Snapchat is a very popular smartphone app that allows users to send self-destructing photographs to each other. Think Mission: Impossible, but without the mini explosion and smoke.

More specifically, Snapchat is a new way of communicating in which I could send you any picture I’ve taken with my iPhone, but only allow you to see it for a short duration of one to 10 seconds. To see my photo, you would have to open your Snapchat app and touch the screen with your finger, during which time you would be able to view the picture only for the number of seconds I’ve designated, and only within the app. Once your time is up, the app permanently deletes the picture, forever.

It’s social media at its best in that it enables users to send highly personalized and private messages to each other through an efficient, objective-oriented real-time communication protocol. But it also breaks the rules of social conversation and sharing that were previously defined by permanency and inherent loss of control over where your posts and messages could end up.

Snapchat isn’t that evolutionary, but it’s worth billions

If you think about it, Snapchat isn’t really an evolutionary advance in human communications. Rather, it’s a disguised reversion to the ways we’ve been speaking to each other since the telephone was invented over 100 years ago. When telephones were our only option, everything we said to each other was shared in real time, just like the way we currently send messages to each other on our smartphones and computers. But once we hung up, there was no way we could relive, replay or share that conversation with others (unless, of course, you work for the NSA).

Email, text messaging, Facebook and everything else we use today to communicate with each other have eliminated the fleeting quality of conversations and have allowed us to speak with more people in less time — but not without requiring those conversations to be permanently engraved into someone’s digital “wall,” smartphone or hard drive.

At first, this transformation from “now” to “now and forever” was liberating because it exponentially expanded the reach of our voices and helped us stay connected to more people in ways that were previously impossible. And although we knew the things we said within our digital world were permanent and irreversible, we found comfort in the fact that only our friends, family and peers would have the access and know-how to participate in things we had to say online, and that those we didn’t want to share our thoughts and ideas with wouldn’t be a part of those personal discussions. This paradigm is exactly how Facebook became popular; when this social network started, it was available only to college students, which meant that parents, teachers and employers were forbidden from seeing what we had to say about life, school, work, etc.

Today, anybody and everybody can join the most popular social networks — and, by my standards, they have. Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Yelp, eHarmony… There’s a very good chance that both the generation below you and and the generation above you are online. This means that in addition to your children, nieces and nephews, your parents and even your grandparents are connected to you online as much as they are offline — if not more so. (I, as an example, communicate with my parents more through email and Facebook than I do in person or by phone — and my mother-in-law is undoubtedly the subject of nearly all of our family’s Skype sessions.)

Yes, there are these “privacy settings” we’re allowed to set within these various social forums, but they seem to be getting less and less relevant and protective each year, especially as social networking companies become publicly traded corporations and succumb to the needs of higher earnings expectations, which can only be met with more and smarter advertising, often at the expense of more details about who you are and what you do on a minute-by-minute basis.

Random fact: My 60-year-old parents take and share more selfies of themselves than my 16-year-old niece. Now that I think of it, I hope they’re not on Snapchat.

This digital proliferation and the social network ubiquity it has created is the very reason why Snapchat is apparently worth more than $3 billion — and, more importantly, why the rules and norms of social media marketing (which as of just last year provided significant guidance as to how small businesses should advertise their businesses online) have evolved yet again. Without even having to go into an unbiased comparative exploration of the many different social marketing strategies we’ve implemented over the past 18 months at Red Mango, I can tell you with absolute certainty that our company’s social media marketing efforts have been less effective in 2013 than any prior year — a fact that is of particular interest to us because our customers are predominantly Millennials born with digital DNA.

How social advertising is changing — and what it means for your business

Snapchat is the emblematic example of why our advertising on channels like Facebook and Twitter has become less efficient on a dollar-for-dollar basis. Heavy users of social networks, who were previously spending a significant amount of personal time on popular “traditional” environments like Facebook and Twitter, are no longer doing so. And a large majority of these heavy users are customers of retail businesses that cater to values and ideals that are important to popular culture and society.

There are many differing reasons people cite as to why this change is happening, but the reason I find to be the most compelling is in many ways connected to the fact that my parents, vendors, coworkers and even franchisees are now active citizens of the same social networks in which I was once able to share thoughts and ideas I may not want to share with the entire world.

Yes, social media is popular because it allows us to stay connected with each other in fluid and multidimensional ways that were previously impossible. However, the power and longevity of the social networks in which we thrive is more critically dependent on our ability to be who we truly are (or more often, who we want to be) without having to worry about what “other people think,” or about the impact our personal thoughts or random ideas may have on the existing real-world relationships we don’t want to change.

As humans, we’re at our most comfortable when we’re in places where we thoroughly understand everyone and everything within the immediate environment we often call our “safe zone.” And this environment is only possible when the conditions of privacy we’re promised are much more than a long set of rules drafted by attorneys who expect us to simply click “accept.”

The magic of Snapchat’s disappearing photos is exactly the kind of tangible privacy we value more than the jargon most often found in that obscure section of a website called “our privacy policy.” And when consumers feel protected by a level of privacy they can feel, see and trust, they will spend more time being themselves and sharing their true ideas and real preferences. It’s digital worlds like Snapchat that all businesses should strive to become a part of in order to become effective and relevant marketers.

Why small businesses stand to benefit the most

All of this points to the fact that social media marketing needs to become more targeted and personal than ever before. Broad audience advertising may continue to enter our homes through television sets and radio stations, but advertising that actually influences people to develop a strong personal affinity towards goods and services will only happen when consumers allow brands to become a part of environments where guarded suspicions of traditional advertising are no more, and where a genuine invited interest sets a trusted transparent platform on which consumers can feel comfortable learning more about the things they’re interested in buying. And the most effective way to do this is for companies to think and act like individuals with unique personalities and voices people can actually see and trust.

Taking Snapchat as an example, brands that want to reach people through this channel will have to become a person on Snapchat — somebody who not just talks, but also listens to everyone who has something to say. Brands need to become people in order to develop an authentic online presence that consumers trust. (Click here to tweet this thought.)

This is where small businesses can really succeed and even perform more effectively than larger companies with much larger advertising budgets. I believe it’s much easier for small businesses to create trustworthy online personalities than it is for larger organizations, primarily because small business owners in general tend to be more engaged and spend more time on all aspects of their business operations than larger companies with a large number of people doing a large number of tasks. And these smaller companies with unique personalities that consumers can engage with and trust have much more influence than larger companies that consumers can easily (and often do) characterize as institutional and informal.

So the next time you hear about Snapchat, I hope you’ll not only know what it is, but more importantly, understand how people’s inherent desire for comfort and privacy will continue to position social media marketing as a form of effective advertising that will remain accessible to small business owners — and that will continue to help level the marketing playing field for all businesses regardless of size.

Yes, you can send me a Snapchat, if you want to see what it’s all about. Find me at dankimsnap.

This post originally appeared in Franchising USA.

Dan Kim is the Founder and Chief Concept Officer of Red Mango, a leading national frozen yogurt and smoothie franchise with more than 260 units. He regularly engages with almost two million followers on his Twitter accounts @dankimredmango and @redmango and his Facebook fan bases at /redmango and /dankimredmango.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched StartupCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.

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Even if you’re not going to use them, I hope you find their creativity and ingenuity interesting. (Click here to tweet this list.)

1. JobsMiner.com

JobsMiner.com uses data analysis technology to extract job postings from social media networks. By presenting only the most relevant information from social networking sites, blog posts and forums, it lets you focus on the human connection.

After signing in with a Facebook account, you can see jobs from around the country that JobsMiner found from various social sources. Clicking on the job you find interesting will bring up the source. Comparing these results with those of a traditional job board, JobsMiner shows you some very hard-to-find opportunities that simply don’t appear on other boards.

2. LinkUp.com

Rather than asking employers to pay to post their jobs on its network, LinkUp.com simply finds and indexes jobs from the employer’s own websites. Clicking on jobs you like on LinkUp takes you directly to the employer’s website. Because LinkUp isn’t paid for applications, it doesn’t need to be involved after you’ve found a job or company you like. No scams or weird third-party websites are involved.

On LinkUp, you’ll find jobs that simply never made it to other job boards. After all, most companies don’t bother posting their jobs to major job boards. Currently, the site indexes well over 35,000 companies’ jobs sites.

3. ApplyApp.ly

ApplyApp.ly is a job-matching service that looks at your past experiences, skills and even personality traits to suggest better-matching jobs. Each job you see on ApplyApp.ly lets you know how well your personality and experience would fit.

As a measure of your personality, ApplyApp.ly relies on your Myers-Briggs personality type. If you don’t already know your Myers-Briggs type, you can buy the test for a discount through the site. The site also offers a service called Résunate, which shows you how to customize your resume based on the job you’re going for.

4. Jojari.com

Jojari.com uses your entire LinkedIn profile or resume to conduct a more thorough search than traditional job board searches. This technology is also used by lawyers to find related cases.

After linking your LinkedIn profile or resume, Jojari quickly provides you with a list of stack-ranked jobs. You make the search results smarter by telling it to give you “More Like This” or “Less Like This.” It’s amazing how accurate the personalized results can be.

5. Startwire.com

If you’ve applied for a job before, you know how frustrating it can be to wait and wait and wait to hear anything back. This experience is often called the “black hole” by frustrated job seekers. Startwire.com seeks to end the black hole by giving you status updates on the progress of your job application.

Along with its job-matching service and one-click apply, you get alerted when a recruiter looks at your application, passes it on to someone else, categorizes you or puts you in various buckets. Just knowing what’s going on with each of the jobs you’ve applied for can be a huge stress reducer.

6. TweetMyJobs.com

TweetMyJobs.com leads the way in bringing the job market to Twitter. The site has been reviewed in The Wall Street Journal, on CNN and in BusinessWeek. Even if you don’t plan to be very active on Twitter, having a TweetMyJobs account to stay up-to-date is certainly worthwhile.

As a job seeker, you need to engage in three primary activities on TweetMyJobs:

1. Subscribe to a Twitter job channel. A job channel is simply a Twitter feed that’s specific to your location and industry.
2. Upload your social resume and tweet it to TweetMyJobs’s @TweetMyResume account. @TweetMyResume has more than 16,000 followers who are instantly alerted every time a new resume is posted.
3. Sign up for alerts. TweetMyJobs can notify you of new job postings that match your profile in many different ways. If you don’t want to receive tweets of job postings, TweetMyJobs can send you an SMS text message or email with relevant jobs.

TweetMyJobs also helps you in finding referrals through your social graph, mobile apps for job searching using geolocation services, and augmented reality.

7. Bright.com

After a study of over 2.3 million resumes, a team of data engineers and computer scientists from Bright.com found a way to grade your resume to predict if it’s going to help you get the job you’re applying for.

After you upload your resume to the site and do a search for jobs, Bright tells you which jobs you’re more likely to stand out for based on your resume, which can help you decide which jobs to apply for.

8. Jobfox.com

Jobfox.com sends you an email every time a new job is posted with your location and title criteria. It’s that simple!

9. JackalopeJobs.com

Jackalopejobs.com analyzes your LinkedIn and Facebook network connections to provide search results not based on keyword but based on the number of connections you have. After all, why not just tell you what companies you’re better connected to?

After linking your LinkedIn and Facebook accounts, simply use JackalopeJobs like a normal job board and see which jobs have more connections. And, even more powerful, you can see which connections have more jobs! Just click on the name of one of your connections and see how many jobs are open at their current company.

10. Cachinko.com

By leveraging your Facebook network, Cachinko.com tells you who in your network may be a good connection to the opportunity you’re looking at. So before you apply, you can reach out and network first. Because Cachinko is fully integrated with Facebook, you can send messages to any of your Friends directly from its system.

Cachinko lets you indicate which jobs you prefer by starring them, and it gradually begins to customize search results for you. After you’ve done a few searches and starred a few jobs, click on “Jobs You’ll Love” to get an automatically generated list of jobs delivered based on your past preferences.

This post appeared on Career Enlightenment and was originally posted on Dummies.com, from the author’s book Job Searching with Social Media For Dummies (2nd edition).

