44% of companies monitor employees’ use of social media

A new survey has just been released , that shows how companies approach social media in the workplace, with some pretty surprising findings. When you work in a more open and flexible company, it’s easy to forget that many people, particularly in larger organisations, are subject to fairly intense monitoring or policing of access to social networks. And, somewhat worryingly, the policies adopted towards use of social media don’t just apply to the workplace, but outside of it as well. In the companies surveyed, 44% said that they had policies in place for use of social media that covered use both in and out of the workplace. Further to this, less than half the businesses in the survey said that they gave access to social media for all employees. While this is a difficult subject to broach and there is by no means a right and wrong answer, it nonetheless contributes to an unfair split in the level of access to information and connections.

71% block social networks in the workplace

To show just how extreme monitoring social networks has become, a staggering 70.7% claimed that they actively blocked social networks in the workplace. This is a huge figure and is somewhat surprising, given how pervasive social media has become in our daily lives. And while many may see this as justified, viewing social network use as something purely private, such blocking seems almost archaic :

The issue here is not so much in considering social media as a place to chat to friends, but in viewing it as a valuable source of information. Yes, restricting access to chat to your friends on Facebook is one thing, but restricting access to Twitter for example, is quite another when you consider the role that it plays in the circulation of information and news.

Who owns your content?

Where this gets even more interesting, is that such a large proportion of companies have policies that cover use of social networks outside of the workplace as well. This is a difficult reality for many people and it’s an outcome of the private becoming public. Where once you used to leave work and you had your private life to yourself, for many, that private life is being broadcast online, as you choose. For organisations however, this poses a risk if you are linked to your organisation in any way. Anything you say or do online could indirectly implicate your employer and you can understand the risk here.

But surely, as social media becomes more pervasive in our lives, this line of thinking can only go so far. We are only going to become more public and share more information about ourselves, so how far can the policing go? What’s needed instead of even more policing or moderation, is a step change in society that ultimately changes the relationship between employee and employer. Your job is your job but your life is your life. There will need to be a shift in thinking across society that what individuals do or say online (as long as it’s legal) should in no way affect your position 9-5. The alternative is a more policed society where the employer/organisation has absolute control and can enforce restrictions as they decide is best.

The need for anonymity?

This brings up an interesting issue of anonymity, which has been brought to the forefront since Google’s decision to ban users who don’t use their real names on Google +. Now while this is completely Google’s decision – their network their rules – when you consider this approach in line with how organisations are monitoring social media, it makes things rather difficult. If by default you are forced to use your real identity online but you know that your employer could be watching, it takes away a huge amount of freedom that everyone should have access to. The extent to which you have freedom and access to information online can be determined by your employer, which is a worrying thought and a fairly sobering view of the future.

Why a networked employee is a good one

Companies that restrict employees’ access to social networks, ultimately have a differing view to the benefits of social media. It’s clearly seen as something that can impinge on day to day working lives, as opposed to something that can view it. This, again, is a somewhat archaic approach. Sure, a significant part of social media is about purely connecting with friends from a social perspective. But it’s also about building connections, establishing authority and discovering new information. This can only be beneficial to an organisation. A networked employee is ultimately a better employee as it opens up the lines you have to information and the connections people build extend beyond being purely social and can benefit organisations by creating new opportunities, access to ‘influencers’ in your area and possible lead generation. Nearly 71% of companies are actively restricting this.

Retweet, WTF! The Concise Oxford English Dictionary now adds sexting. Woot!

The Concise Oxford English Dictionary has added 400 words to its dictionary, including retweet, woot, sexting and cyberbullying. The 12th edition of the dictionary is a recognition that modern technology and social media have greatly impacted the English language. Retweet, the act of resharing a message on Twitter, is our favorite addition, though sexting and woot are a close second and third.

The Concise Oxford English Dictionary — which is celebrating its centennial birthday — now has more than 240,000 words. “Sadly, the new edition has no room for tremendous words like brabble ‘paltry noisy quarrel’ and growlery ‘place to growl in, private room, den’ — what we might call a man cave these days,” Oxford University Press’s Angus Stevenson said in a blog post. “But the preoccupations of today’s Generation Y have opened the door to some equally colourful vocabulary — how about momo, noob, nurdle, and woot?”

Among the other additions to the Oxford English Dictionary are jeggings, mankini (a term popularized by Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat movie) and domestic goddess. Earlier this year, the Oxford English Dictionary Online added WTF! OMG, LOL, FYI to its list of official English words.

Protect Your Online Privacy while Travelling

At the peak of summer, the weather is not all that’s heating up – privacy, it turns out, has never been hotter. From senators to major news outlets, it seems everyone has privacy on the mind these days.

What does this have to do with your upcoming vacation? Well, chances are you’re packing more than a swimsuit and a beach book – what about your smartphone, laptop, tablet and digital camera? These devices are loaded with personal information and pose significant privacy risks if not properly protected during travel. Exercise a little common sense and follow these privacy tips to help protect your personal information and ensure a safe and relaxing vacation.

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1. Use Secure Wi-Fi and “https” Whenever Possible

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If you’re connecting to a wireless network, be it at a café or your hotel lobby, it should be password-protected to prevent unauthorized persons from accessing the network. You can also ask the venue if they have encryption enabled for their wireless router, which provides an extra layer of defense. If you plan to log in to your online accounts or enter sensitive credit card information over Wi-Fi, make sure the website URLs begin with “https,” indicating that they encrypt your data during transmission.

