all the things happening in their lives. However, it was only a matter of time before a client's errant post(s) was picked up by opposing counsel and presented as evidence in a court of law. This is an interesting infographic depicting some of the ways family law attorneys are using posts and photos during trials. Baby-boomer and Gen-X parents have been telling our kids to not post anything that will embarrass us parents but then we forget to abide by the same adage and it's coming back to bite us in court!

I'm seeing CLE courses offered for attorneys regarding ethical considerations of personal use of social media but am not seeing an actual law school courses regarding social media in the courtroom or personal usage. There is a high percentage of under-30's using social media these days (89% according to the graphic) so I imagine it is only a matter of time before a course in social media usage, as both an ethics and evidentiary consideration, becomes a required course in law school. Seeing this graphic prompted me to sign up for a CLE webinar regarding ethics and social media since this topic is becoming more and more a part of my job description. And although I am always careful about what I post on my various social media pages, it also serves as an additional reminder to think before hitting "enter"!

Infographic courtesy of Dishon & Block Family Law Attorneys

QR Codes: Already Passé?

I have to admit that I hate QR codes—and I am struggling to convince the marketing manager at my firm that we do not have a good reason to place an ugly black and white box on an otherwise decent looking ad. That ugly box is a QR code and he has belatedly joined the QR code craze. The sad thing is the QR codes that we are generating are leading to… the homepage of our website. Not a video, not a particularly interesting page on our website, not a blog authored by one of our attorneys, just our homepage. As a designer, I think the QR codes are an unnecessary element that take something esthetically pleasing away from the ad's overall design. As a marketing manager, he's thinking that it adds an element of value. If the codes led to an interesting video, I would agree. As they are now, they fail to add anything that may interest the reader of the ad.

Here is a link to some other QR code fails, some which are pretty funny, a couple that are downright dangerous and others that make you wonder just what the ad agency/marketing department was thinking.

Don't Tweet and Drive!

So, I don't follow NASCAR, but thought this little ditty on mashable.com was a pretty funny read. I will admit, my first thought was "How the heck could this guy be driving at the speeds they do and be tweeting!" You'll see in the tweet samples that this question does come up (he was delayed because of wreck and fire on the track) but I also thought it was amusing that he had his cell phone with him in the car during the race. That said, he gained more than 100,000 followers in 2 hours because of his tweets from his car!

Just another indicator of how addicted we can be to our phones and our social media outlets.

Twitter: It's not just for irrelevant info anymore!

As we continue to explore the benefits of utilizing social media to promote businesses, candidates and celebrities, I thought it was interesting to find an article in the February 19 issue of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about a very creative use for Twitter.

Francis Kariuki is the administrative chief of a remote village in western Kenya. He uses Twitter to send out alarms about thieves in the village, missing livestock and positive, hopeful messages to uplift the spirits of the people in his village. Even though many of the villagers cannot afford smartphones (he has only about 300 followers), thousands of the 28,000 residents of his village have found other ways to follow Kariuki's tweets, either via text message or third-party mobile phone apps. Kariuki states in the article that his use of Twitter has brought down the crime rate (even the criminals in the village follow his tweets!) and saved money and time because he doesn't have to send letters or print posters to distribute information.

The article goes on to explain that Twitter is experiencing huge growth across Africa, stating that "over the last three months of 2011, Kenyans produced nearly 2.5 million tweets." The thought is that with the expanded use of social media, there will be a huge movement within the country towards the use of social media in different ways.

We hear about uprisings against governments through social media, advice on the best utilization of social media to promote business and, of course, what a favorite celebrity had for breakfast via social media, but I think Kariuki's use is by far a unique and useful method to improve the lives of his constituents. Want to follow his tweets? Here's the link: https://twitter.com/Chiefkariuki

Really??? Are You Kidding Me???

All I can say is… "Really????? Are you kidding me????"

If you don't want to click on the link, here is the story. A long-time high school football coach and teacher was forced to resign his teaching and coaching positions after accidentally posting a nude photo of himself on his Facebook page. He maintained that the photo was only supposed to be viewable by his girlfriend, uh huh. It was estimated that the photo was online and viewable to the general public for no more than ten minutes—long enough for a parent of one of the coach's players to see the photo. The parent reported the incident and the coach later resigned his teaching and coaching position.

It is said that with age comes wisdom. Apparently, that wisdom skips over 40-something guys who are trying to impress their girlfriends. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

I realize there might be a learning curve for those of us that have not grown up immersed in computers, instant messaging and social media. However, I would think that common sense would intervene and would tell a 40-something man, a high school teacher and coach for Pete's sake, that it's probably a dumb idea to post a photo of his naked self anywhere, much less on a social media site!

I proposed in a recent media law class paper that school districts need to start educating not only their students on the ins-and-outs of social media, but also their teachers, administrators and quite possibly, the parents of students on social media and the potential pitfalls. Policies that mandate limited usage of social media for employees of school districts are one thing but perhaps it is time they actually bring some social media professionals into the schools to show the adults how to (and how not to) use Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Just because it's not face-to-face contact...

When I first heard about Twitter, I thought it was a silly way to waste more time than I had to waste. I was late to the Facebook game because it too seemed to be an enormous time-suck although I am now fully engaged in the addiction that is Facebook! Eventually, I was drawn in by the Twitter craze and am now in the not enviable position of trying to convince the attorneys in the firm where I work that Twitter is not a waste of their time either.