Joshua Waldman is the founder of Career Enlightenment, which offers professional LinkedIn profile writing and job search services to colleges, WorkForce offices and re-entering veterans.Watch Joshua’s exclusive video “3 Secrets to Getting Job Interviews by Next Week” to learn the three secrets no one wants you to know about getting hired in today’s job market.

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But most advice posts and experts who tout sourcing via Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn say it’s essential because that’s where the candidates hang out. A recent study by Jobvite, however, offers a far better reason, one that’s actually compelling enough to get you on those networks if you’re not already.

As Mashable reports, job seekers who are recruited via social media are more likely to be hired — and for recruiters, that means a happy boss and more cash in your bank account. What’s more, those hires often stay at the new job longer than candidates found through other channels.

“Jobvite found that companies who used social recruiting enjoyed improved candidate quality and quantity, which is why 94 percent of the businesses surveyed use or plan to begin using social recruiting in 2013,” Mashable writes.

An infographic on Mashable offers more details.

Recruiters: Has your experience proven this to be true? Do your odds of hiring tend to increase when you recruit through social media?

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All it takes is a little bit of digging. It’s only fair. Many recruiters check your social media profile, so why not do the same? (Click here to Tweet this thought.)

Here’s how you can find information and use it to ace every step of the application process:

Start with reconnaissance

Let’s say you find a job ad. The next step is looking up the company’s website, LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter and Facebook accounts. Find the following:

• The name of the hiring manager or recruiter. Look up his Linkedin profile and see if you have anything in common. Check his interests and interview pet peeves on Facebook or Twitter.
• Company background. Look for target demographics, recent news, products or services.
• Someone who’s already working at the job position you’re applying for. That guy (or gal) has the job you’re targeting for a good reason, so check what you have in common. If they have qualifications or technical knowledge you don’t, and those are related to the job, that’s a clue. Study those topics.
• Challenges the company and its industry are facing. Prepare two to three suggestions on how you can solve them.
• Company values, vision and mission.

Use the information — or lose it

On your resume

Align the skills and credentials listed in your resume with the requirements for the job posting. Highlight related achievements, too.

Remember your research on the guy who already has the job you’re applying for? Check his job description and see if you can insert some of his skills or tasks on your resume. (Of course, don’t list these skills unless you really have them.)

On your cover letter

Don’t put “Dear Sir/Madam” or “To Whom It May Concern” on your cover letter. Put the name of the person.

Use key phrases from the job ad, and pair them with a few phrases of the company’s values.

Instead of writing “analyst with five years’ experience in banking,” put “analyst with a get-it-done attitude and five years’ experience in banking” (where “get-it-done attitude” is part of the company’s values).

You might think it’s cheesy, but doing this gives the recruiter a subliminal signal that says, “Hey, he’s gonna do well with the team.” It’s also much better than using clichéd phrases, such as “hardworking,” “honest” or “quick learner.”

In the interview

Use your knowledge of the interviewer’s LinkedIn and Facebook profiles to break the ice. If you don’t have anything in common, try talking about their interests.

Don’t say something like, “I saw you worked at Chase Bank for two years. I worked there as an intern!” This ruins the icebreaker because the recruiter will sense you’re trying too hard to establish rapport — and he’ll know you’ve been snooping around his profile.

Mention whatever it is you have in common, but don’t drag the recruiter into it. Say, “I did my internship at Chase Bank.” If he welcomes your attempt at rapport, he’ll likely smile and mention his job stint there.

Assuming you’ve built rapport, the next step is to establish that you’re the best candidate for the job by eliminating the competition. This is where most of your research will pay off.

Asking questions makes you stand out from the hundreds who just shake hands and say, “Thank you for your time.”

Ask about the challenges new hires encounter, then tell a story about how you handled similar challenges successfully. Your knowledge of the skills someone in the same position has will be helpful, so use this to highlight your competence in the tools they use and the job-specific knowledge required. If you can confidently use the jargon or lingo for that job, use it.

Ask about the challenges the company or industry faces, then share suggestions you’ve prepared in advance. Just don’t overdo it; your task is to portray yourself as a problem-solver, not a know-it-all.

The next time you want to apply for a job, do research before you send an application. Customize your resume and cover letter for every job application you send.

Paul Bailey is a confidence coach who can help you get out of a toxic job and find meaningful work that matches your skills and values. As a gift to readers from Brazen Life, you can get his free ebook and get exclusive content to help in your job hunt here.

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1.Your profile includes your headshot, skills and work experience and has space for a compelling, career-oriented bio.

2. Organizations are active on this network and have their own pages where they send updates and post jobs.

3. With more than a billion members, you can reach an average of more than 150,000 people through degrees of connections.

LinkedIn? Nope.

The answer is… Facebook.

Facebook?! Yes.

Let me get one thing out of the way: I love LinkedIn. I’ve written about the network, talk about it all the time and log in at least three times every day. LinkedIn is my highest-recommended resource for networking and job searching today. If you’re looking to step up your career game, the Jobseeker posts on LinkedIn’s blog are a great resource and place to start.

But LinkedIn isn’t the only network out there that can propel your career forward. Facebook can also be a powerful tool, especially considering the number of people who already use it. (Click here to Tweet this thought.)

With Facebook’s Graph Search launch this year and its recent move to encourage users to complete the Professional Skills section on profiles, there are more ways than ever to leverage Facebook for your career. Here are just a few:

1. Complete the career-related areas of your Facebook profile

Make sure to fill in your Work and Education, About Me and Professional Skills sections. When you complete these areas, focus on keywords and phrases relevant to your industry.

And it’s time to remove that wild profile photo from your 21st birthday. Select an appropriate, friendly headshot instead. Make sure to update your Current City as well so recruiters or employers who search by geography can easily find you.

2. Jumpstart your professional networking with Graph Search

The search bar at the top of your Facebook page just got kicked into hyperdrive with Graph Search. Facebook claims Graph Search will help you find more of what you’re looking for through your friends and connections. They have it right.

Here are some sample searches I could run to find specific people who could help me in my job search:

Example search #1

I know the exact employer I want to work for, but I’m pretty sure none of my friends work there. I can expand that search to “friends of friends” in Graph Search to find contacts with whom my friends could help connect me.

Example search #2

I’m about to graduate college. I like my major, and I know I want to live in a specific city. Graph Search can show me who’s just an introduction away and can make the right connection.

Example search #3

Finally, let’s say I’m trying to discover a new path because of a budding interest. It might be good to tap my university alumni network to see if other people with the same passion have started expressing it professionally, too.

Fair warning: Like other Graph Searchers have noted, the search isn’t flawless. Not everyone has fully completed their education or career-related sections on Facebook. But give it a shot anyway. You just might be surprised by some of the possibilities and connections you find via Facebook.

3. Search for open jobs on the Social Jobs Partnership

Facebook has partnered with four organizations, including the US Department of Labor, to bring you the Social Jobs Partnership. The goal is to “facilitate employment for America’s jobless through the use of social networks.”

You can “like” the page and even explore the Social Jobs Partnership app, which allows you to search millions of job openings available through the partner job listing sites.

What do you think about Facebook as a resource for your career?

Kevin Grubb is a career and social media expert and was named a “Top GenY Careerist to Follow on Twitter” by Brazen Careerist. Learn more about Kevin at www.kevincgrubb.com.

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To become a social media sleuth, don’t shy away from using advanced search tools offered by social media giants Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. It’s the best way to dodge irrelevant results and cut straight to the information that matters most — especially for your career.

Advanced Facebook navigation tips

At first glance, Facebook’s latest search tool may not look a whole lot different from its original platform. But with a closer look, you’ll discover more avenues to navigate for targeted Facebook information and fellow users.

Facebook’s graph search has been hailed as a new asset for online journalists because they can cut straight to the photo sources they want or even find potential interviewees. For example, with wider search capabilities, a writer can search for photos taken in August 2013 or recent celebrity photo uploads. If you’re writing a time-sensitive blog post about the Yosemite fires, you can find your image sources by narrowing your search to “photos of Yosemite wildfire.”

Web entrepreneurs can also use Facebook’s graph to search for professionals who work at certain companies or people interested in WordPress development.

This way, you don’t have to search in circles for hours and hope to stumble upon a user who fits your criteria. You can also search for people based on where they used to live or can sleuth around your friends’ lists by searching “friends of friends who…”

Twitter search’s hidden world

Twitter’s advanced search tools are often overlooked because of their quick, easy-as-pie text search. It works more like a basic Google search, which is familiar and comfortable to use. But you’re probably missing out on discovering even more tweets and potential followers relevant to your niche or business goals.

One of Twitter’s most valuable search features is the ability to save your search for later. This is especially useful if you’re a regular Twitter sleuth. It’s all too easy to forget about important searches when you’re not writing things down, so this is an easy-breezy method for taking note of your Twitter search activity.

If you prefer a more syntax-based search tool, you’re a perfect fit for Twitter’s advanced search operators. While they essentially works like Twitter’s standard advanced search tool, users can manually input their own search characters with minus and plus signs, as well as “not,” “near” and other terms.

Harnessing LinkedIn search tools

LinkedIn is one of the top five major social media sites. It’s proven to be a great connection tool for job seekers, up-and-coming startups, new clients and corporate headhunters. And it’s advantageous for any new entrepreneur to learn the ins and outs of LinkedIn search.

Within LinkedIn’s specialized groups, you have access to a polling feature that allows you to view questions relevant to your niche and find the Linkedin users who answered them.

To check out other existing polls within the group, go to the “search” tab and click “all polls” on the left sidebar or sort and filter according to what you’re looking for.

You can also use advanced search to expand your reach to your customers’ clients. By reaching out to those second-degree connections, you have the potential to generate more interest in your business, especially when those connections are communicating their enthusiasm to your clientele.

Advanced search provides an opportunity to build stronger win-win business relationships with both present and potential customers. (Click here to tweet this thought.)

Congrats, you’re now an expert on using Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn advanced search! Now it’s time to put your knowledge into action. After you do, come back here and leave a comment sharing your favorite use of advanced search.

Megan Hargroder works with startups to create social media strategies that work and empowers others to build an online buzz around their badass brands. You can download her Social Media Strategy Playbook ebook free when you sign up for her tips list at conversations.be.

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You have your online professional network and your online social network, and the two never meet…. right?

Not so much. They can and do meet thanks to one of Facebook’s latest updates: Graph Search. Graph Search is a social search engine that pulls public info from Facebook to help you find what you’re looking for.

Let’s say you want to find restaurants your friends like in Nashville or people from your hometown who enjoy karate — a few clicks, and you have a detailed list of profiles at your disposal.

Beyond opportunities to discover cool new restaurants or fellow karate enthusiasts, Graph Search also offers huge possibilities for job seekers. And depending on how you play your hand, those possibilities could be good, bad or even a little ugly.

Follow these four tips to make the most of Graph Search during your job hunt:

1. Rethink your privacy settings

The first social task of most job seekers is the absolute lockdown of their Facebook page. Who wants to blow a job opportunity thanks to an unflattering keg stand photo? But with the advent of Graph Search, employers will be headed to Facebook not only to vet current candidates, but also to recruit. (Click to Tweet!)

Let’s say I own a physical therapy clinic in Philadelphia and need a new therapist to spearhead our running clinic. I type “physical therapists who live in Philadelphia and like running” and get a list of qualified candidates.

But here’s the thing: you only show up if your privacy settings allow people to find you. If you’re on the job hunt and have your profile under virtual lock and key, you could be missing out.

2. Refine your profile

Sure, you’ll want to go through your account and scrub any questionable content (if you haven’t already), but that’s not the end of refining your profile. Update your “about” section and make it search-friendly. Avoid acronyms or those “hip” names people give positions. You’re not an accounting ninja. You’re an accountant.

It’s also worth looking through your likes and interests.Your interests have probably changed since you set up your profile in college. Add interests that better reflect where you are now.

3. Discover new connections

Your Facebook network is different from LinkedIn. You likely aren’t “linked” to your senior prom date, but you could be Facebook friends. Just as LinkedIn allows you to find connections who work for the company you’re interested in, Facebook does, too.

Simply search for “friends who work at (insert dream company here)” and watch the magic happen. And who knows? Your prom date may be able to pull a few strings.

4. Flip the script

Graph Search doesn’t just help the right employer find you; it also helps you find the right employer. You can search for public relations firms your friends like or that friends of your friends like.