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2. Consider Tracking or “Find Me” Apps for Your Digital Devices

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Computers, tablets and smartphones are popular theft targets due to their high resale value, but you can equip them with 21st century anti-theft protection. Choose from a variety of apps that allow you to track and potentially recover your devices in the event of theft. Some apps take photos of the perpetrator, geo-locate the stolen devices or even allow you to remotely log in to the devices.

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3. Don’t Broadcast Your Absence on Social Media

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Announcing your travel plans on a social media account can clue potential thieves to an opportunity to raid your vacant home. This threat is especially magnified if your social media accounts are public.

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4. Log Out Of Public Computers

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If you check your email at an Apple store or Internet café while on vacation, remember to sign out of your online accounts when you’re done. Simply closing the browser window is not enough – some accounts may keep you logged in. Therefore, the next person who tries to log in to their own email or social networking account will have full access to yours.

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5. Consider Leaving Your Laptop At Home

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If you’re thinking about packing your work computer, remember it may contain sensitive information. Border agents have sweeping search powers upon country reentry, and have the power to search and copy the contents of your smartphone or computer. Depending on the device’s information, maybe it’s best to leave it at home.

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6. Monitor Your Financial Statements In Real Time

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A daily check of your credit card and bank account while traveling can’t hurt. Tourists are often prominent targets for fraud; therefore, daily monitoring can help target suspicious activity (like double-charges) right away. However, remember to only check these sensitive financial accounts using a secure Internet connection.

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7. Password-Protect Your Devices

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Your devices and the data they contain are more vulnerable when you are on the road or visiting an unfamiliar place. If you have sensitive information on your digital devices such as medical records, password-protect or even encrypt sensitive files for further protection. If your devices are stolen, you’ll have peace of mind knowing your data is safe.

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8. Lock Sensitive Documents/Devices In Your Hotel Room Safe

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If the place at which you’re staying doesn’t offer a safe, then securely carry them on your person.

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9. Cameras Are At-Risk Too

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Your smartphone and laptop aren’t the only devices with personal data. Last year I lost my Wi-Fi-equipped camera while traveling abroad. After my return to the U.S., I discovered that the camera had automatically uploaded pictures to my online account. Lo and behold, they were not my photos! The new camera owners had unwittingly uploaded their family vacation photos to my online account via the camera’s Wi-Fi-enabled memory card.

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10. Check Your Privacy Settings Before Sharing Vacation Photos

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When you return from your travels, it may be tempting to immediately upload your vacation photos to your social networking account, but take a minute to review your privacy settings beforehand. That photo of you taking tequila shots at the poolside bar could end up in the network feed of your boss or a future employer.

Who Uses LinkedIn?

Many businesses are still unconvinced of how useful LinkedIn will be for them, whether employees should be encouraged to use it or whether there is any real business value in the site. I wanted to put together some essential stats that show just how big LinkedIn has become and why you can’t afford to ignore it. In addition to stats that show the reach of the site such as 100 million users, I wanted to delve a bit deeper to find out more about who’s using it and how.

Tech and finance are the leading sectors

Research compiled in July 2011 by Amodiovalerio Verde gives an indepth look at the demographic breakdown of LinkedIn users which is useful for people targeting other individuals or businesses, but most interesting out of this is the breakdown of industry sector. Tech is leading here at 15.3% of users, but interestingly this is followed closely by Finance at 12.9%. This shows that corporate social networking is also making its way into more traditional sectors, while others such as Media are coming in surprisingly low at 3.3%

More than 80% of members are decision makers

This is likely to get a lot of people’s attention, as it shows the potential to generate real business leads and referrals through LinkedIn. In an infographic released by LinkedIn to show the real make-up of LinkedIn members, they revealed that over 80% of members on there are the decision makers in an area of business in their organisation. Focused marketing efforts on LinkedIn can generate real results if you invest time in building relationships, evidenced by the significant amount of key decision makers on the site.

50% of Fortune 100 companies hire through LinkedIn

Showing just how pervasive LinkedIn has become in recruitment, this statistic, released just over 10 months ago, finds that over 50% of Fortune 100 companies now use LinkedIn for their recruitment strategy. It demonstrates the value in really using LinkedIn when jobseeking and the level of companies that use this alongside more traditional recruitment methods. In addition, top execs from all Fortune 500 companies are on LinkedIn, proving that it’s an invaluable business tool across the board at all levels

62% log in from home

This is an interesting stat, pulled together for the UK specifically. The findings released, revealed that the vast majority of time spent accessing LinkedIn is done from home – at 62%, with 38% logging in from work. This is not necessarily how you would expect LinkedIn to be used and it could suggest that there is a large mix of jobseekers and small business owners on the site, who would typically use it from home. I suspect what’s also at play here is people that are covertly looking for a new job without wanting to be caught at work, so they build out their profile and network at home.

Sales jobs lead the pack

As you might expect, sales is the leading job function on LinkedIn in terms of active members, as shown on the image below. There are 6,080,000 members on LinkedIn that work in sales, followed by academics at 5,277,000 and admin at 5,303k. To put it in the context of LinkedIn’s 100 million total members, over 6% of members are working within sales. As a b2b tool it shows there’s a lot of people on there looking for business in a crowded marketplace. If you want LinkedIn to work for you in terms of generating revenue, you’ll need to work hard on your relationships and community to stand out from the crowd :

The World Wide Web turns 20 years old

Saturday is the 20th anniversary of a high-tech invention that changed our lives, the World Wide Web.