In Kevin O'Keefe's January 5th post in Real Lawyers Have Blogs, he discusses the value in law firms utilizing Twitter. Probably the most important point he makes is this: Twitter is not about how many followers you have nor is it just about distributing content. Twitter is about establishing relationships and engaging with people. I thought of how the firm where I work utilizes Twitter and I realized that all we are doing is posting links to e-alerts and events. As a firm, we are not engaging with our audience. As O'Keefe states in his post, "Sure you need to share content on Twitter to get the opportunity to build relationships with your Twitter followers, but the end goal ought to be engagement with real people, not a lot of followers." We are not engaging anyone.

It is hard to convince a group of extremely cautious people that social media is a great way to engage people and build relationships. The ironic thing is that lawyers typically embrace word-of-mouth referrals and face-to-face networking. When attorneys were first allowed to dip their toes into the pool of television advertising, one of comments that I heard most was that they didn't need to advertise on TV, or in anything for that matter, other than the yellow pages. They insisted they engaged the majority of their clients via word-of-mouth referrals and through networking.

What is amusing about this is this is exactly what social media, including Twitter, is about: networking and word-of-mouth referrals, except it is not done face-to-face. Networking involves listening to what people have to say about their needs and their issues. Or networking is about getting to know people you may not already know so that they know about you! Therein lies the beauty of Twitter (or other social media avenues): your potential network just got larger because of the sheer numbers of participants that may be interested in you and your contributions.

Now I just have to convince the attorneys and other powers that be!

Let's Give Them Something To Talk About...

If Children's Healthcare of Atlanta wanted to get people talking about childhood obesity, they have certainly succeeded with their latest ad/media campaign, "Strong4life." Utilizing social media and a traditional website, Strong4life.com is asking people to "join the community" against childhood obesity. The campaign has a Facebook page and have utilized a Twitter feed. They have also posted short videos on YouTube that illustrates the need for Georgia to start addressing the problems associated with childhood obesity. As of February 1, their Facebook page had 684 likes. A glance at their Twitter page shows Tweets acknowledging other Tweets commenting on the initiative, both positive and negative and Tweets acknowledging stories regarding the initiative in the mainstream media. They definitely have people talking.

Not all of the talk is in support of the campaign. A very vocal group of bloggers, i.e. mommy bloggers, started their own campaign, via social media, complaining about what they perceived as the negative message conveyed by the "Strong4life" ad campaign. Claiming the Strong4life ads focuses on shaming obese children, they unleashed a "Twitter Party" utilizing the hashtag #Ashamed. I've included a link showing the statistics of the tweets from that day—the bloggers' Twitter Party was pretty effective with the #Ashamed hashtag showing up in just under 1% of 200 million tweets for that day. Not bad for a ground roots campaign. Children's Healthcare of Atlanta is listening too. A spokeswoman for the hospital stated "We needed this to become front and center. We needed to start tackling this as a community."

The fact that comments, both positive and negative, are being made via the social media stream, and the fact that the originator of the conversation—Children's Healthcare of Atlanta— is listening to those comments, proves that social media is clearly an effective tool for creating a community, albeit a virtual community.

http://www.hlntv.com/article/2012/01/31/mommy-bloggers-ashamed-twitter-party-raises-awareness-about-anti-obesity-ads?hpt=hp_c2

Hope for the book...

The Journal Sentinel recently published an article about a phenomenon called Little Free Libraries: little outposts that serve as free libraries. There are no fines, no dues, no library cards needed. The philosophy is basically "take a book, leave a book" although the article is quick to point out that people don't have to leave a book in order to take a book and people are encouraged to keep a book if they like it. This is such a simple way of encouraging people seek out a book, look at the cover and back cover, maybe skim through a few pages to determine if it is something that looks interesting. In a world that is brimming with eReaders and iPads, it is refreshing to see that someone has thought up a way to bypass the technology.

The Little Free Libraries reminds me of the "book mobiles" of my grade school days. Book mobiles were basically libraries on wheels and were associated with the local library. Once every two weeks or so, the book mobile would come to the grade school and we would have the opportunity to browse through the stacks and check out books that we may not have had access to at the school library. It gave those students who maybe didn't get to go to the local library on a regular basis the opportunity to find an adventure, a biography, an opportunity to learn or escape. I can't remember if we were required to have library cards in order to check out the books. Somehow, I don't think we were—being kids, we probably would have lost our library cards before we even boarded the bus and the kids that didn't have a library card for whatever reason wouldn't have been able to check anything out.

I have an iPad and a Kindle and I do use both for reading. However, I don't feel the same excitement when turning on my Kindle to read a book as I do when I go to the library, mosey through the stacks and come home with 2-3 books that I can't wait to read. Technology is not going to dwindle—on the contrary, iPad and eReader sales continue to rise. Schools are increasingly handing out iPad's to students for school use and more textbooks are slated to be released for eReaders. But I hope print doesn't go the way of the dinosaur. Maybe the advent of Little Free Libraries will keep alive the wonder of finding the perfect book you need at that moment, the feeling of holding something solid in your hands, turning the pages as you weave your way through someone's life story or an adventure. And it gives those who do not have access to the latest technology the opportunity to experience the joy of reading for free.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/thinking-outside-the-box-with-little-libraries-j43rv4u-137866938.html

http://www.littlefreelibrary.org