Once you find a couple of places you’re interested in, you can refine your search even more. Any employees from your alma mater? How about someone from your hometown? How many people at the company like Breaking Bad? You want to have someone to talk to on Monday morning.

Of course, this is no substitute for actually meeting your potential coworkers, but it does give you an opportunity to learn more about the culture and who you’ll be working with before you ever step foot in the door.

And if you’re still not convinced about the benefits of mixing your professional and personal social personas, know that you won’t be able to hold out much longer. With Bing’s social integration, Google+ and now Graph Search, social search is on its way to becoming the new norm.

Take the opportunity to get ahead now — or risk losing that potential job to someone else who’s willing to take the leap.

Kimberly Shrack is a social media strategist living in Philadelphia. You can find her on Twitter at @kjshrack or at kjshrack.com.

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Investing in your content is essential to create a community of engaged followers. Harness your content ideas into something bigger. Give your networks a reason to talk about you. Online and social media buzz around your brand, business or product can translate into real word-of-mouth conversions.

Understanding how content becomes a linkable asset

People should be able to gain something from your linkable asset. It could be a white paper, blog post, infographic, video, webcast or anything else you can publish, embed or make available as a download. Valuable content will be linkable as long as it can be easily posted or shared with over email, messaging or social media.

The key to valuable content

Aim to create content that people will find useful and entertaining, but still unique. Try to come up with a new angle or perspective no one has ever seen before. Make viewers want to refer back and share it with their networks. No one will share content that’s old news or lame!

Keep in mind that content can’t only be created in hopes of acquiring links. Content that has the potential to go viral will be tailored to meet the needs of an audience and give viewers something of value. In-depth pieces of content that users want to revisit have a much stronger, lasting impact than basic pieces. Someone may take the time to read a short, simple post about “3 Ways to Make Your Garden Sustainable,” but a full post on “20 Tips to Make Your Garden Sustainable” will be a comprehensive, useful resource worthy of sharing and even bookmarking so they can keep referring back to it.

Choose a timeless subject

Focus on creating content that has staying power. Consider employing “evergreen” content that will always be relevant to your audience, compared to topics that may change over time. Topics tailored to current events and trending themes may go viral, but news today will fade out tomorrow.

For example, users will always want to know “How to Find the Perfect Hairstyle for Your Face,” because this topic won’t change much. But they will probably not be as interested in a dated version like “How to Get Hair Like Justin Bieber,” which will become less relevant as teen pop culture icon JBiebs phases out.

Set linkable assets up for success

Truly viral content will hopefully not require much promotion, but you still have to put in some effort. It’s not enough to simply publish a linkable asset in one place and hope it shows up in everyone’s Facebook feed.

Go above and beyond on social media

Your first resource should be your existing audience. Push out your content over the obvious social platforms where you’ve already built up a following. You can enhance this by tweeting to specific industry experts you want to grab the attention of, joining and posting in Google+ communities related to your industry, as well posting in professional groups on LinkedIn.

Find niche media sharing websites

Most types of media have a specific platform or network built up around them. Take advantage of the systems already in place by placing your content there. Use these platforms for your specific type of content:

• Video: youtube.com, vimeo.com
• Infographic: visual.ly
• Slide show: slideshare.net
• White paper: scribd.com

Make sure to add a descriptive title with relevant keywords and include a blurb or intro.

Basic outreach and networking

When you need to get something done, use your networking skills. Encourage blog owners, webmasters or business owners in your industry to reblog or share your content with their own audiences. Approach bloggers with guest posts that summarize or support your asset and ask for them to cite your asset as a source for more information.

Employ a newsworthy press release

Online press releases are read by bloggers and journalists. Developing a press release on your content containing quotes, statistics or other bits of information pulled from the content can make all the difference in attracting a variety of viewers and content promoters to start talking.

Take your content to the next level

Hopefully, you’re already creating high-quality content tailored to your audience and won’t find creating a linkable asset much of a stretch. With these guidelines in mind for creating viral content, marketers can expand the impact of their content and be rewarded with continuous traffic and greater brand exposure.

Phil Laboon has consulted for everything from startups to Fortune 500s, developing clients’ online presences and online credibility. Eyeflow Internet Marketing specializes in providing organic SEO, online marketing solutions, social media and PPC by utilizing strategic, ethical and natural techniques. Each campaign is customized based on customers’ unique industries and goals.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

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Many job seekers are now using video conferencing to connect with employers and recruiters and to explore companies and career options. Can you guess which social media site works well for an almost limitless variety of staffing solutions, like sourcing interns on campus, interviewing top candidates and enhancing employer brand? Where can you go to conduct information sessions for candidates from anywhere in the world and introduce the work and company culture?

Google Hangouts, that’s where! It’s the versatile new tool recruiters are eagerly incorporating into their recruiting processes and job seekers are using to “do the homework” on the companies where they want to work.

Hangouts are a feature of the social media site Google+, and they’re  fun and easy to learn with Hangout Helpers, sessions held every Saturday to show new users how to use Hangouts.

How can you use Google Hangouts for your own recruiting? Here are a few ideas:

Highlight job openings

Hold monthly Hangouts to discuss current job openings, and invite hiring managers to participate and talk about their company culture and workflow. You can focus on one job or multiple jobs, but stick to a regular monthly Hangout, coordinated with people from the companies with the openings.

This will attract active and passive job seekers and students looking for internships. Make your recruiting Hangouts do double duty and record them to post on your (or your client’s) blog, website or social media platforms for non-attendees to view.

Hangout on campus (without leaving your desk)

Google Hangouts are a great way to visit college campuses and recruit for new graduates and college interns without spending a dime on travel and accommodations.

Contact advisors and professors in academic programs related to the positions and companies you’re recruiting for and ask about speaking to students through Hangouts. Get face time with top students in the programs that relate to the positions you seek to fill.

Offer to discuss the positions, the employers and the work expected of new hires. Remember to offer advice on resumes, portfolios, interviews and other valuable job search information in on-campus Hangouts. If the company seeking to hire has any alumni on staff, ask them to join the Hangout and discuss the company culture and why they chose to work there.

Use Hangouts for interviews

Save time and money in the selection process by using Google Hangouts to conduct screening interviews and pre-interviews. Use Hangouts to conference with candidates sourced from LinkedIn, Facebook, forums and other areas. Invite candidates to discuss their skills and experience, and invite the hiring manager and several key personnel from the company to discuss the work and the culture.

Once you’ve narrowed down the pool of candidates, the recruiter, hiring manager or an interview panel can use the private Hangout feature to conduct confidential interviews.

Google Hangouts provides the flexibility and cost-effectiveness missing from old school face-to-face interviews for candidates and employers in different geographic locations.

Create live YouTube broadcasts

Get together with the hiring manager and the employees who will work with the new hire and conduct an informal Hangout. You can talk about the job opening and company culture and then stream it live on either your or the company’s YouTube channel.

Live broadcasts are an excellent tool to communicate openings and candidate searches, build the employer brand and build your candidate pool. Ask for referrals, give specifics about qualifications for openings and present contact information for candidates to get in touch.

These are just a few ways Google Hangouts can help you build relationships with candidates, save time and money, improve your recruiting process and build your employer brand. If you really want to go the extra mile, enhance the effectiveness of your Hangouts by promoting them on your other social media such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter and post Hangout recordings on your blog or website.

Have you used Google Hangouts for recruiting? Let us know how it went in the comments!

Andrew Greenberg has over 17 years’ experience in talent acquisition in both corporate and agency environments. He is the founder and Managing Partner of The Recruiting Division, a leader in US-based RPO recruitment solutions.

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This concept is vital to the recruiting game. When looking for the best new hires, HR professionals need to identify a key group of exceptional people who will drive their recruitment efforts. This group should be well-connected to potential new hires, highly informed about the needs of the company and motivated to locate top talent.

In the past, hiring managers often relied on headhunters and job boards to help them fill roles. Today, dependence on those tools is trending down, and HR is increasingly able to look to their colleagues for referrals.

Employees have a firm grasp of the company culture, and they understand the demands of the job. And thanks to social networking, employees today are also connected to hundreds of people in their own or related fields of interest.

If properly motivated with a reward program, employees can post job vacancies on their own social networks and locate a strong pool of potential candidates: their own friends, former classmates and past colleagues. They can function as the all-important 20 percent that “tips” the trend and makes it successful.

Six degrees of good recruitment

As Kevin Bacon fans know, “six degrees of separation” is the theory that everyone is six or fewer steps away, by way of introduction, from any other person in the world.

The theory is based on a 1967 experiment by social psychologist Stanley Milgram, in which Milgram distributed letters to 160 students in Nebraska and asked that the letters be sent to a certain stock broker in Boston who was not known personally to them. The students began passing the letter to anyone they believed to be socially closer to the stockbroker, and on average, it took six links to deliver each letter. Gladwell’s “Law of the Few” was influenced by a key finding of this study: just three friends of the stock broker acted as the final link that resulted in the delivery of the letters.

These individuals, called “Connectors,” are particularly important in the context of social recruitment. Connectors are people who love knowing people, enjoy interpersonal communication and are usually also charismatic and in-the-know.

Companies should identify those employees who are Connectors in their own lives and tap into that base. Most Connectors would love the opportunity to help others and be an integral part of the hiring process.

Today, with one billion Facebook users and over 100 million LinkedIn profiles, you could argue that we have all become Connectors. Any employee has the ability to publicize a job opening to thousands of potential candidates and to reach ideal candidates with just a few degrees of separation.

So, how can you use these concepts from The Tipping Point to recruit more successfully?

• Create attractive, informative job postings for employees to post on their social media profiles.
• Develop a great employee referral program that rewards employees for actively sharing information about job openings.
• Identify those employees who are Connectors in their professional and personal lives.
• Consider social media networks as an important part of your recruiting strategy.

Tal Moran is Co-Founder and CEO of Tomigo, a social recruiting platform that leverages your company’s social connections to hire top talent.

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Whether you’re content in your current position or the owner of your own business, having an accurate and professional social media presence will allow you to develop your brand, get the attention of prospective employers and clients and maintain your reputation within your industry.

Here’s how to do so:

1. Nail your bio

Do you know how to describe who you are and what you do in 140 characters or less? That’s what Twitter asks of you. Utilize keywords, get to the root of what you do, demonstrate your passion and area of expertise and express how you provide value. From the witty to the informative, make sure you’re standing out and showcasing your personality.

On LinkedIn, your professional headline is just as important to your personal branding. Make sure that it says more than just your current job title; express your full competency.

2. Regularly update vital information

If your Twitter bio hasn’t changed since you created your account two years ago, or you haven’t looked at your LinkedIn profile since college, it may be time to refresh. You don’t have to constantly update the answer to Facebook’s question, “What’s on your mind?” (nor should you), but you should make sure you’re staying on top of life changes, keeping job descriptions current and sharing relevant content.

Check in on your social networking accounts periodically to take a pulse on how they’re reflecting you as a professional and as a personal brand. You might want to use a tool like Reppler to help evaluate your social media presence under a professional lens.

3. Shamelessly post and pin

It does you no good to shy away from sharing your work online. Pin your resume. Post your portfolio on your Tumblr. Don’t miss an opportunity to flaunt your skills, interests or point of view. Potential clients, employers and industry experts are on the lookout for new talent and thought leaders.

4. Tame your image

Go ahead, Google yourself—you can be sure prospective clients and employers will be. It’s not vain, it’s smart; what’s out there about you isn’t completely composed of what you post on your social media accounts.

Keep tabs on your online presence and manage it before it manages you. Are there any photos on Facebook that aren’t particularly professional or social media resume-friendly? Facebook’s recent changes have made profiles more easily searchable; it’s essential that yours accurately reflects how you want potential employers and clients to view you. Make sure to take a good look at your tagged photos, or use a tool like Pendaflex’s Tag Tamer to filter your Facebook timeline and make sure any potential untamed photos aren’t revealed. A picture says a thousand words—make sure they’re all positive and that no one’s judgement is cast based on an inappropriate photo from your college days.