The first web site went online on August 6, 1991. The Internet already existed, and British computer scientist Sir Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web as a way to communicate using hypertext.

Internet addresses starting with www are for sites on the World Wide Web. Now, 20 years later, Alexa.com reports the web's most visited sites are Google, Facebook and Youtube.

Sports Stars on Twitter

We have listed the top five biggest users of Twitter from the world of Soccer, Rugby, Golf, Formula One and Tennis. Although when we say the biggest users, we suspect that many of these accounts are handled by the player’s agents and their management companies. During our research, we came across some interesting findings.

Football

It seems oddly fitting that the biggest tweeters from the beautiful game are from the Spanish League, given Spain’s dominance of world football at the moment, although many of the footballers on the list aren’t actually of Spanish descent. At the top of the table is Brazilian Kaka has over 5.3 million followers, that’s more than the entire population of Ireland. In second place is his Madrid teammate, Cristiano Ronaldo, followed by Diego Forlan who plays for cross-town rivals, Athletico Madrid. Rio Ferdinand is the only Premier League player to make it into the top five.

@KAKA
Madrid
Bio: Um cristao, marido e pai. Que ama o futebol
Followers: 5,200,898

@Cristiano
Madrid
Followers: 3,642,834

@DiegoForlan7
Madrid
Bio: Goleador del Mundial 2010, disputa su tercer Copa América y es uno de los delanteros más importantes de la tabla de goleadores de Uruguay según DIRECTV Sports.
Followers: 1,578,219

@andresiniesta8
Barcelona
Bio: Andrés Iniesta Lujan, born in Fuentealbilla the 11th of may of 1984. Football player from the FC Barcelona in Spain.
Followers: 1,420,040

@rioferdy5
Manchester, UK
Bio: Official Twitter account of Rio Ferdinand
Followers: 1,329,319

How many pairs of underwear should you own?

Laugh it up. But I am sure you have thought about this very question at some point. Sure, you may not remember your reasons, and I doubt you wrote down the logic to derive an answer as I did. But since you own underwear, you must have had some reasons behind those purchases. I bet you weighed the benefit of having some minimum number versus the constraint of your closet space and the cost of buying more underwear. You arrived at some optimum number of underwear, as did I.

How many pairs of underwear do you prefer to have? It is worth noting that personal questions like this do not have a right or wrong answer. But it is often helpful to hear how people made their decisions. Here is my attempt at coming up with an optimal number of pairs of underwear.

My goal  Just to be clear, I want to define what I am answering. I am not going to even attempt to count underwear people buy strictly for fashion or special occasions. Those are a whole other category. I merely want to discuss the practical issue of daily-wear items.

My logic  I think a one week supply of underwear is generally agreed as a bare minimum number. Anything less means you’ll be spending most of your time doing laundry. But I think one week is far too little. It means you have no spare if you choose to work out one day or if you somehow lose or rip your underwear. Rather than get just a few more pairs of underwear, it would seem logical to just go ahead and get another week. That puts you at a two week supply which is a fine amount. You can now limit the time of doing laundry, and you have a good buffer of spare clothes.

But I find even two weeks can be troublesome. The major issue arises when you might want to take a longer vacation, like a week long. Unless you have just done laundry, you are going to be somewhere in the middle of your supply of underwear. This often results in having to do laundry either (a) before the vacation so you have enough (b) doing laundry on the vacation or (c) having to do laundry right after your vacation–this is not relaxing at all. By my logic, having a 2.5 week supply is a reasonable amount. I go one step further and just stock up to 3 weeks (about 20 pairs of underwear) to give myself an ample amount and flexibility on when to do laundry.

My answer In summary, I think having a 3 week supply of around 20 pairs of underwear is sensible. Having more is okay but it can be an issue of closet-space and cost (buying all that underwear adds up!). So now you know my logic and I am curious to hear your thoughts and field suggestions. How many pairs of underwear do you own? What other issues came about in your decision process?

How to Google Yourself Effectively and Edit your Online Footprint

There’s a reason that academics–and most everyone else–loves Google: it makes finding what you want just plain easy. Of course, that includes you. But what will someone find when they Google you? Is it what you would like them to see? Now’s the time to find out. Take the next 2 minutes to run a Google search (or Yahoo!,Bing, or your search provider of choice) and see what turns up. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

Now that you’ve seen what’s out there, is it what you want representing you? As I see it, there are three likely outcomes for what you’ve found:

1. Your name pulls up one or many other people who share your name


2. Your name pulls up some sites that you’d rather not have others see


3. Your name pulls up the information that you would like to see about you

The third option is the ideal, but how exactly do you get there if you find yourself in the first or second camps?

Grabbing Your Name


I recognize that not everyone is blessed with as such a strange unwieldy charming name as “Croxall.” But you are in control of what you want to name yourself online. If–to pick a name completely at random–you’re just one of several Jason Joneses out there, you might choose to include a middle initial for your online self. There’s quite a different result for searches on “Jason Jones” and “Jason B. Jones.” You could also adopt the strategy of Alex Jarvis, who has decided drop the vowels from his relatively common name and to be “Alxjrvs” online. The point isn’t so much which name or spelling you decide on so long as it’s still recognizably you and something that is as unique as possible. After deciding on your name, make sure that you use it as many places as possible. While you might not always want to be yourself online, your ability to be found will increase as you use one identity which is as closely linked to your real name as possible.

