Here is the third column in the weekly Tuesday feature “WHEN YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP: How to Use Social Media to Get Your Dream Job” by Yael K. Miller and Phyllis Zimbler Miller, co-founders of the social media marketing company Miller Mosaic Power Marketing.
Yael and Phyllis are writing about the FICTIONAL CHARACTER Amy H., who will be a senior this fall at the University of Pennsylvania, majoring in English. Find all the posts in this series, organized for your convenience, here.
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Amy H. completed the assignments in Chapter 2 – “Setting Up a Professional LinkedIn Profile” – of the ebook “WHEN YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP: How to Use Social Media to Get Your Dream Job.”
Amy set up a professional LinkedIn profile – one that she understands she will revise as she has more to add. She uploaded her good headshot photo to the profile as well as using the photo for a gravatar at gravatar.com.
She also joined some groups on LinkedIn and read the group discussions as well as continuing to read the blog posts and comments of the 10 career blogs she chose for her homework from the first chapter of the ebook – “Choosing 10 Blogs to Follow for a Possible Career.”
Now she is ready to tackle Chapter 3 – “Leaving Comments on Blog Posts and LinkedIn Groups That Make People Interested in You.”
Chapter 3 asks whether she got a customized URL for her LinkedIn profile. She now does this by going to her Linkedin profile, clicking on edit profile, then clicking on “edit” next to the URL of “public profile.” Since this URL is searchable on LinkedIn she uses her full name.
Before she starts leaving comments on blog posts, she reads about different types of comment forms. For example, some blog comment forms ask for your name and email (kept private) as well as an optional website URL before you can post a comment.
Whenever Amy is asked to leave an email, she leaves the email address that she used when she set up her account at gravatar.com. This way, if the comment form uses gravatars, her gravatar will automatically show up.
Whenever Amy is asked to leave a website URL, she leaves her LinkedIn URL until she has her own website or blog. In this type of comment form, her name might automatically become a link to whatever she has put in the website URL field.
The ebook chapter advises to always use the full URL including http:// when filling in the website field in a comment form.
Amy also reads that some blogs ask you to create an account with that blog. In these cases you create a username and password just for leaving comments on that blog.
Other blogs allow you to sign in with other online identities. For example, it may say “sign in with Facebook.” Do NOT sign in with Facebook because your Facebook personal account has not yet been optimized for professional purposes – in fact, you may never want to use your Facebook personal account for professional purposes.
Important caution: Use correct grammar when leaving comments. You should always capitalize the pronoun I and write grammatically correct statements. Here’s a cheat sheet to help avoid the most common grammar mistakes – see http://budurl.com/grammarcheatsheet
And write short paragraphs in your comments. Better to write a comment of three short paragraphs than one long paragraph that discourages people from reading the comment.
Remember, the ebook says: “Each time you leave a comment it is an opportunity for a future contact or future employer or future client/customer to form an opinion about you. And this opinion can be positive or negative.”
Leaving the comment “This is a great post” does NOT count as leaving an insightful comment. It’s fine to write that as an intro to your comment as long as you go on to demonstrate that you have indeed read the blog post and have something specific to say about it.
And, no, you do not always have to agree with the blog post. It is fine to disagree as long as you present thoughtful comments as to why you disagree.
Leaving comments on LinkedIn group discussions: The same guidelines apply to leaving comments on LinkedIn group discussions, which the ebook encourages Amy to also do for homework in the next week. And she learns that her photo from her LinkedIn profile will automatically appear next to any comment she leaves.
At the end of chapter 3 Amy reviews her assignments for the coming week:
Amy should begin to leave comments on blog posts when she feels she can add a worthwhile contribution to the conversation. Or she can ask an insightful question about the blog post.
Amy also should practice the same skills on LinkedIn group discussions when she can add worthwhile comments. Or she can ask a question to clarify a point in the discussions.
In LinkedIn group discussions Amy should make sure the option “Send me an email for each new comment” is checked when she adds her comment. For blog comments, if there is an option to subscribe to comments, she should subscribe if she added a comment.
Now Amy can know whether anyone has replied to her directly by name or whether there’s another opportunity in the ongoing discussion to add a second worthwhile comment.
An extra credit assignment for the week: Read the book “How to Wow: Proven Strategies for Selling Your [Brilliant] Self in Any Situation” by Frances Cole Jones. This will give Amy a big advantage in any job interviews she may receive through her social media activities.
Phyllis and Yael hope you’ll sign up for new post notifications here at ebranding.me and also do Amy’s assignments for yourself so you’re ready for next week.
And leave comments below if you have any questions on the material in this blog series “WHEN YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP: How to Use Social Media to Get Your Dream Job.”
(c) 2010 Miller Mosaic, LLC
Miller Mosaic Power Marketing and Magnetic Webworks have a collaboration in which Magnetic Webworks builds WordPress websites/blogs and Miller Mosaic provides social media coaching/consulting. For more information on WordPress websites see http://budurl.com/ultrapro and for information on the Miller Mosaic social media monthly mentorship program see http://budurl.com/joinmmic