5. Go public

With that being said, personally, I’d rather hire or work with someone with drunken photos on Facebook than someone with a blocked account. Transparency is one of the keys to a successful social media presence. Opening yourself up demonstrates that you’re a trustworthy professional with nothing to hide. Allow your LinkedIn profile to be public so that it shows up in search.

Who you are in your professional field should be who you are in life—there’s a fine line between being appropriate and being fake. Being unique is the best thing you can do to give you an edge online. So from your LinkedIn headline to your tweets to your Tumblr portfolio, make sure you’re being you on social media.

(Disclaimer: Pendaflex is a client of Likeable Media.) 

Dave Kerpen is the Co-Founder and CEO of Likeable, an award-winning social media agency, and author of New York Times Bestseller Likeable Social Media and the new book Likeable Business.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

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You should regularly soak up information from articles about social recruiting, employment branding and new social networks. You should be providing value and making new connections. You should review the profiles of colleagues, competitors, friends and family, as well as your favorite companies for new ideas for your own social media accounts.

Unfortunately, few HR pros are truly active in social media. While there is a select group of active and highly visible HR pros out there doing it right, the vast majority choose to look the other way and pretend that social media just isn’t relevant for the recruiting world. I recently attended the SHRM conference for my state and was announced as one of eight attendees who were tweeting from the conference. Eight. Out of a statewide conference. That’s it. Are you pickin’ up what I’m puttin’ down?

Not only are recruiters not taking advantage of the benefits of a social media presence; what presence they do have is often all wrong. We’ve all seen those half-completed or out-of-date LinkedIn profiles, Twitter accounts with no tweets and six followers and Facebook profiles that are neither private nor professional.

Recruiters, if you haven’t listened to the 2,896 bloggers before me, please listen now: start using social media.

Time to get on the bandwagon

If you’re not using social media yet, don’t overwhelm yourself by thinking you have to start with a full-blown social media strategy. That’s a great goal to work towards, but first focus on getting in at the ground level. These are the basics you need:

1. Create a LinkedIn profile or edit/refresh the profile you already have.

2. Create a Twitter account for your company’s careers page and begin to tweet about your opportunities.

3. Create a (business) Facebook account using your work email address to share fun and exciting information about your company.

Once you start to become more involved with these accounts, you’ll gain a better understanding of how you can leverage them to enhance your recruitment strategy. Remember, this is an opportunity to share information, create interest in your company and engage potential candidates. The opportunity is out there; you just have to get started.

Keep the personal stuff personal

Make sure that all of your personal social media accounts (except for LinkedIn) are private. Lock those bad boys down and throw away the key. Your coworkers, candidates and competitors should never have access to photos of you enjoying a cocktail (or three) on the beach last summer. That’s your personal life, and you need to separate it from your professional online persona.

I know I don’t need to remind all you savvy HR pros that social media can hurt your image if you’re not managing it correctly. Take care of this step ASAP!

Be consistent

You should be recognizable across the board. When a candidate finds your professional profile on a social networking site, it should be clear that you are a recruiter/HR pro working for XYZ Company. Using the same photo, hashtag, tagline and summary for all of your social profiles will make you easily recognizable to candidates. This is your opportunity to create a unique and awesome personal brand and then run with it!

Use it or lose it

Don’t become just another one of those sad and neglected Twitter accounts you’ve undoubtedly come across in the Twitterverse. The same goes for Facebook and LinkedIn. If I follow you and I realize that you haven’t posted an update in a month…see ya!

Regular, quality content is key when you’re using social media for recruiting and employment branding. Your goal should be to post new content at least once per day, if not more. With an Internet chock full of current events, industry news and ridiculously cute YouTube videos, you have plenty of inspiration at your fingertips. Commit to constant content or your followers will bail on you. It’s that simple.

Don’t let your “Create a Social Media Presence” initiative for 2013 sit on the shelf for the remainder of the year. Stop stressing about being perfect and just start now. Just remember to be creative, be consistent and have fun!

Disclaimer: The above tips will help you avoid creating socially awkward situations in cyberspace only. In real life, you’re on your own.

Carly Bartlein is an HR Generalist at McKinley in Ann Arbor, Michigan. You can connect with her on Twitter,  Facebook and LinkedIn. (Her favorite hashtags are #Recruiter and #CoolKidWannaBe.)

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Yep, you’re pretty much addicted to social media. Wouldn’t it be great if you not only got to use social media endlessly but also had the opportunity to design and implement creative campaigns and strategies—and get paid to do it?

It doesn’t hurt that “social media” is a buzzword in, well, pretty much every industry. That means the job market is full of companies looking to hire someone for their social media. And it could be you. However, there are a few things you need to know first.

As the social media strategist at iAcquire, I’m going to dish some inside information on what you need to know about having a career in social media.

1. Understand different facets of social media careers

Working in social media isn’t just writing clever tweets. It’s a lot more than that, and there are different facets to these kinds of jobs. Some of these positions are separate, but often if you’re working at a smaller company, you’ll fill several of these roles:

Community manager. Community managers both internally and externally build a reputation for the company and extend its reach online. This includes creating a Twitter chat for your industry or company to lead, organizing offline networking events, moderating and participating in a forum your organization runs and more. Most community managers are excellent at emulating the company voice as well as handling any complaints or issues that may arise both efficiently and calmly.

Social strategist. As a social strategist, you’ll create social campaigns and strategies to meet certain goals for your organization (or, if you work at an agency, your organization’s clients). You will need to know how to track success on social media and target social messaging for audiences. Social strategists should be able to take advantage of tools that improve audience engagement, know how to use and interpret analytics tools and be able to think outside the box when it comes to using social media to promote goals.

You can also look into other social media roles such as content programmers, bloggers, social networking analysts, social media developers and influencer relations to decide which is the best fit for you.

2. Getting a job in social media requires more than just an impressive resume

A great resume helps, but when you’re interviewing for a social media position, you need to bring your A-game. Companies are looking for someone who can not only speak to a community online, but who are also personable and social offline, since you may be meeting with clients and attending conferences or events.

You’ll also want to display your creativity; doing so in your cover letter or elsewhere in your application can boost you to the top of the interview list. (Here’s a good example of how one Brazen contributor used her creativity to land a social media manager position.) Use good judgment and be natural. Don’t be too out there. Trying too hard or appearing insane will turn off potential employers.

Be prepared to answer questions on the spot as to what you would do for that company to improve their social presence. The best candidates already come with suggestions as to how to boost a company’s social success.

3. Expect to be on the job 24 hours a day, seven days a week—but get major perks

Social media doesn’t sleep. This doesn’t mean you don’t get any shut-eye, but it does mean that you should be prepared to handle whatever comes at you, even if you’re not in the office.

Crisis situations and customer complaints should be dealt with in a timely and efficient manner. Don’t jump the gun on resolving what could be a volatile situation—if necessary, call your boss. It might be the weekend, but he will appreciate that you asked for his input before making a rash decision.

However, not everything you handle in your off hours will be negative. Your company hired you to work in social media, so they want you to be social. You might get to travel to attend social media conferences and networking events to meet and learn from others in your industry. Also, if your company is hosting an event, you will get to be the eyes and ears for those unable to attend.

4. Harness the power to innovate and inspire others in your industry

Although you may be learning from other social media professionals when you first get started in this career, don’t mistake this communication as one-sided. Because the industry is ever-changing, you will discover new ways to innovate the social space, and your company, as well as the connections you’ve made, will give you the platform to share your insights. Social media is an industry in which you not only get to participate and create, but also shape the future.

What attracts you to a social media career? What other questions do you have about the job or industry?

Megan Brown is the Social Media Strategist at iAcquire, a digital marketing firm specializing in SEO, reputation management, content marketing, digital public relations, and social media marketing. You can find her on Twitter (@thatgirlmegan or @thatgirlondeck) as well as tweeting on behalf of @iAcquire.

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We’ve seen lists of Gen Y career experts before, but they typically recycle the same names, and there are always new and interesting people to learn from. (Plus, if your Twitter bio says you’re a proud grandfather, chances are you’re not Gen Y, so please stop acting younger than you are.) It’s time to shift the spotlight to some fresh faces who have more than enough expertise to bring to the table.

So here are nine Gen Y careerists to follow in 2013, in random order. Not all of the people below tweet 100 percent about career advice, but their career paths are inspiring enough on their own.

1. Brian Stelter

Brian is a media and TV reporter for The New York Times. He’s a stellar modern day reporter, frequently tweeting from the scene of his newest stories. He’s even featured in the documentary Page One: Inside the New York Times. If you aspire to work in the field of journalism, be it digital or traditional, you can learn a lot by following Brian.

2. Jenna Johnson

Another reporter to make the list, Jenna writes about higher education for the Washington Post. Whether you’re applying to college, attending a university, about to graduate or trying to leverage your recently acquired degree, Jenna has something to offer. Aside from reporting on education, she tweets stories by other authors that any member of Gen Y can find useful.

3. Megan Berry

Megan was employee number four at Klout but has since left to become Director of Community at Rebel Mouse. With a focus on tech, Megan shares fascinating articles worth reading for any budding technology or marketing executive.

4. Josh Miller

Another for the techies out there, Josh Miller is the 22-year-old CEO of Branch, which is described as “curated groups of people [who] are invited to engage around issues in which they are knowledgeable.” The best links on Josh’s Twitter feed are discussions occurring on Branch, including this fascinating read about our generation and “success theater.” It’s also worth noting that Josh was recently named to the Forbes “30 Under 30” list.

5. Rachel Haot

Rachel, too, was recently named to the Forbes “30 Under 30” for her work as the Chief Digital Officer for the City of New York. Her Twitter stream skews more towards a New York audience (given her job), but she also shares many job opportunities, as well as exciting articles about technology and public policy.

6. Dan Klamm

Dan serves as the Director of Young Alumni Engagement in NYC for Syracuse University. Outside of that, he always curates the coolest job opportunities and employment statistics. And if you ever have a career question, a popular phrase among his followers is, “What Would Dan Klamm Do?”

7. Kevin Grubb and Shannon Kelly

Together, Kevin and Shannon write the blog social @ edu, which discusses the intersection of social media and higher education. Separately, they serve as Assistant Director of Career Center Student Services at Villanova University and Associate Director of Career Services for the University of Pennsylvania, respectively. Their focus on career advice for undergraduates is valuable for aspiring professionals at any university.

8. Lauren K. Gray

One of the youngest member of this list, Lauren offers valuable insights for any recent grad. She’s one herself (of Western Carolina University) and the National President of the Public Relations Student Society of America. Lauren shares a spectrum of insightful articles about PR, the job search and young professional life in general.

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These user-friendly tips will take the confusion out of Twitter, so you can make your tweets more attractive your followers.

1. Have (Real) Conversations

The Twitterverse (which, incidentally, is apparently the fifth most annoying word of 2012) offers lots of opportunities to make great connections. If you admire a fellow entrepreneur, designer or writer, don’t be afraid to give them a shout—and make sure it’s a worthwhile shout.

Ask a question or start a conversation instead of simply saying “Cool pic!” or “Nice post!” If your cyber friend (well, maybe we aren’t to the “friend” stage yet) posts her new graphic design project, tell her you like the use of color or ask where she found her inspiration. These higher-quality threads can draw attention from her followers as well as yours.

2. Don’t Be Afraid of the Retweet

In lieu of services like delicious.com and Evernote, I use Twitter as a means of storing links I’m interested in coming back to read later in the day when things slow down. Most of the time, these links relate to my industry, and thus the interests of my followers, so I know that retweeting them will be valuable to my readers.

Don’t worry about having original content 100 percent of the time, but don’t lean too heavily on the RT, either. Make sure you’re also generating plenty of your own unique information to keep your followers following.

3. Add Small Personal Touches

No fail, Twitter followers seem to be interested in the personal details of the people they follow—even (or sometimes especially) the minutia. This could mean sharing a picture of your (organized) desk or latest lunch choice every once and awhile.

Yes, it may seem silly, but these little touches make you feel real and relatable and help your readers connect with you as a person.