After you’ve decided on how you want to be known, think about buying the domain associated with your name.  I can speak from relatively recent experience to say that buying a domain and setting up a simple website is really very easy. I did it in just under two hours–and I imagine you can too. Once you have your website, it’s easy to provide others with exactly the materials that you want them–and Google–to find. If building a website seems out of reach, you could consider using a service such as Interfolio’s Portfolio.

Something else that you might consider along with grabbing a domain name is to make sure your name is on relevant social networking sites. For example, Julie tweets at@jcmeloni, but she also owns the @juliemeloni account. The latter has a message which points to her real account.

Finally, in the last year, Google introduced Google Profiles, which are intended to help people control how they appear in Google searches for their name. Since this is exactly what you were looking to do in the first place, you will do well to create a profile and use it to point those looking for you to other relevant sites.

Eliminating Undesirables

But what do you do if your problem isn’t that you can’t be found but is rather that what comes up in your search isn’t what you’d like others to see? I first began Googling myself religiously in my first year on the job market, and I was surprised to see that one of the first hits for my name was my Amazon wishlist. There wasn’t anything on that list that I wouldn’t necessarily want others to see, but…it was less than desirable. The fix in this case proved very simple. I had followed my own policy of being myself online and used my real name on Amazon. I simply changed my account name to a pseudonym and within a week the offending wish list was out of sight.

If your results cannot be altered by changing your username–perhaps there’s something outdated on your institution’s or previous institution’s website–you could simply contact the people in charge of administering the space and ask them to remove or update the material. There might not be anything that you can do to force this change to happen, but in my experience people have been very understanding and helpful in making such changes.

But what about those negative comments? Those won’t be removed except under extraordinary circumstances and you cannot change them to a pseudonym. In this case, feel free to exercise the nuclear option: namely, produce and manage content on other sites so that the less-than-ideal material will gradually fall lower and lower on the search results. This is not necessarily a quick solution, but consider it an opportunity to commit to writing.

YouTube Statistics

According to the latest statistics from YouTube, 48 hours of content are uploaded every minute to the site and the range of contributions is striking. YouTube lists 28 different categories for channels of video. YouTube viewership has grown from 8 million views a day by the end of 2005, to over 3 billion views a day in 2011, according to the company’s data. And the company receives over 200 million views a day via mobile connections.

Kathleen Moore of the Pew Internet Project has just written a report that says 71 percent of online Americans now use video-sharing sites such as YouTube and Vimeo, up from 33 percent 4.5 years ago. The use of video-sharing sites on any given day has also jumped, from 8 percent of online Americans in December 2006 to 28 percent in May 2011.

Pew also found that Internet users in rural areas are now just as likely as users urban and suburban areas to have used these sites, and online African-Americans and Hispanics are more likely than Internet-using whites to visit video-sharing sites. In addition, 81 percent of parents in the survey reported visiting video‐sharing sites, compared with 61 percent of the nonparents.

According to Moore, “The rise of broadband and better mobile networks and devices has meant that video has become an increasingly popular part of users’ online experiences.” She added, “People use these sites for every imaginable reason – to laugh and learn, to watch the best and worst of popular culture and to check out news. And video-sharing sites are very social spaces as people vote on, comment on, and share these videos with others.” In her report, Moore also said, “The rise in use of video‐sharing sites is at least partly being driven by the growth in content on sites like YouTube and by user contributions, which then possibly encourage site visits by contributors’ friends and others who pass around links about popular amateur videos.”

How to manage your online reputation

Over the past few years, several studies have been conducted looking at social media and employer hiring habits.  One of those studies, conducted by Microsoft, showed that 70% of employers in the United States screened out potential employees because of information found online.  The study also showed that the majority of recruiters and HR professionals indicated that they think it’s appropriate to consider personal information found online in screening potential job applicants.

This raised several questions in my mind: What procedures are in place to ensure that the information found online relates to the job candidate (there’s a Donna McNamara who was recently arrested and isn’t me)?  Do they differentiate between information voluntarily posted by an individual versus information someone else posts about them?  Is the information validated for accuracy?  Are there potential legal ramifications of online searching?

In several of my classes, we discussed the importance of having a digital footprint and using various types of media to convey your personal brand.  I’ve been to various speaker engagements that encourage job seekers to create professional websites and use Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. to build a personal brand online.  This way, when employers Google you, they find content you’ve created.  For some recruiters, a lack of digital footprint is viewed as a negative; suggesting the applicant hasn’t written articles, created a website, blog or LinkedIn profile.

For potential employees, online information can be especially troublesome as in the case of personal networking sites like Facebook.  Here, people openly post candid photos of themselves and allow others to tag them in photos.  This often means drunken escapes are captured for general public consumption (think Jackass star Ryan Dunn tweeting a photo of himself drinking hours before reports of a fatal car accident).  A potential employer may decide to

• Falsifying information about qualifications


• Poor communication skills (spelling and grammar count!)


• Discriminatory comments were found on posts


• Posts about excessive drinking or drug usage


• Provocative or inappropriate photographs or information posted


• Bad mouthing of previous employer, co-workers or clients


• Sharing of confidential information from previous employer

Issues with online search don’t just impact potential job candidates.  Recruiters and HR staff doing the searching can open themselves up for trouble by obtaining too much information.  For example, personal networking sites often include information about race, religious beliefs, age, sexual orientation and marital status; factors NOT to be considered in pre-employment screening.  By searching potential candidates’ personal sites, recruiters become exposed to information that does not pertain to the applicant’s ability to perform the job and may inadvertently consider factors such as age, race, etc.

