Social Media "Dead or Alive"

On Thursday I attended a seminar entitled "Your Social Media Personal Brand" hosted by my outplacement firm.  Prior to the seminar I did a Google search on the presenter.  Never am I going to say that I 'Googled' someone.  Everyone has some dark shadows in their past and I know that in the 1970's there were several instances of Googling that I'd just like to forget...and I hope that no one else brings any of those events up.  The presenter was a professional woman who is certified by the National Institute for Social Media (NISM) named Jennifer Radke who I Googled searched before arriving.   Arriving at the office building I saw a woman walking in front of me and thought "that must be Ms. Radke," walked quickly up behind her and said hello.  This was in a dark parking ramp.  Well, it turned awkward because this was not Ms. Radke and the woman's reaction indicated that my my grey-haired geezer being was some sort of stalker. It all turned out OK...providing more material for this blog of joblessness.

If you follow the NISM curriculum and testing procedures you may earn the NISM Social Media Strategist (SMS) credential.  I'm a bit of a social media junkie (and unemployed IT Executive) but I'd never heard of this organization or this credential.  Google searches for NISM and the SMS credential did not yield much.  Reviewing the website would indicate this is a new program.  The staff is made up of primarily people who appear to be less that thirty and a couple of geezer advisers.  Personally I would have just Photoshopped a decade or two onto the staff faces.  The ages are not surprising.  In my 27-year gig I dragged the user community and owners screaming and yelling into every new technology and communication option.  The bottom line is that most of the users over forty simply went through superficial mechanics of establishing LinkedIn accounts, publishing content, etc.  The administrative staff liked dancing cat videos, but who am I to criticize now that there are dancing cat film festivals.  I could have started a dancing cat film festival management company.

The NISM website has had no posts since July 30, 2014.  My first Twitter search for them yielded "The Institute for National Strategy of Mongolia."  The last use of the #nism hashtag was four or five days ago.  I cannot find posts on Twitter from the President.  Jennifer Radke tweets a great deal.  As a point of internal conflict I am reluctant to use the term (word?) 'googling' but comfortable with 'tweeting.'

My LHH consultant advised me that it is best to remain anonymous in social media.  At the seminar, which he attended, I mentioned that advice in my introduction and added that I thought he was wrong.  There was a later discussion and disagreement between another unemployed person and the consultant-driving-re-employment regarding keywords and phrasing in LinkedIn 'headers.'  It was a good seminar.  I was impressed with all the attendees and could not believe some of them were actually laid off.  They were attentive, intelligent, thoughtful and curious, all good traits.  After 27 years of all black and white fifty shades of grey was refreshing.  I'd like to work with all the people I was unemployed with yesterday.

If finding information about dead people is easier than finding information about you (living, hopefully) you need to make an effort to be social-media-alive.  LHH is very methodical and very professional about giving you tools and a road map to become re-employed.  The focus is heavy on networking, face-to-face.  Obviously everyone working thinks they will continue to work at will.  It's easy to be neglectful of your networking while working.  In retrospect I would encourage people still working to devote a fixed percentage of their week to networking, reinforcing old relationships and building new.  I used to tell my employees to do one more thing before they go home each day and to ensure that they learned one new thing.  Appropriately added to that would be to establish one (or more) new relationships or contacts each day.  My LHH guy is clearly thinking about how LHH should be positioned in this social media world.  On a personal professional level he's working on a program for professional self-promotion.  Leveraging the online social world is  mission-critical for most job-seekers and people who want to keep their jobs.

Jennifer Radke has now been 'followed' by me on Twitter and we've had some tweets back and forth with obscure abbreviations and hashtags, all full of meaning and implication but 140 characters or less.  The presentation was heavily weighted to Twitter.  She is a communications person and Twitter is quite handy for maintaining and building many new relationships.  There is clearly a mix of personal and business on Facebook and Twitter.  LinkedIn remains the standard for business relationships.  Ms. Radke's position was that showing a bit of your personal life on those platforms is OK and helps frame up your desired work environment.  The HR person next to me suggested leaving all personal items, history and responsibilities off the table.   My recommendation is pretty simple in social media:

• Have a clean social media record.  Don't have any photos of you tied up and wearing leather chaps.
• Create a clean LinkedIn profile with simple statements of your past work and future goals.  There are tools to help you work in the correct keywords.  Recruiters and HR departments and bots-aplenty troll the waters of LinkedIn regularly.
• Find companies that you would like to work for (using LHH resources) and follow their corporate postings on LinkedIn and Twitter.  Good companies store their work in Content Management Systems (CMS) which allows single sourced content to be purposed in numerous forms.  For example a job posting written in MSWord stored in a CMS would according to business rules be re-purposed.  For example it might show up in a 'Positions Available' section of a company's intranet for a period of time and then be automatically posted to their company website and to Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter postings.  You might first hear of jobs on Twitter and LinkedIn, even before they are posted to www.monster.com, www.dice.com, etc.
• Research the hash tags used not only 'by' but 'about' the companies of interest.  People are foolishly open on social media and you'll learn a great deal.
• If you have a body of work that you can share or if you have something to say leverage those on personal blogs, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.  A search for your name should yield some returns showing your good employment, your community involvement and present a decent record...but not many people are truly unique, so focus on your skills that are differentiating.
• Back to personal quirkiness.  Most, not all, people outside of work do have a personal life.  Be selective.  All of the topics that bring division to American life are probably good to be avoided.  I try to avoid political commentary.  Sharing pictures of a caught monster lake trout is probably OK.  Standing in front of dead bull elephant just taken with your favorite .375 Holland & Holland is not OK.
• I would not dwell on your gluten-free diet.
• The Ten Commandments are probably a good guideline.  Don't do a lot of coveting in your Tweets, Facebook posts, YouTube videos or Google+.  LinkedIn is so squeaky clean it looks like every business convention you could imagine where everyone is dressed alike with most carrying iPads.  The feeds in LinkedIn are good.  'Liking' and commenting is good.
• In this world of SM, don't just 'like.'  Contribute and comment.
• This is getting a bit off-topic.

The certification test for the SMS credential looks doable without the education, covering the standard social media platforms, analytics, branding, communication, strategic planning, etc.  I'm trying to determine if it's actually of value.  Certainly know that content is important.   Strangely, my search right now for 'SMS credential' yields a result that explains that I can be certified as a Seating Mobility Specialist (SMS); I've never considered technology-assisted seating as a vocation.  I'm unclear why NISM picked SMS as the credential name since that is even more commonly recognized as the protocol for text messaging (Short Message Service) but perhaps their focus is really short media, text and Tweets.

Long ago there was a certification process to become a Certified Data Processor (CDP) which I did not study for but passed the test.  Apparently that has evolved into something else.  It looks like the business to start is a company that creates certification education, testing and credentialing.  Would a CBP (certified Blogger professional) credential be worthwhile?  Wordpress can be challenge but Blogger is simple.  Given the opportunity to be simple and credentialed I might get excited.  In this theme of joblessness we could create the CUP (Certified Unemployed Person) credential.  Education could include resumes, networking, marketing statements, finance (w/o money), dressing for interviews in not-new outfits, when to give up, etc.  Employers might be inclined to look to individual who had professionalized their unemployment rather than those going about somewhat willy nilly.  Would your certification expire or be voided when getting a job or could you put your CUP on hold or be flagged with a sabbatical or emeritus status?  To keep it professional you'd have to continued to accumulate CEU credits while continuing to be unemployed but after receiving your CUP. 

Ms. Radke's opening comment was the suggestion that you "Google' yourself.  Whenever someone suggests

that I'm inclined to answer "I can't reach," but I don't and I did.   On a name basis I show up fairly high based on the 27-year gig.  I do own the domain name 'johnleeper.com' but it currently has content that is a decade old.  The plan is to update that to more of a portal to the professional and personal me.  My professional content under www.cio-innovation.com warrants updating, too.  

The importance of photographs returned from a Google search are also important.  The first photo is from my Twitter account profile showing me at my desk at the oft-referred-to 27-year gig.

This could be interpreted as any of the following:

• Asleep with eyes open
• Staring out the window (was actually staring at my dual monitor setup)
• Wire is to life-support system
• Crooked and old; cannot sit up straight
• Pretty much addicted to YouTube
• Thinking about future credentialing
• Envisioning unemployment
• Budgets & strategic plans
• Envisioning a new career
• Writer's block
• Regretting that can of high caffeine Monster

Ms. Radke recommends a professional photo.  I think professional photos make everyone look alike within

themes.  My LinkedIn photo is a selfie which I believe displays some level of confidence and professional indifference.   I'm going to stick with it.  Actually now I think it looks like a photo from a security camera...perhaps on a no-fly list.  

I follow a guy who considers his life to be going in circles on a tractor waiting for equipment to break or catch on fire.  With appropriate ear protection I believe driving in circles in/on a tractor may be preferable to writing yourself in circles.