4. Don’t Overdo the “!” and the “#”

Too many Twitter accounts (and Facebook accounts, for that matter) are littered with exclamation marks and hashtags. Your user would much rather to see this…

Jolly Jam pairs great with cream cheese and crackers. Try the #recipe! bit.ly/23jf98

…than this:

#JollyJam pairs #great with #creamcheese and #crackers! Try the #recipe!!! bit.ly/23jf98

Remember: you are promoting your product, service or self because you are inherently enthusiastic about it—and readers approach business-based Twitter handles with that in mind. There is no need to go over the top with the hard sale. Use Twitter as a way to simply (and professionally) engage your customers in what you would consider like interests—without all the overzealous punctuation.

5. Don’t be Afraid to Plan Ahead

Lastly, services like HootSuite and TweetDeck allow you to schedule your updates ahead of time, which can do wonders for the small business owner who doesn’t think he has the time to regularly update his social media accounts.

Also consider creating an editorial calendar. By planning your subject matter ahead of time, you won’t have to enter panic mode every morning when you turn on the computer.

You may even want to consider whether it’s time to add a social media manager to your team. This can be as low- or as high-commitment as you’d like. Some freelancers will manage your entire social media presence for you, preempting the need to hire another full-time staff member.

Regardless of which steps you take on Twitter this year, keep tweeting! If you’re going to have a social media presence, it’s best to actively participate, rather than have accounts simply for the sake of having them. Just like your product, you surely have some superb nuggets of information to share with (yes) the Twitterverse, so start sharing!

Grace Barkley is a freelance writer, social media manager and designer living in Savannah, Georgia. She currently helps small business owners with their social media and branding and is earning her M.F.A. in Professional Writing from the Savannah College of Art and Design.

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That includes treating your online activity much more seriously. Your reputation on social media now plays an important role in determining whether employers should ask you to join their team. So promote yourself effectively by publishing high-quality and thoughtful posts on your online profiles. This will help you you strengthen your presence on the Web, increasing your chances of getting a job.

Here are three ways to leverage your skills online:

1. Use your real name

It’s understandable that you prefer to hide behind an obscure username and keep your true identity a secret. But consider the advantages of using your real name for your email and social profiles. You’ll add positive branding to your name, which can greatly affect search results when someone searches for you.

Start by customizing your URL on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Using a “vanity” URL helps you remain consistent with your brand name and breed familiarity across all your social media profiles. Always keep this in mind when creating new profiles on different sites.

2. Create an online portfolio and begin blogging

Regardless of your job or industry, developing an online portfolio provides employers and headhunters with quick access to your resume and sample work. Include links to works you have published online for easy reference.

Owning a blog allows you to talk about your expertise and share valuable information with readers interested in your field or industry. Through consistent blogging, you help yourself become an authority in your field of interest, which can greatly affect your chances of getting employed.

Sites where you can create your online portfolio include BrandYourself and About.me. Sites like WordPress, Blogger and Weebly can help you set up a free blog to voice your professional opinion.

3. Engage

The online world is not just a place to update your status messages, play the latest Zynga game and stick to your comfort zone. Stop beating around the bush and do something productive online to benefit your professional life.

Here are a few ideas:

• Browse Q&A sites like Quora or Yahoo! Answers and search for questions related to your expertise. Aside from providing invaluable insight, also ask questions to elicit conversation.
• Search for blogs and comment on posts related to your industry. This will help you build relationships with bloggers you can talk to about job-related topics. Not sure where to start? Try Topsy, Social Mention and Google Blog Search.
• Join groups on LinkedIn to share and discuss your latest blog posts, comments and ideas about the industry with like-minded professionals.

The idea here is to stay proactive, even when the chips are down. Unemployment can be a drag, but it will be more so if you let yourself get defeated by another obstacle on your way to getting hired.

By following the tips featured above, you can remain competitive—if not gain an advantage—in the market by keeping your online presence in tip-top shape and refining the edges of your overall portfolio.

Christopher Jan Benitez is the writer for the PrintRunner Blog and swears by print brochures as his choice for promoting himself and his business. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

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Facebook’s Social Jobs Partnership app, which officially launched Wednesday, has an impressive 1.7 million job listings. But the jury’s still out on whether those listings can actually be sorted in a way that makes them helpful and relevant for job seekers.

The new job-search engine was created to tap into the growing trend of talent acquisition through social media, Facebook said in a release. The company teamed up with the U.S. Department of Labor and five other job-listing services to help users access a wide variety of jobs throughout the country and abroad. Jobseekers can search for a posting based on industry, location and keywords, and there’s even a special filter for veteran-friendly job posts.

Here’s what happened when I gave the app a try:

After entering “journalist” in the keyword box and “within 20 miles” of Washington, D.C. as the location, I was fed 25 matching jobs via BranchOut and seven through US.jobs.

For each of those listings, you can read a brief description, send it to a friend or “like” it. After reading the brief summary, you can also click on another link that takes you to an application page.

But it appears Facebook hasn’t ironed out all of the kinks. There wasn’t a single job in my search from BranchOut that was within 20 miles of Washington, D.C. In fact, most of them were overseas, in the United Kingdom or in somewhere else in Europe. Since I’m not planning to move across the world, that wasn’t much help.

The US.jobs suggestions were more accurate; all but one posting was located in Washington, D.C.

The app doesn’t have a feature that lets you know whether any of your friends work at companies with openings, which is one of the benefits of LinkedIn and BranchOut; they help you leverage your network. Maybe Facebook will add that option in the future?

A recent Pew Research study found that some 60 percent of adults use social media. So Facebook should have no problem attracting some of the 12.3 million unemployed individuals — not to mention those of us who have a job but want a better one — to utilize their new app. If it’s a success, social media could play an even more significant role in the job search.

As of Thursday afternoon, the Social Jobs Partnership app’s Facebook page had more than 50,000 “likes.”

Have you tried Facebook’s new job-search app? What’d you think?

Jennifer DePaul is a tax reporter for The Bond Buyer in Washington, D.C. She hails from New Hampshire and loves to cook and travel. You can follow her on Twitter: @BondBuyerJen.

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All the cool kids are social media managers nowadays. And after that brilliant post from Business Insider about avoiding handing out your social media to youngins, it’s becoming more important for both recent grads and hiring managers to better understand what a social media manager actually does.

No, it’s not playing on Facebook all day. (Okay, maybe a little.)

To be a social media manager, you need to be keyed in to two things:

1. Know your subject

If you post about running shoes and you’re not a runner, seriously consider becoming one. Talk to runners, visit the company’s factory, read books and blogs and talk to the engineer who created the shoes. This is so important because it means you can be current in your content and answer questions like you know what you’re talking about.

2. Know your voice (or rather, your brand’s voice)

We all have our own natural writing voice. I use a lot of exclamation points, short sentences, contractions and sarcasm, which might not be right for a custom-made running shoe company. So in talking to people passionate about these things and in reading other marketing material from the company, pay special attention to the words they use. Keep a notebook and jot those words down. Create a persona, and base your postings as if that person were talking, not you.

What your day will look like

Your day will be 75 percent emails. You need a direct connection to customer service, along with alerts set up for every single keyword, account and profile related to the company. Despite popular belief, fans can’t just complain on a Facebook page to get their project taken care of. While a social media manager might want to give them a refund or help solve their problems, most brands have escalation processes, and a manager will need to run it through the system first. Sometimes it goes through public relations and customer service before she can answer the customer’s question. (This doesn’t make it right, but it’s how it usually works.)

So as a social media manager, you’ll need to get in touch with these departments and constantly monitor/harass them for the right information. On top of that, PR and customer service departments usually have no idea what the appropriate answer might be for a social platform. They’ll give you something long and drawn out and skirt around the issue. Your job is to give a recommended response, then when said departments ignore you, convince them to see the light.

Here are a few skills that will also come in handy:

Know how to write — and write well

The daily life of a social media manager involves a lot of writing, a lot of Facebook advertising management and following your subject on blogs, Pinterest, YouTube and more. Then, of course, there’s the actual monitoring of the brand’s page. While I’d love the luxury of checking into my pages every hour on the hour, that’s often just not possible. Plus, it’s not the most productive use of your time.

Be willing to analyze (like, with numbers)

Then there’s the reporting time. Every week or month, you’ll need to analyze Facebook Insights data and report on which posts performed the best, which had the most shares and comments, which resulted in the most unlikes. Sometimes there’s going to be (gasp!) math involved. You’ve been warned.

Organize like a pro

Then there’s the inevitable project management. Most brand pages are always running campaigns you need to not only monitor, but create a strategy around. Brief the designers and the developers and constantly sense-check every little thing. Then go through the bug edits and fixes that always come up on Facebook. This constant page activity means you need to know what’s going live and when, what material you need from whom and have it all organized someplace awesome.

How many of you out there are already social managers? How does your day compare?

For anyone looking into this career, do you think you can hack it?

Marian Schembari is a blogger, traveler and all-around social media thug. She’s based in Auckland, New Zealand, hails from Connecticut and blogs at marianlibrarian.com.

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We hope your first week of October was fantastic. Here are some reads we found particularly interesting this week:

1.  We know Gen Y loves its social media, but we were still a little surprised by this infographic showing that some college students and young professionals would choose social media freedom over a higher salary.

2.  Are you being too sensitive? This interesting article explores why hiring managers may be attracted to candidates with “low sensitivity”—to a certain degree.

3.  Whatever you’re thinking of presenting, it helps to know how to get your boss to say “yes” to your proposals.

4.  You like taking shortcuts, foo’? (Sorry, we couldn’t help ourselves.) Then check out ShortcutFoo, which teaches you keyboard shortcut commands for many popular applications.

5.  Looking to build a snazzy online portfolio? Check out these top free online portfolio-building sites to get started.

6.  Overstressed? Overloaded? Over-everythinged? Try the “low information diet” to boost your productivity—and regain your sanity.

7.  It was only a matter of time…The American Psychiatric Association is poised to add “Internet Use Disorder” to its official manual of mental disorders. (Know anyone who warrants a diagnosis?)

Have you read anything this week that’s worth passing on? Share it with us in the comments!

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I started blogging when I was a sophomore in college, and because of my blog and the ability to effectively stalk people on Twitter, I was able to land a job working from home for a mid-size PR agency based in New York. And guess what? The ways I leveraged blogging to skip entry-level work can be replicated by anyone with a computer and a few good ideas.

So how can you skip an entry level position by blogging?

1. Show what you know

The only way to skip entry-level positions is to show potential employers you have more skills and better ideas than their entry-level employees and therefore are worth more money. A blog is the perfect platform to showcase great ideas, show potential employers you’re actively thinking about your industry and demonstrate your great skills without having to serve coffee for the next year.

As Penelope Trunk says, if you blog, “Potential employers will look at your ideas instead of your experience and you will not look entry-level if your ideas are good.”

2. Drive results before driving results matters

A year after launching my personal blog, I launched a project asking women to write letters to their 20-something selves. I collected letters from top bloggers and pitched the idea to traditional media publications. This project landed me an interview on NPR’s All Things Considered and my site was featured on New York Times.com, Chicago Tribune.com and a number of national and regional media outlets.

As a PR girl, I was able to show I knew how to create social media programs that spread, I had the project management skills to roll out big ideas and I was able to secure major media coverage. My blog allowed me to show that I could drive results — and yours can, too.

Are you studying film? Create a creative YouTube video and make it go viral. Are you looking to get into journalism? Pitch a few stories to well-known sites and get your work published. Once you get a featured in a media outlet, you can leverage that to build your business, get a promotion and make more money. (Check out this post where I explain how you can turn a media placement into a promotion.)

3. Never suffer through a bad networking event again

The truth is you probably won’t meet many senior professionals at networking events. But blogging and social media give you the opportunity to connect with major players in every industry without leaving your house.

Find people who are doing what you want to do, follow them on Twitter, quote them in blog posts, and comment on their blogs. Networking via social media is the best way to get your skills in front of potential employers.

For example, I landed a job using Twitter. Yes, Twitter. How can you do the same? By finding people on Twitter who have the job you want, and talking to them, which can lead to opportunities — and then closing the deal by meeting them in person. Here is exactly how it happened to me.

Cassie is a writer, social media specialist, entrepreneur and PR girl who has built digital programs for Fortune 500 companies, entrepreneurs, small businesses and bloggers. You can find her shelling out PR and career advice weekly at AskaPRGirl.com.

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This one-of-a-kind online career fair will connect smart digital talent with employers from New York to Washington, D.C. And it will be powered by Brazen Careerist! Check it out especially if you have a few years of work experience under your belt.