I’ve experienced the use of waivers and releases at the point of application to circumvent such issues so employer concerns may become less problematic.  In addition, some organizations put blocks on social networking sites so that information may not even be available to them.  So what can you do to make sure your online image is what you want it to be?  Bottom line – clean up your social networking sites.

• Don’t have photos you wouldn’t want an employer to see.


• No drunken escapes, no profanity, or slurs.


• Don’t bad mouth former employers, bosses or co-workers.


• Make your social networking sites private.


• Sweat the small stuff. Your email address, spelling, and grammar speak to your maturity and communication skills.

 

Google To Rebrand Blogger and Picasa in Google+ Push

Say goodbye to the Picasa and Blogger names: Google intends to retire several non-Google name brands and rename them as Google products. The move is part of a larger effort to unify its brand for the public launch of Google+, the search giant’s social initiative.

Blogger and Picasa aren’t going away, of course — they’re two of Google’s most popular products. Instead, according to two sources familiar with the matter, Google intends to rename Picasa “Google Photos” and Blogger will become “Google Blogs.”

Picasa and Blogger were also Google acquisitions, although both companies have been part of the Google empire for far longer. Picasa was acquired in 2004 and Blogger (co-founded by Evan Williams of Twitter) was acquired in 2003 and is one of the top 10 most visited websites in the world. Although the rebranding could upset some existing customers, it also gives Google the ability to completely integrate both services into Google+.

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Rebranding Coming in Next Six Weeks

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The transition from Picasa and Blogger to Google Photos and Google Blogs will occur “in a month to a month and a half,” we’ve been told. The date aligns with the likely public launch of Google+. Mashable has been told to expect the public debut of Google+ on or before July 31. The date is important because it’s the day all private Google Profiles will be deleted. We believe Google doesn’t want to have private profiles after the public Google+ launch. Instead, the company is likely to encourage users who want more privacy to use Circles to curate their friend groups.

The brand unification effort will be the largest in company history — it’s never renamed a property as large as Blogger. The popular blog creation service has been receiving a lot of extra love recently. Google+ makes perfect sense for Blogger and Picasa — they are both social products that improve as more people use them. It’s important to note that Google+ already has a photos feature, a product that we believe utilizes Picasa technology. It’s also important to note that Google+’s photo feature has no Picasa branding of any kind.

Social Media Study: 60 % Say LinkedIn is Most Important Social Network Account

Performics, the performance marketing agency owned by Publicis Groupe, today released results from "S-Net (The Impact of Social Media)," a report from ROI Research Inc. sponsored by Performics. According to the survey of 2,997 active social networkers, 59 percent of respondents said it is important to have a LinkedIn account, more than any other social network.

Furthermore, of the study respondents with an active LinkedIn account, 50 percent visit the site at least weekly and 20 percent visit the site at least daily. While this new social media study shows the frequency of LinkedIn visits decreasing since the height of the recession in 2010 (67 percent weekly and 22 percent daily visits), the percentage of people who deem LinkedIn the most important social networking site jumped dramatically from 41 percent last year to 59 percent this year.

"We may not necessarily be in a double-dip recession but, individuals have embraced social networking as a means to actively manage their personal visibility in the global economy." said Daina Middleton, CEO of Performics. "Factors including LinkedIn's recent IPO announcement, the May uptick in national unemployment and signs of a slowed market certainly contribute to LinkedIn's attractiveness among social networkers."

The study also reveals how technology combined with social networks have changed the way people behave, how companies and brands can capitalize on new social media marketing opportunities. It specifically inquired about the purchase process for different types of products and in relation to other media channels. Some of the most astounding findings of the study include:

•     People recommend companies and buy products they follow: among active Twitter users who follow at least one company, 59 percent are more likely to recommend a company they follow, and 58 percent are more likely to buy a product they follow


•     Comparison shopping is prevalent: 59 percent use social networks to compare prices; 56 percent do so to talk about sales or specials


•     People are split about getting and giving advice: Half of respondents use social networks to give (50 percent) and get (50 percent) advice about products/services, companies or brands on social networking sites


•     Personal referrals wield power: 60 percent are at least somewhat likely to take action when a friend posts something about a product/service, company or brand

"The most effective marketers continue to adopt performance marketing strategies that engage 'participants' in every channel of their media mix - across platforms, devices and screens," adds Middleton. "In this day and age, participants is a much more accurate description for brand constituents than consumers as they are actively dictating what, where and how they interact with any company or product. Nowhere is this more prevalent than with social media, so brands that cede some control to embrace this reality have tremendous opportunities to succeed."

The study's findings related to brand and company interaction illustrate this power shift:

•     Fifty-three percent frequently or occasionally use social networks to provide feedback to a brand or retailer


•     Fifty-two percent agreed that people can influence business decisions made by companies, brands and retailers by voicing opinions on social networking sites


•     Thirty-four percent reported that interacting with a brand or company on social networks made them more aware of their eco-friendly efforts

"The best part about this fundamental power shift is how it motivates people to interact with the brands and companies they follow. Active social networkers report a desire for regular interaction with them," said Scott Haiges, president of ROI Research. "In fact, 53 percent said products, services or companies should communicate with fans on social networking sites at least once per week."

Performics and ROI Research this summer will release "vertical reports" that highlight findings specific to various industries including apparel, automotive, entertainment, financial services, travel and others. The vertical reports will benchmark how people use social networking sites to get advice on what to purchase, how they give advice on companies/products through social networks and their likelihood to post vertical specific content.

How To Find a Job on Twitter

Tough economic times call for innovative approaches. An estimated 51 million people internationally are expected to lose their jobs in 2009, and with the unemployment rate on the rise, how does one find career opportunities fast? One great option is Twitter.

Twitter is evolving as another resource, in addition to traditional methods, for both job searching and recruiting.

• Make your Twitter presence “employer-friendly”

o Put your job pitch in your Twitter bio (which is 160 characters)

o Use a professional looking avatar

o Tweet about your job search

• Utilize your Twitter background. There’s lots of space you can use to promote yourself.

• Include a link to an online CV or resume in your bio. Use a tool like VisualCV.

• Establish yourself as an expert in your field on Twitter. It’s important to note that you should not misrepresent yourself. If you’re not a medical doctor, don’t play one on Twitter. As those on Twitter become interested in your content, when employers are looking at you, you’ll have more than just your resume to back up your knowledge and experience.

“It’s about who you know”

How do you get to know the right people? It’s not always about who you’re looking for, some people on Twitter are actually looking for YOU.

There are many job recruiters who use Twitter to look for potential candidates. Before contacting a recruiter via Twitter, check out:

• Their bio

• Follower/Following ratio (Have they been around a while? Do they follow people back?)

• Click the link to their website

• Ask others in your network whether or not the recruiter is a credible source.

Karen McHugh a.k.a. @JobContax – Karen is an executive recruiter. She often tweets out specific advice for job seekers and project news for the construction and engineering sectors. Karen is accessible to her followers and tweets about non-recruiting topics as well.

Job search tools & resources

A reactive job search on Twitter probably isn’t the best way to find a job. There are many new Twitter tools and applications to assist with a proactive job search.

TwitJobSearch.com

Another tool born out of Twitter for job seekers and recruiters. This is a very simple and free tool for job seekers. You can search tweets containing jobs by industry and location. View JobContax tutorial.

Job search accounts

There are a variety of Twitter accounts dedicated to providing job listings by field, company, region, and more. Once you’ve decided which best match your job search, consider turning on mobile alerts for these accounts to be among the first to receive messages (if your mobile phone plan includes SMS messages).

By company  @mtvnetworksjobs – Jobs at MTV

By field  @journalism_jobs – Jobs in journalism

By job type  @freelance_jobs – Freelance jobs

By region  @ITJobsSydney – IT jobs in Sydney, Australia

General  @indeed – One search. All jobs

To find additional Twitter job resources, use the Twitter search function and type in keywords important in your job search. For example, “job openings,” “looking for a job,” or “healthcare career.” Additionally, you can search out others in your desired career field on sites like Twellow, Just tweet it, and TwitterTroll.

Your next job could be just a tweet away.

Beginners guide to Twitter

What is Twitter?
Twitter is a Real-Time short messaging service which helps you to connect with your friends and followers no matter where you are and how you want to get connected. Its a 140 characters limit messaging service where you can post messages in your Twitter account and its posted on your public account which is also sent your followers as updates.

Register for Free Twitter Account
You can register for a Twitter account offcourse for free of charges with your Full Name, Username , Password & Email Address. Once you enter this information you are a twitter user and have access to all the services which others do. You dont need to confirm anything in your address, and directly start using the twitter account.

What are Tweets
The simple and short messages you send on Twitter are called as Tweets, which are sent to your followers and shown on your Twitter Profile Page. If you dont have any friends or contacts with your Twitter Account then these Tweets are worth nothing because there is no one who is going to read them. On the Twitter Homepage , once you login to your account you will find all the Tweets posted by you and your contacts the way blog posts are listed with the latest & fresh ones on the top and older ones moving down.



How to Use Twitter
Adding tweets is really simple, you just have to login to your Twitter account and then visit the Home section at http://twitter.com/home. Here you will find a box where you can enter the Tweets and click on ‘Update’ which posts the Tweet on all your followers Homepage. Make sure the message you try to send is less than 140 characters because anything about that is not accepted.

Who are Followers & What is Following
At Twitter its really easy to find someone and start following them. Following means that you are becoming a follower of someone, after which what all he tweets in his twitter account is updated on your homepage. Lets say you are following you friends, then whenever he sends a message on Twitter, all the followers like you get the same message.

How to Follow Someone
In order to follow someone in Twitter you need to visit the profile page of your friends and then hit the ‘Follow’ button which is available just below their Profile Photo. Once this is done you are a Follower of that specified Twitter member and you will be able to see all their messages in your Twitter Homepage. You can Following anyone except those who have not Protected their updates and kept a private profile. There is no rule that the person whom you have followed should Follow you back but if he follows back you can send him private messages which are normally notified to him via email.

How do I UnFollow Someone
The very same way you follow someone in Twitter, you need to click on the ‘Following’ option which is available just below their Profile Photo. You will be asked to confirm if you want to Remove the account from your ‘Following’ members list, which once clicked you are done with the Unfollowing process and you wont see any of their updates on your Twitter Homepage. The person whom you have UnFollowed can still continue Following you because there is no link between these actions and he can continue to read all your updates on his homepage.

How to reply other Twitter Members
When you follow other users, you keep getting their messages on your Homepage and in case you want to reply to any of these, you just need to hit on the ‘reply to following username’ link located on the right of the message. Once you hit that button you will get the same Tweet submission box but with the username of the member whom you are sending a message prefixed.