At the expo on July 31, job seekers and employers will use Brazen’s real-time online event platform to chat one-on-one (just like gchat, IM style!). Employers will get a snapshot of the job seekers’ resume, background and social profile, and job seekers will have a chance to check out all the awesome companies looking for digital talent in the fields of social media, technology, business and marketing.

Registration will open in mid-June, but you can get on the invite list here.

Are you an employer who needs digital talent? You can sign up now — and space is limited, so we recommend grabbing a spot at the early registration rate.

Here’s more from Mashable’s blog post announcing the event:

The online career expo builds on Mashable’s ongoing commitment to connect the best careers and candidates in digital. Our job board lists hundreds of current opportunities, and our editorial team consistently offers resources ranging from “The Beginner’s Guide to LinkedIn” to “6 Ways to Get a Tech Job Without a Tech Degree.” We think the online career expo adds a new, real-time twist to the digital career space, and hope to bring it to more regions in the future.

Hope to see you July 31!

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If you’re social-media-savvy, you’re staring in the face of opportunity; so many brands, both big and small, need help growing their online community.

But even if you know you want to use your social media skills to make money, it’s not always clear where to start.

Since launching my ebook How to Build a Part-Time Social Media Business, I’ve talked with lots of young professionals who want to make this move, whether to earn money on the side of their day job or as a stepping stone to working for themselves full time. Those who are held up often feel stymied by the same issues.

So let’s talk about those popular obstacles and how to overcome them:

Obstacle #1: Deciding which services to provide

Social media consultants run the gamut, from coaching clients to creating strategies to actually implementing those strategies. Others run classes or webinars, and others sell products that help clients help themselves. Which type of services do you want to provide? Where on this spectrum do you fit in?

A big part of this is deciding who to target. Saying you’ll “work with anyone who needs it” may keep you from closing any doors, but also deprives you of finding a niche — and that’s usually where the money’s at.

If you try to appeal to everyone, you’ll appeal to no one. Target clients by topic — travel, for example, or finance — based off your skills and interests. Or target by type of client, looking to work with non-profits, for example, or individual writers.

Once you’ve got this down, create a page on your blog about your services (here’s an example). Even if you don’t include prices on your site, being clear about what you offer will go a long way.

Obstacle #2: Figuring out what to charge

This is another piece that varies drastically, which is why it can be difficult to pinpoint how to approach it. How much you charge depends on your experience, what you’re offering and what the client can afford. Recent college graduates charge anywhere from $20-$100/hour.

For your first paying client or two, try to find a happy medium between how much you think they can afford and how much you’d like to make. Lean toward affordability at first if landing that client is essential to getting your business off the ground; you can always ask for more with your next client. In fact, transitioning to higher paid clients over time should be one of your long-term goals.

Also consider how many hours you’ll work for the client. If you’re working on an hourly basis, you can charge a fairly high rate for those few hours. If the client is retaining you month after month to implement their social media strategy, your hourly rate can be lower because you’re guaranteed a good number of hours. This second type of client — the recurring monthly client — is the best kind in my mind, because you know you’ll have that paycheck month after month.

Obstacle #3: Getting clients

Landing your first client could be the most difficult part of starting your own business — or, if serendipity is on your side, it could be the easiest.

The key here is to always be on the lookout for opportunities. Who within your network, or perhaps within one or two degrees of separation, could benefit from your skills? Which organizations that you’re involved with have a not-so-impressive online presence? Which businesses would reach their target demographic by making better use of online tools?

Pitch one of those brands, letting them know how you can help them reach their goals. But don’t expect to fill your pockets with cash from your first client. Instead, consider working for that client for free to gain experience, a recommendation and possibly referrals that will help you down the line. Once you’ve done a fabulous job for that client, it will be easier to land more.

If you’re past the point of working for free — and you should only work for free if it’s benefiting you significantly by, for example, helping you build your resume — the client search can be more challenging. In addition to going after possible clients, focus on helping them find you. Use your own online presence to market yourself, showcasing your value in this field so opportunities come to you. One of the best ways to do this is through a blog.

This is what I like to call “making your own luck.” The more value you provide online, the more people you connect with, the more you build your online community — the more likely that community will think of you when an opportunity arises that fits your skill set. If you continue to build that network and make it easy to find you, you’ll rarely be in the position where you have to look for clients.

What other challenges are keeping your from launching a social media business?

Alexis Grant, managing editor of Brazen Life and author of ebook How to Build a Part-Time Social Media Business, is offering a free Brazen webinar on making money off your social media skills. Sign up to join us!

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Pinterest—the web-based pinboard where users share beautiful, inspiring, and drool-inducing pictures—has become the latest darling of the social media world. And it has plenty of uses beyond finding great cocktail recipes and cute snapshots of swimming pigs.

Not only could Pinterest help you land your next job, it can also provide some interesting career inspiration.

We’ve picked out the best aspects of using Pinterest—namely, immersion into a world of stunning visuals, and opportunity to curate and share what you love—to find careers that offer the same kind of experience on a grander scale.

If you like pinning, you’ll love these jobs:

1. Photographer

If you’ve a passion for pictures, create them yourself as a photographer. Whether you want to take darling portraits of kids, or go for the more refined beauty of editorial shots, this is a fitting career for those who thrive on finding that perfect image.

Average salary: $17,000 – $63,000

2. Social Media Manager

As a social media manager, you get to decide what, when, and how your company will share content—like articles, videos, Hey Girl pictures, etc.—with its target audience.

The upshot? You may actually get to spend some (legitimate) work time developing your company’s Pinterest account. Plus, no matter what social platform you work on, you’ll enjoy the curatorial satisfaction of spreading great content across the interwebs.

Average salary: $29,000 – $109,000

3. Wedding Designer

The overall look, style, and feel of a wedding is the wheelhouse of a wedding designer. From creating massive inspiration boards to inventing a custom color palette for a bride-to-be, you work in a world of beauty and splendor—which sounds an awful lot like Pinterest, no?

Average salary: $27,000 – $77,000

4. Visual Merchandiser

As a visual merchandiser, you create real-life Pinterest boards: you choose what fantastic pieces of clothing, art and other merchandise will grace the storefront windows and interior displays of emporiums, both big and small. It’s all about visual choices that will elicit the most re-pins, er, purchases.

Average salary: $17,000 – $43,000

5. Floral Designer

Much of Pinterest is about beauty for beauty’s sake, so surrounding yourself with blossoms and blooms—the symbols of unadulterated, ornamental loveliness—seems like a natural choice.  Your eye for color and texture combinations works well for both bulletin boards and bouquets.

Average salary: $17,000 – $36,000

6. Typographer

You know those inspirational quotes in gorgeous typeface popping up all over? These are the work of typographers—graphic designers and illustrators dedicated to the design and layout of letters. If you’ve got a Bauhaus font obsession, consider this illustrious career path.

Average salary: $22,000 – $57,000

7. Museum Curator

Pin visual masterpieces on a real-world scale as a museum curator. You pick and choose paintings, sculptures and other artwork to grace the walls and rooms of your exhibit. Yet it’s more than just objects of beauty: your goal is to create both an educational and emotional experience for viewers of the collection—a goal any good Pinner would aspire to.

Average salary: $28,000 – $86,000

If you’re a Pinterest lover, let us know what career you think would be perfect for you!

*All salary data is from the Bureau Labor of Statistics.

Annie Favreau works for Inside Jobs, a site designed to help you discover and pursue a career you’ll love. Connect with us on Pinterest for more career inspiration!

Are you a Pinterest fan? Connect with Brazen Careerist on the site!

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Social media management is a trending career path for 2012, and entry-level strategists are in high demand. In nearly every industry nationwide and even globally, businesses are turning to young, tech-savvy professionals to help them navigate social networks — seeking more sales, better engagement and business leads for their products for less cost than traditional print and TV advertising. A quick search on Indeed returns nearly 30,000 openings in the United States alone, and Simply Hired lists more than 40,000 positions in social media.

But what can young professionals do to get hired for one of these entry-level openings, especially without prior experience? It’s probably not enough to tell a hiring manager that you have a Facebook page, so where do you start?

After talking with dozens of recruiters over the past several months and helping hundreds of participants complete social media courses and job skills classes, I’ve compiled a list of my top five strategies:

1. Test your mettle by committing to an internship

Not only are full-time positions in social media abundant, so are internships, many of which you can do from home. The grunt work involved in social media marketing can be tedious, and it’s not for everyone — but it’s essential that you understand the time commitment involved in being successful in your online engagement strategies. If you’ve never helped manage a brand or company social media profile, find an internship to get a little experience under your belt before committing to a full-time position.

In short, you don’t necessarily need to have a prior paid job managing social media channels professionally, as long as you can prove you’ve been exposed to the trade and know what you need to learn. So dive in and and start practicing.

2. Target your potential employer with a social media ad campaign

One of the most direct ways to get a job in social media is to demonstrate your ability to target your audience with social media ads. Set up a simple website or splash page with your resume and your best video introduction and bullet points about why you are the best person for the job, and then target Facebook ads at the company where you’re seeking employment. Sam Solomon is one job seeker who used this strategy successfully.

He cautions however, that just setting up the ads is not enough. “The most important part of this campaign is your landing page. This is where potential employers that click your ad will be directed. Do not simply send employers to your LinkedIn, or Visual CV page. Great advertising for a product with a terrible presentation does not lead to any sales.” So spend some time learning about how to create an effective sales page and give this technique a try.

3. Take an online course to show you’re savvy about learning new skills

Few applicants applying for entry-level social media positions have any direct experience at the business level in social media management, and unless you’ve sought out internships to supplement your college education, your university marketing classes probably didn’t give you enough exposure to the newest online tools that companies need you to know.

“I don’t believe this is something that can be taught in school, so I don’t look for any specific educational backgrounds,” said Tracy Terry, president and founder of Trust eMedia.

One way to set yourself apart is to enroll in a professional training program that gives you a tangible skill to add to your resume and career portfolio. If you don’t live in New York City or San Francisco, chances are in-person training is hard to come by, so check out online opportunities like Brazen Careerist’s 4 Hour Social Media Strategy Course,  MediaBistro’s online classes or Hubspot’s Inbound Marketing University. Adding professional training to your resume will truly set you apart and give you a leg up once you get hired.

Since social media is a field that’s changing quickly, employers look for applicants with proven ability to continue their education outside the classroom. How will you stay on top of technology trends if you’re not committed to ongoing training and learning?

4. Highlight your outgoing personality traits

When you apply for an open position, make sure your resume and cover letter reflect an outgoing and well-connected personality — even if you’re an introvert. In the online world, it’s all about your first impression, said Sarah Rapp, community manager at Behance Network. “Social Media is all about personality, and if real passion for the field comes across, this is much more valuable in a candidate than relevant experience.”

Many of us in the social media field aren’t actually extroverts. (That’s why we love playing on computers all day.) But you can’t let that show in your daily interactions within your community. When Dave Brown, director of digital strategy for MKG in New York City hired a new social media coordinator for the top-ranked advertising agency last year, his first concern was character: the right candidate would have a sense of humor, be supremely creative, passionate and a great communicator, he told me in a recent conversation.

5. Optimize your own social profiles and point employers to them

Finally, you should have an up-to-date and professional-looking personal Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter or Youtube account, according to Amy Porterfield, co-author of Facebook Marketing All-in-One for Dummies. Jennifer Hasche, a senior recruiter for Intuit, agreed in a recent conversation, and recommended pointing potential employers in the right direction by listing all of your social networks on your resume and in your cover letter.

This might sound narcissistic to start creating a brand around yourself, especially if you’re on the shy side, but Amy suggests a way around that. “To really highlight your personality and skills, build your social media networks around a passion you have or something that interests you,” Amy said. “For example, if you are an avid runner, set up a Facebook page to give advice and create a community around the best runs in your local area. Another idea is to set up a YouTube channel that is optimized with keywords to attract other avid runners and post your videos and other’s videos spotlighting topics related running.”

Not only will this demonstrate your grasp of social media tools, but it also gives you a platform to explore your passions, which in turn can lead to other career opportunities later on. Afterall, if you set up a YouTube video series related to your love of golf, why not apply for an internship with Adidas social media team and merge your passions for golf and social media? The best of both worlds!

The opportunity for new job seekers is clear: social media is trending as a career path for the next several years, and employers are ready to hire. The challenge will be to set yourself apart with added skill and moxie, even if your experience seems thin.

Whitney Parker is vice president for user experience at Brazen Careerist, where she co-hosts a bootcamp on how to create and implement a social media strategy and a 7-lesson job search course available on-demand. She’s co-hosting a free webinar on how to get a job in social media on April 5 from 4-5pm with special guest Nando Rodriguez, the senior social media recruiter for Ogilvy & Mather in NYC.

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If you haven’t yet discovered the addictive time-suck that is Pinterest, here’s the deal: it’s a web-based bulletin board where users pin beautiful, inspirational pictures.

Most people use it to pin pictures of pretty clothes, interesting home decor, and drool-inducing food, but we’ve got another idea — use Pinterest for your job search.

Here are five ideas of how to do just that:

1. Find companies you want to work for

Companies large and small quickly figured out the value of Pinterest for their sales and marketing (see Zappos and Whole Foods). Those pin boards can help job seekers get a sense of the company’s culture, priorities, outreach strategies and overall tone.

Are they buttoned-up or casual? What’s their main marketing focus? What language do they use to talk about themselves and their products? These insights can help you craft stand-out, tailored job applications that show you’ve done your homework and understand the company.

2. Put your resume on Pinterest as a portfolio

We love this idea from Mashable suggesting Pinterest as a way to create a visual representation of your resume or professional experience.

Create boards for your work experience, awards and accomplishments, degrees or classes, a portfolio of your work, and even your hobbies and interests. As long as you have or can find pictures demonstrating these things visually, you can create an eye-catching Pinterest portfolio to share with employers.

3. Follow college career offices

Some college career folks are brilliantly using Pinterest to give expert job advice to college students and recent grads. Even if your school’s career office isn’t on Pinterest yet, you can follow any of those who are, like the University of Pennsylvania, the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and Bucknell University. These offices have pin boards for professional dress, job search tips,  and career research.

4. Follow career experts

Independent career experts are using Pinterest to help job seekers (or, perhaps, to make themselves feel better about being pin addicts).

Sites like Career Bliss, The 405 Club, FlexJobs and of course, Brazen Careerist, offer career advice and inspiration, from touchy-feely quotes which (thank goodness you’re alone) bring a tear to your eye, to laughable cartoons to help get you over an appalling job interview.

5. Use Pinterest to inspire yourself

If nothing else, Pinterest is an easy way to overload your senses with the things you love. And when you’re in the middle of a job search, or just trying to figure out what you might want to do in life, it’s easy to forget about what makes you happy.

Create pin boards to make yourself smile giddily, laugh loudly and simply feel GOOD. Stare at your motivational eye candy for a few minutes before going to a job interview to put your mind in a happy, confident place.

For your job search or career exploration, the more networking the better. Pinterest is another, albeit prettier, way to connect with people, learn about companies and their cultures, and pump yourself up for career success.

And the best thing about Pinterest is you can’t do it wrong. As long as you’re inspiring yourself, and maybe some employers, you’re on the right track.

Brie Weiler Reynolds is the Social Media and Content Manager for FlexJobs, the leading site for telecommuting and flexible job listings. Her work days are spent providing career advice and mingling with job seekers on Facebook and yes, Pinterest.

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Users between the ages of 18 and 29 tend to use the site mainly to interact with friends and family, not as a career resource, according to a new study by Millennial Branding, a Boston-based branding consultancy that worked with Identified.com to pull data.

Only a third of GenY users add a job title to their Facebook profile, the study found, yet more than half of those young professionals add at least a handful of work contacts as their Facebook friends.

That leaves Generation Y in a bind. While many don’t see Facebook as a professional space, we still interact with work contacts – which means how we present ourselves on the social networking site spills over into our professional life.

“GenY needs to be aware that what they publish online can come back to haunt them in the workplace,” said Dan Schwabel, a personal branding expert and managing partner of Millennial Branding. “GenY managers and co-workers have insight into their social lives, which could create an awkward workplace setting or even result in a termination.”

Before it gets that far, you can take some simple steps to ensure your Facebook profile feels and looks professional, even while remaining personal. It might even help you use your network to your advantage.

Facebook as a resume

First, add your current and past job titles. While 80 percent of Millennials include their college or university on their profile, only 36 percent list an employer, Millennial Branding reports. Especially if you’ve changed jobs recently, make sure to keep your work information current.

Then check out Facebook’s recent design changes, which make your work history even more important. The redesigned profile is more than a new look; it presents a timeline of each user’s life, with past events ordered chronologically and easily accessible.

The timeline format could effectively become a digital resume, says Job coach Gerrit Hall. He predicts employers will increasingly turn to Facebook to vet potential hires.

“From the giant cover image at the top to the chronological organization down the line, your Facebook profile is a resume for your life, not just your career,” Hall, co-founder of RezScore, a company that analyzes and grades resumes for job seekers, wrote on digital news site Mashable.

If you activate the new look, Facebook gives you a week to review everything on your profile before making the changes public. Take that time to review old status updates or photos, and delete ones that might not be appropriate for your professional friends. And don’t just think about what to take off; the switch is a good opportunity to literally see what information, including your work experience, is missing and what you might add.

Other helpful Facebook features

Hall also recommends taking advantage of another relatively new feature on Facebook: the ability to tailor status updates for specific groups of people. If you organize your contacts into lists of friends, classmates or business contacts, you can then make updates visible only to certain groups.

That way, you can share personal news only with your real-life friends. Have an industry-related piece of information? Share it with your business contacts. On average, young professionals have 16 friends from their professional circle, Millennial Branding reports.

And don’t forget that Facebook isn’t just a place for you to offer information; you can also gather precious details about possible employers and co-workers, which can be helpful during a job search.

In the end, using Facebook to your advantage in the workplace should fit well with the entrepreneurial spirit of GenY. Among those who did list a job title, the fifth most popular entry is “owner.”

What’s your policy on friending co-workers? Do you use Facebook’s list feature to send updates only to certain friends?

Jessica Binsch is a digital journalist living and working in Washington, D.C. She holds a master’s degree from the Medill School of Journalism and blogs at CuriousontheRoad.com.

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But do they actually work?

Most of these social media stunts gain attention for a hot minute, either in the job seeker’s local newspaper, or, if they’re lucky, on a career blog like this one, before fading into obscurity.

So is it worth developing a job-hunting campaign as part of your next search? Let’s take a look at your predecessors:

Hire Me Krispy Kreme

Braden Young, a fervent fan of the sugar-laced doughnut chain, saw an opening on their team for a sales and marketing manager in Philadelphia, and went all-out with an attention-grabbing cover letter, plus Facebook and Twitter pages. His campaign is detailed in this post by Corn on the Job.

What worked: Young was already passionate about the company he was applying to work for, which came through in his content. But most importantly, he had the skills to back up the ostentatious way he handled the job search. He articulated his qualifications in a succinct and memorable way.

What didn’t: Not much to complain about with this job seeker. He heard from Krispy Kreme four hours after launching his campaign, and guess what? He got the job.

Hire Me Chipotle

Bianca Cadloni created a website devoted to her efforts to snag a social media and PR gig for the Mexican grill, with the words “WILL WORK FOR GUACAMOLE” greeting all visitors to the site. Different sections such as “Social Media” and “Public Relations” detailed her qualifications, in addition to a digital version of her resume.

What worked: She used a Twitter handle, @HireMeChipotle, as well as a hashtag by the same name to get the word out and corral all discussions related to her search. Also, she made herself personable in her content, talking about her first experience with the restaurant chain, and inserting her voice in all communications.

What didn’t: Unfortunately, this job seeker didn’t even get to the interview phase. Even with a solid website and social media efforts, I have a feeling the decision came down to experience. With two short internships under her belt and some editorial work for a niche online magazine, it’s tough to stand taller than other candidates with even two or three years of public relations experience.

Chipotle’s communications director emailed Cadloni to let her know she’d been noticed, but in a candidate pool of roughly 500 people, there was no guarantee they’d even be able meet her in person.

“I stood out in a sea of resumes, but with the job market this tough, even a #HireMe campaign isn’t enough,” Cadloni said in her farewell blog post. So what’s her advice for job-seekers who are considering a similar campaign? “Set yourself apart from other candidates by owning your online presence. … Write a blog about the industry trends in your market. … Confidence is catchy.”

Dear Lisa Rudgers

2010 University of Michigan graduate Lindsay Blackwell wants to be the university’s first social media director. She created a website called “Dear Lisa Rudgers,” in honor of the school official who will ultimately make the final hiring decision.

The site’s homepage features a flashy, well, Flash video, illustrating her love of Michigan and offering a peek into her experience at the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra. You can download her resume from the site, learn why she wants this job and follow her progress via a consistently updated timeline.

What worked: The jury’s still out. The university is reviewing about 200 applications and isn’t expected to make a decision before December.

What Blackwell has managed to do in her campaign, however, is not only create buzz via social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, but also through mainstream media as well. She’s been featured on AnnArbor.com, FOX 2 Detroit, MLive.com, the Detroit News and in a handful of other places. She’s received props for her efforts from notable figures like the CEO of Twitter (who also happens to be a U-M alum) and the School of Information’s Dean Jeffrey MacKie-Mason. She’s become the region’s unofficial social media darling.

What didn’t: The game killer here could, again, be a lack of experience. While perusing Blackwell’s three-page resume (yes, you read that correctly), one cannot help but notice that beyond a marketing manager role she’s held at the Symphony since April 2011, there is no compelling reason to believe she can handle the responsibility of directing the social media efforts of a global brand.

Sure, she’s a die-hard Wolverine who’s proud of her alma mater, but all she’s demonstrated thus far is the ability to be creative and get some ink for herself in the media. I’m not convinced her linguistics and English background has prepared her to hang with more experienced marketing candidates for a job that commands a base salary of $90,000. While most seem to think the university would be crazy not to hire her, I wonder what might happen to the brand if they do.

What do you guys think? Are these types of campaigns effective? Should their buzz-worthiness or level of success trump experience? Have social media campaigns to land a new gig jumped the shark? Let us know in the comments section.

Erica Moss is the social media outreach coordinator for the Master of Science in Nursing degree program at Georgetown University, which has one of the nation’s leading family nurse practitioner programs. She adores community building, Taylor Swift and her English bulldog, Mona.

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In our podcast series, we’re hoping to provide insights and answers to that very question. We talk to young people who have amazing jobs or are doing something really cool and interesting and ask them how they did it. So listen along for good information and some inspiration, too.

Blogging, networking, social media, health. It’s all in day’s work for Andre Blackman, the director of digital communications/new media for the American Heart Association’s mid-Atlantic affiliate.

Though Andre was on the engineering track when he started college, he soon discovered his interest in public health and started using the problem-solving skills he learned as an engineer to think of innovative solutions for health problems. He launched his blog, Pulse + Signal as a way to further explore the intersection of public health, innovation and technology.

“Blogging has opened up numerous doors for me and has really played an integral role in my own personal development,” Andre said in our interview. And how’s this for cool? Some of the opportunities he’s landed through blogging and other social media connections include serving on the advisory boards for the Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media, and SXSW Health.

Recently, Andre also helped organize the first Fast Forward Health film festival to highlight innovative public health stories from around the world. I checked out the event a few weeks ago in D.C. and it absolutely rocked! Unique, fun and edgy. It was even written up on NPR’s Shots blog. NPR wrote:

Organizers and speakers described the film festival as a fun way to approach a serious subject, and a great counterpoint to the American Public Health Association’s annual meeting also taking place in DC this week. They dubbed their event “the un-conference.”

In the interview, we discussed how Andre and his co-organizers came up with the idea for the film festival. And bloggers, listen up! You’ll want to hear the part about how Andre is using a unique niche job board to monetize his blog.

Andre Blackman

So listen now, and be sure to connect with Andre in the comments here or on Twitter.

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Social recruiting is nothing new, and don’t let anyone tell you any differently. The best part is you don’t need to have “guru” or “strategist” in your title to succeed with social recruiting, despite what the gurus and strategists may tell you. But there is a lot to learn to do it right.