Finding something on Twitter
If you looking for something on Twitter then Twitter Search would be the best option because it shows you with Real-Time Search Results for the keywords you type in the Search Box. The search engine is really cool because it shows all the tweets with the searched keyword and the very same page would notify you if there are any latest tweets with the searched keyword, and in order to view it you need to refresh the page.



Search People & Friends on Twitter
If you are looking for following your friends who you think are a member of Twitter, then you can use the ‘Find People‘ option which is located on the top right of your profile page once you are logged in. You have a total of 4 options for searching someone or adding people whom you can follow which are :

Find on Twitter – By Entering the Username, First Name or Last Name
Find on other networks – You can login to Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail & MSN and try to find how many of your contacts are members of Twitter whom you can directly follow.
Invite by email – Know someone close who is not a member of Twitter, Invite them through the Email Invitation.
Suggested Users – Start Following Hundreds of Top Twitter Users which are Suggested by Twitter, though this option would be useless because probably none of these will Follow back and there is no point in following someone who is not in your business or who is not of your type.

What are Twitter Device Notifications
One of the best InBuilt Feature of Twitter is that you can get all the Tweets and Updates directly on your Mobile Phone, which means that you are not limited to Desktop Computer for using Twitter Services. You have the option of Devices under Settings Tab where you can add your Mobile Phone number and get all the Updates for Free of cost. You can even setup Sleep settings where you dont get any Tweets on your mobile phone during the Hours you Specify.

Twitter with SMS
Based on the mobile phone devices services you can also Tweet back from your mobile phone through SMS. This can be useful when you want to post something on Twitter and you are away from your computer. You dont get charged any amount when you recieve all the SMS updates but when you send back you may get charged based on your Telecom Provider or carrier’s plan you are subscribed to at normal Text Message rates.

Twitter Commands for Mobile Phone SMS
When you are using Twitter through SMS, then you can use the following short codes for multiple tasks.
@username + message > Direct reply someone with your message.
WHOIS username > shows you the profile information for public Twitter users.
STATS > Sends you your followers count.
ON: turns ALL phone notifications on.
OFF: turns ALL phone notifications off.
FOLLOW username : Follow someone through mobile phone
LEAVE username: UnFollow someone through mobile phone

Twitter Account Suspended Reasons
Your Twitter account can get suspended for many reasons and you can contact the Twitter Support team if you feel that the suspension was in error. Here are few major reasons why your twitter account can be suspended.

* unauthorized scripting of the site
* unauthorized serial account creation
* unauthorized mass account creation
* user name squatting
* account contains links pointing to phishing sites, malware, or other harmful material
* an account is identified as belonging to a group of spam accounts
* updates consist of duplicate or repeating links and/or text
* updates consist mainly of links and not personal updates

If the Twitter team can find that the complaint you have sent back to restore your account at suspended@twitter.com is legit there are chances that your account can be totally restored.

Twitter Adds Automatic Shortening For URLs

Twitter announced a new feature allowing users to tweet easier and safer.  The official t.co Twitter shortener will now automatically shorten URLs right from the Tweet box when using the web version of Twitter.  The feature shortens links to 19 characters, and shows users a preview of the destination link.

When a user’s link will be shortened, a notification will show next to the Tweet button:



Once the Tweet is live, the link will show the preview of the destination for all users:



Users will be notified that their Tweets will be shortened upon entering the first 13 characters of a URL. This new automatic link shortener will help  fight against malicious activity because the preview feature warns users of the destination URL.  All URLs shortened by Twitter are checked against a list of potentially dangerous sites, so users can be warned when a t.co shortened link is potentially unsafe.



Previously, the only way to use the t.co service was to use the official Tweet button on a site.  The t.co shortening will still only be used as a shortening service for Twitter, it will not be opened up for general URL shortening.  Other supported shortening services will still work with the  new auto-shortening feature.

Currently, this change isn’t live for all accounts, but look for this feature  in your account soon.

UN: Disconnecting People From the Internet Is a Violation of Human Rights

The United Nations has declared Internet access a human right, and disconnecting people from it is against international law. The UN report explores the issues of Internet access in great detail, both on the infrastructural level and as a matter of access to content. “There should be as little restriction as possible to the flow of information via the Internet, except in few, exceptional, and limited circumstances prescribed by international human rights law,” the report says.

It recognizes that there are certain circumstances in which restricting the information flow on the Internet may be legitimate, such as cyber attacks. It also points out that states often misuse their power with this regard. “In many instances, states restrict, control, manipulate and censor content disseminated via the Internet without any legal basis, or on the basis of broad and ambiguous laws, without justifying the purpose of such actions (…) such actions are clearly incompatible with states’ obligations under international human rights law, and often create a broader ‘chilling effect’ on the right to freedom of opinion and expression,” the report says.

Finally, the report strongly recommends against disconnecting people from the Internet — often considered an anti-piracy measure, for example in France — under any circumstances. The report “considers cutting off users from Internet access, regardless of the justification provided, including on the grounds of violating intellectual property rights law, to be disproportionate and thus a violation of article 19, paragraph 3, of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.”

The UN’s report echoes a European Parliament directive from 2008, which asked individual countries to “avoid adopting measures conflicting with civil liberties and human rights … such as the interruption of Internet access.” With both the EU and the UN calling Internet access a human right, we hope disconnecting people from the Internet as a form of punishment will soon be abandoned by governments around the world.

The full text of the report is available here.

Google’s New Quick Flight Search

Google just made it a lot easier to quickly look up flight information. Now you can type “flights from [a city] to [another city] in the Google search window, and it’ll quickly display a summary of flight information right there on the results page.

Could it get any easier? We tested this new feature that was announced Friday on Google’s Inside Search blog, and it works beautifully, especially if you’re talking about major cities.

For instance, type “flight LA SF”, and you’ll get a long list of flights when you click on the resulting drop-down list:

Or you can simply type “flights LA” and Google will helpfully show you each flight to Los Angeles from all airports, including numerous airlines and flight durations. Find out what flights originate from your local airport by typing “flights from [your airport here]“.



It works in 10 languages: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Dutch, Brazilian Portuguese, Polish, Russian, Turkish and Catalan. It’s not quite so easy if your destination is not served by a nonstop flight. For example, we tried entering “flights from Milwaukee to Tahiti” and got nothing but the usual list of travel sites. Smaller towns with tiny airports aren’t particularly well served, either. Type “flights from Topeka” and again you’ll see those usual travel sites. But city dwellers will almost always get results when they type the word “flight” and the name of a city.

 

There are a lot of trick searches you can do on Google that have been around for a while. A favorite of ours is to do quick conversions of currency, weights and measures using the power of Google. For example, type “300 gbp in usd” (which stands for 300 Great Britain pounds in U.S. dollars) and you’ll immediately see the answer: $494.19. The key word there is “in”. It’s especially handy with metric conversion. Try this one: “250 km in miles.”

Obsessed with Facebook?

What You Really Need To Know About Social Media Profiles And Job Searching

These days, most career development professionals will make a point of telling you to get with it in social media. The idea is that your various profiles are a gateway to a new job. Heartfelt advice about whether or not to include pictures of your last drinking binge or photos of your unmade bed is the new career coaching.

Please, get your social media profiles in order. It’s really your call. Be who you are or be willing to be someone else at work. Whichever decision you make, get your profiles together.

But don’t ever get the idea that using social media effectively will get you a job.

Remember the Philosophy 101 question: “If a tree falls in the forest, does anyone hear it?” The very same thing applies to social media. The odds that someone besides your mother and your own social network are actually going to look at you profile are quite low. For the most part, recruiters and HR folks look you up after they’ve come across your name, not as a way to find you in the first place. Just because you infuse your profiles with career information, you are not guaranteed that anyone will look at it or find it.

There are two aspects to the problem;

• Recruiters and HR professionals are not trained to find people using the internet. There is an emerging movement (called Sourcing) to get people some professional training. Only a small percentage of those who are charged with hiring have sourcing skills. Most don’t even realize that they need the skills.


• None of the social media sites (or Google for that matter) make it easy for you to be found. Building resumesthat can be found (regardless of format) is still an emerging art. While you can get some good tips about making your resume friendly to an Applicant Tracking System, little is known about how recruiters actually scavenge the web.

The sourcers may find you. You have to make yourself find-able to the others. Here are a few tips that will improve your chances of being found:

1. If (and that’s a big if) hiring managers come looking for profiles of people for jobs they are trying to fill, they will look for them exactly the way that you use Google. That is, they will search until they have what seems like ‘just enough’. It is imperative that your profile (and resume for that matter) contain the words that they will use for that search. Your best bet is to visit Google and search for people like you.


2. Examine the LinkedIn profiles of other people with your job. Make sure that you include any relevant key words in your profile. Generally, key words are nouns that describe incremental details of your skills and experience. Your profile ought to have tens of them.


3. There is some chance that an employer will supplement the resumes and applications it receives through job boards and its website. If you apply for a job online, make sure your social media profiles get updated with some of the language in those job descriptions.


4. Have a really clear picture of the people you wish would find you online. Tailor the descriptions of your experience to match the kinds of things they are looking for.

It’s early in the social media discovery game. For the foreseeable future, you are going to have to keep your eyes open. Discovering the tricks of getting your resume (or profile) noticed is a time honored job hunter’s tactic. New technology, same game.

http://www.glassdoor.com/blog/social-media-profiles-job-searching/

How Do We Prepare Kids for Jobs We Can't Imagine Yet?

When you were a kid, could you, your teachers, or your parents imagine your current job? Plenty of us go to work every day in careers that didn't exist when we were in grade school. How can schools set the next generation up for success when we don't have a clear picture of what the jobs of the future will be? The growing consensus is that we need to shift schools toward fostering creativity and conceptual thinking abilities, and a new project called Imagination: Creating the Future of Education and Work wants to help educators figure out how to do it.

The project started in 2007 at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and the two co-directors, Rita J. King and Joshua Fouts, say we're presently in an "Imagination Age," "a time during which humanity must imagine and then create, together, the systems of the new global economy and culture." The duo actually created a lab to test ways educators can most effectively build imagination and creativity in real teaching situations.

Instead of simply putting their research on how to foster imagination, creativity, and conceptual thinking into a report, King and Fouts decided to create a free, easy-to-use web portal that's full of the ideas and solutions that they've found work best. Interestingly, instead of the model of individual success and standardized test taking that currently exists in schools, the education approaches they've found best foster imagination also teach kids to collaborate to solve problems.

The site has dozens of topical "chapters" full of articles, videos, and ideas about how to boost imagination, creativity, and convey academic content in fresh ways. Some of the ideas—like learning from robots—might seem a little impractical for schools that can barely afford the basics, but other suggestions, like their ideas for capitalizing on social media in the classroom are free and effective at getting kids (and adults) to think outside the box.