Social networks — including LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter — have become core components of any solid recruiting strategy. Indeed, survey after survey shows social recruiting tops the areas where recruiters plan to spend more time in 2012.

But just because you’re on Twitter doesn’t mean you’re going to find your company’s future project leader or inspirational manager in 140 characters. Like accomplishing anything on social media, social recruiting is about strategic engagement — not one-hit wonders — and conversation rather than broadcasting.

Here are five things to remember about social recruiting, whether you’re new to the block or a social media pro:

1. Keep up with latest trends — or risk falling behind

The social media landscape changes fast. Just when you think you’ve mastered Facebook or could get your PhD in LinkedIn, the companies roll out major updates that nullify certain components of your strategy. Fortunately, those same updates can also make you much more effective.

So spend some time keeping up with the latest trends in social recruiting. Dedicate a portion of your re-certification hours to social recruiting training and look for certified courses online that are typically more cost-effective and time-efficient for you and your company.

2. Don’t just jump in — think first

One of the most common reasons companies can’t figure out whether their social media efforts are worthwhile is because they don’t have a strategy. How can you know whether you’re meeting your objectives if you haven’t outlined them? The same is true for social recruiting. It doesn’t have to be a 30-slide powerpoint, but you need some sort of plan.

Before you post all your jobs to LinkedIn, join groups, create a “Jobs” tab on your Facebook page or run a Twitter campaign to promote your careers section, spend some time thinking about your objectives and goals for social recruiting, how your tweets and Facebook/LinkedIn status updates will help you meet them, and how and when you will measure your progress. It will be much easier to measure your efforts and calculate your ROI if you have a strategy up front.

3. Use Facebook’s flexiblity to your advantage

One of the easiest and least intrusive ways to utilize Facebook for recruiting efforts is to add a home for your career offerings on your company Facebook page — and there are a variety of options, some that cost money and others that don’t, to help you do that. Indeed, Facebook is one of the most flexible platforms for social recruiting.

For instance, the IRS maintains a simple recruiting page on Facebook that generates a great deal of comments and interaction every day. Companies like Citi and Intuit have also integrated job postings into their Facebook page, which gives them added visibility to candidates who might not venture to the corporate website. A host of new job board apps like Work for Us and LinkUp make it easy to add these features to your page.

If your company is large, consider establishing a separate Facebook page just for your recruiting team. A great example is Intuit’s Facebook page, where they host chats, videos and podcasts to encourage potential candidates to apply for open positions.

4. Have conversations, don’t just blast

Twitter has become a go-to place for job seekers who are looking for the inside scoop on new job openings. That means if you’re a recruiter or employer, you should make sure you’re right there with them.

First, participate in live online conversations where you might meet potential candidates. #HireFriday, created by Margo Rose, is one such chat created to help job seekers connect with recruiters. You can participate in the chat every Friday by simply following #HireFriday via Twitter search, responding to comments and questions, and tagging your comment with #HireFriday. #Jobhuntchat is another popular live conversation between recruiters and job seekers, and tools like Hootsuite and Tweetchat.com make it easy to the follow threads.

Second, if you’re tweeting about jobs and open positions, make sure your profile description uses relevant keywords so job seekers can easily find you. Mention “recruiter,” “careers,” “jobs” or “human resources.” Think about which keywords candidates might use to search for you, and keep it simple. Being clever or over-complicated can hurt your cause.

Always remember, Twitter is a vehicle for conversation, not a megaphone. Connect with other thought leaders in the recruiting space, and share relevant content even if it doesn’t have your brand stamp.

5. Use Linkedin for more than search

Most recruiters are aware of Linkedin’s expensive search tools. Sure, they’re helpful, but not required.

Here’s another way to find candidates with specific skills (for free): use LinkedIn’s new Skills section. You can only enter one skill at a time (hopefully LinkedIn will soon allow users to search for combined skill sets), and the search results will show people with those skill sets who are most closely connected to you. Since the results identify people in your network (up to third-degree connections), it’s easier to find an “in” who will introduce you to potential candidates.

In addition to listing people in your network, the new skills search also shows the largest Linkedin groups for people with these skills. If you’re looking to post a job that reaches this market, join these groups and share a link to your job posting.

Want to go beyond search? Think about where your target audience may be, and go there. Are you a recruiter for technical positions? Drupal gurus? Marketing or PR positions? Join industry-focused groups and make substantive connections with members. Post relevant articles, engage in discussions, comment on and “like” status updates. Be active!

With social recruiting, you’ll get out of it what you put in. Spend the time to think about what you’re trying to achieve, actively engage on your networks and be creative about how you reach out.

Remember, the skills that made recruiters successful before social have not changed. Networking, listening and communicating will prove your success — one tweet or “like” at a time.

Whitney Parker (@whitneymparker) is Vice President of User Experience and Ashley Hoffman (@ashleyhoffman) is Director of Marketing and Communications at Brazen Careerist. They reguarly host online bootcamps to help people learn new skills to find a job they love. Find out more over at BrazenU.com.

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In our podcast series, we’re hoping to provide insights and answers to that very question. We talk to young people who have amazing jobs or are doing something really cool and interesting and ask them how they did it. So listen along for good information and some inspiration, too.

If you have ever dreamed of making it big in your own social media business then today’s interview with Laura Roeder is sure to inspire. Laura left her web design job at 22 to start her own business. That company has evolved over the last few years and today, Laura has a staff of six and offers strategic social media consulting through videos that are available for purchase on her website.

In the interview, Laura explains exactly how she started out and how and why she changed her business model over the years. Here are some snippets from the interview, which have been slightly edited for context.

On why she decided to start her own business:

“The big driver for me was seeing how long it would take to climb the typical ladder. When I was working at my job, I was a designer, I was a junior designer, and I liked doing design, but I also really loved marketing. I really liked being able to be involved with the clients on the bigger strategy and the bigger campaign. But in the agency world, designers are sort of siloed. … I saw that in order to really have the role that I really wanted to have, I would have to advance to maybe an art director or a creative director … even if I was a total superstar, advancing job after job after job that was probably going to take about 10 years. And basically I didn’t have that kind of patience. And I realized that if I started my own company then I would get to do everything that I wanted to do right away. So I did.”

On getting the confidence to jump into her own business:

“You know, I just always think, what’s the worst that can happen? Usually our fears … are really totally invented. The worst thing that could happen with starting my own business is that I wouldn’t be able to make any money and then I’d have to go find another job. And I already didn’t like my job so finding a different job wouldn’t be that bad.”

One thing you can do right now to get business and opportunities to come to you:

“One of the easiest things to do that almost no one does is to pitch yourself for interviews just like this one. Online and offline, I’m talking about blogs, I’m talking about newspapers, any sort of media outlet needs to fill up content. … People are looking for experts. They don’t care so much what kind of degrees you have, they are just looking for something interesting that their audience is going to connect to.”

Laura Roeder

Download the podcast or listen right now:

Jaclyn Schiff is managing editor of Brazen Life. When she’s not Brazenly thinking about careers, she can often be found writing or tweeting about obscure diseases or media trends. 

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1. With so many people freelancing and adopting “new” types of jobs, are we experiencing the equivalent of a modern Industrial Revolution? Hat tip @lysscm

2. Vault ranks the top 50 consulting firms

3. Have you been freaking out about something? Learn how stress really affects you and what you can do about it

4. Our fabulous Brazen Life contributor Amanda Abella has a post on her blog with the 20 lessons she learned in one year of freelancing

5. Apparently there are some good jobs out there, you just need to know where to look

6. From Mashable: 5 social media tips for scoring your next job

7. Ever wondered which business schools are most entrepreneurial? Check out LinkedIn’s “Sequencing the Startup DNA” infographic

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In our new podcast series, we’re hoping to provide insights and answers to that very question. We talk to young people who have amazing jobs or are doing something really cool and interesting and ask them how they did it. So listen along for good information and some inspiration, too.

This week we spoke to Nisha Chittal, social media and digital platform strategy manager at the Travel Channel. Nisha’s job involves managing the Travel Channel’s social media accounts on different platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare etc.), figuring out how to incorporate the latest digital trends into the Travel Channel’s online strategy, and um, watching Travel Channel shows. Not gonna lie, it was a little hard to pretend I wasn’t jealous in our interview… I mean that’s a Sweet Job!

In the interview, Nisha talks about how she got the job, what skills you need to land a job like hers, thoughts on working after hours and more. Here are some snippets from the interview, which have been slightly edited for context.

On not discussing her age:

I’m obviously young … when you’re young and you’re early in your career, people tend to not want to take you seriously, especially if they know how old you are.

I think young people tend to emphasize their age, and emphasize and tell people that they’re recent college graduates, which I don’t think is something you should necessarily ever give away. I don’t think your age is anyone’s business, and I think as long as your work is good, your work should speak for itself.

On networking:

When people find out that you’re looking for a job, they really want to help. They want to connect you with people, they want to tell you about openings at their company. So just being upfront about that is to your advantage. You have to demonstrate that you know how to use the platforms strategically.

On the qualifications needed for a hot social media job:

To work in social media professionally, you can’t just [use it to chat with your friends]. You have to know how to use the platforms a little more strategically.

Nisha Chittal

Listen now to the full interview:

Connect with Nisha on Twitter or Tumblr. Let her know you heard her on Brazen!

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While on the one hand it’s admirable that your connections are reaching out and making the effort to get to know you, moving your online networking to offline collaborations can take some finesse. It’s sort of like dating: you have to take it slow, and have a good sense of how much is too much and how soon is too soon.

Here are four tips for successfully transitioning your online networking into the real world:

1. Stick to One Medium at First

When you’re first getting to know someone you’d like to connect with, it’s often best to converse primarily on the original platform where you were introduced. Everyone has different preferences when it comes to using social media, so until you learn more about your contact’s  social and professional preferences, sticking to the original platform allows you to play it safe. In other words, if you connected with someone at a Network Roulette event, focus on continuing the conversation on Brazen. If you met on a Twitter chat, stick to Twitter.

Of course, if a new contact has other social media accounts clearly listed in his or her bio, connecting with him or her in those places is fine. The contact obviously wants to connect in additional ways. Just take it slow, as this will give you a chance to get to know each other better (and make sure the connection is one you that’s also right for you to make on all of your accounts).

2. Move from Platforms to Email

Once you’ve become more familiar with a new contact, take the relationship to the next level: email. Ask your contact if they’d mind if you talked over email and check which email address they’d prefer to use.

The key here is ask—while people’s emails, especially work emails, are often accessible on the web, asking your contacts if it’s all right to email them shows your respect for their privacy. And with so much personal information available these days, that respect can be really important to your relationships in the future.

3. Treat Facebook with Care

Maybe it’s just me, but I prefer to keep Facebook pretty much exclusive to friends and family. (After all, you never know when an elementary school friend is going to post an embarrassing second grade Little League photo.) Just like with email, if you want to link up with your contacts on Facebook, it’s nice to shoot them an email asking their permission first. This gives you the opportunity to find out how they prefer to communicate and manage their social accounts, and it also gives them a chance to set and explain their boundaries (without feeling like they are going to offend you if they chose to ignore your request). And please note: if they say no, you shouldn’t be offended. Some people really just prefer to keep their business and social accounts separate.

4. Organize a TweetUp (or Other F2F Connection)

It’s true: you can make really great connections for your blog, your job search, or your start-up on social media. You can move forward, get ahead, and do business without even meeting many of your contacts. But as great as these mediums are, getting to meet a contact or partner face-to-face, shake their hand, and have a bite (or a cocktail) together is the best way to cement a professional relationship.

If you’re traveling, run through your list of regular contacts and see who lives in the area and wants to get together. (This can be a great way to get a local view of wherever you’re visiting!) If you live in the same area as many of your contacts, organize a tweet up. And if there are some connections who you just can’t find a way to meet in person, organize a Skype call. Nothing beats a face to face connection, even if it can only be on a computer screen.

Noël Rozny is the web editor and content manager for myFootpath, a career and education resource for students of all ages. She writes and edits the site’s  career and education blog, myPathfinder by day, and works on her personal blog by night. You can find her on Twitter @myfootpath or @noelrozny.

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