Can Social Media Get You Work?

Picture this. STC member John, a seasoned technical writer, is looking for a new job. His LinkedIn profile lists his past positions, accomplishments, what he’s currently doing, and even some praise from coworkers. He’s linked to friends, colleagues, and other STC members, and participates regularly in the STC discussion group as well as others.

Bob is also in the STC discussion group and notices John’s intelligent posts. His company is hiring a technical writer, and he thinks John might have the qualifications for the job. He visits John’s LinkedIn profile and, impressed with his qualifications, sends him a tweet with a link, encouraging him to apply for the job. John researches the company and finds that the hiring manager is a friend-of-a-friend on Facebook.

John sends in his resume and asks his colleague to put in a good word for him to the hiring manager, Mary. She reviews John’s resume, checks his thorough Facebook profile and LinkedIn pages, and (following a link) reads John’s tweets. All become background information telling Mary that John would be perfect for the job.

Sound far-fetched? Not anymore; not in today’s social-media world. But only if you put in the effort. Join Rich Maggiani for an STC webinar, “Promoting Your Career through Social Media,” on Wednesday 23 June from 1:00-2:00 PM EDT (GMT-4), to see how you can make social media work for you. LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook all can be valuable social media tools to promote yourself and connect to an audience of prospects and employers. Let Rich Maggiani show you how.

Wednesday, 23 June
1:00-2:00 PM EDT (GMT-4)
Promoting Your Career through Social Media
Presented by Rich Maggiani
Members $79; Nonmembers $149; Student Member $29

Rich Maggiani, a communication consultant, is the president and founder of Solari Communication, a full-service corporate communication agency; an STC Fellow; and a director on STC’s Board. Rich views the world as metaphor. Through the solitude of mountaineering excursions, he gains the clarity that metaphors bring to an otherwise noisy world. Rich applies these insights to attain the simple, clear communication necessary to enlighten and bring people together toward a common goal. Read his related blog, Toward Humanity.

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The Value of STC: The Society for Technical Communication

Think of your life-changing moments. Rewarding, aren’t they? I had one in the spring of 1995 when two local technical writers asked me to join them and others to start the Vermont chapter of the Society for Technical Communication – STC. Sounds worthwhile. Sure, I join.

And with that simple decision, I embarked on an incredible journey that has enhanced both my personal and professional life far beyond any heights that I could have imagined. To that, I am indebted to STC and its members.

Renewing my membership. I gain so much as an STC member, learning and applying an abundance of skills over these past fifteen years. My career has been enhanced, and my clients have benefited. Membership has opened new venues for me, some that I couldn’t possibly have envisioned. I simply cannot imagine being a professional technical communicator and not belonging to the one organization that supports and promotes that profession – STC.

This is a simple decision for me. I simply rejoin. Read the rest of this entry »

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Writing 201: Analyzing the Writing Process

Being a writer, I follow a fairly strict process when writing—the same process that I preach about when teaching clients how to write: Pre-writing: planning and drafting; Reviewing: rewriting and revising; and Finishing: editing, applying mechanics, and formatting. I’ve taught this process to many people (including my children). After all, there is a very good reason: it works!

The Pre-writing phase allows you to identify who you are writing for (your audience) and what you want to say to them; to identify the purpose of your writing, to determine the points you want to make and enumerate them; to begin drafting your ideas based on these points to get your thoughts on paper without restriction. This is where the bulk of your writing can take place.

The Reviewing phase enables you to clarify your draft: to embellish your words, to add more details, to tighten up your text, to clear up any ambiguities, to sequence thoughts better, to ensure your text speaks to your purpose, to delete anything that runs astray, to cut off tangents, to sharpen.

The Finishing phase is where you edit: to employ better words, to fix grammatical infractions, to correct mechanical errors, to change punctuation, to format for clarity and understanding.

Imagine my consternation, then—with a bit of a smile—when I received the following analysis of the process my son em- ploys for writing papers (including email and IM) at university.

In his own words… Read the rest of this entry »

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How Useful Is Your Twitter Stream?

The quality, authenticity, and benefits of Twitter communication are at stake.

The use of Twitter has simply exploded over the past year. As your list of followers grows, so do the amount of tweets, retweets, and direct messages you receive. Most of these tweets are well intended, but how useful are they?

An increasing percentage of the tweets you receive are spam. Twitter is especially vulnerable, given its inherent automation. Anyone can easily follow tens of thousands of people, and then gain a large percentage of followers in return. An easy, ready market for spam from lurid “marketers”.

What does Twitter spam look like? Twitter spam can take many different forms. Legitimate companies spam when they endlessly promote their products through dummy Twitter accounts. These accounts often bear no resemblance to the products they pitch. Con artists attempt to shift your money and to gain your identity through a series of shady financial transactions. You are probably wary of these: “Help me access my dead uncle’s $20 million from a backward third-world country and receive a 15% fee.” Still, a small percent click through.

Many times, spam tweets are sent by members with few followers yet following as many as possible. This should be your first tip off when someone starts to follow you. These people send tweets with blind tiny URLs linked to those click-here-if-you-are-18-years-or-older sites—except that requirement is frequently omitted. These can easily be identified by the busty, cleavage-popping, young lady’s photo on the account.

Then there are the “See how I got 3,000 followers in one afternoon” spammers. Another come-on: “I can show you how to make $1,000,000 by tomorrow afternoon by following this simple method. No, really I can!” Hair removal treatment for women garners a good share of spam tweets. You get the idea.

The quality of tweets. Pear Analytics, a products and services firm based in San Antonio Texas, conducted a study of tweets. Over a two week period last month, they sampled the Twitter stream every 30 minutes from 11 AM to 5 PM for 10 days. They then organized this sampling of 2,000 tweets into six categories:

“Pointless babble”, 40.55%. Described in the study as the “I am eating a sandwich” tweets. These are the kind of tweets that blindly follow Twitter’s original query, “What are you doing now?” Let’s be honest though: who cares? Read the rest of this entry »

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Another Blog for Marketing Communications Professionals

blog.holtz.com/

You’ve found the blog of Shel Holtz, ABC, principal of Holtz Communication + Technology. Mr. Holtz has worked in corporate communications since the mid-1970s, online since the mid 1980s and on the Net since 1990. He wrote “Public Relations on the Net,” among other books, manuals and articles. He is available for consulting, speaking, and training engagements.

His information was provided to this STC-Marcom blog by a member of the STC leadership team.

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You no longer control your brand: a Solari Position Paper

You no longer have total control over your brand. The multitude of
convenient social media tools coupled with the ease of distribution,
positive and negative comments about your brand can proliferate at blinding
speeds. For the most part, you are powerless to reactive.

You can, however, be proactive in your approach. Through a well planned
social media strategy, you can influence your community of followers to be
your advocates and to build your brand. How? By engaging your social media
audiences in a compelling way.

Discover more by reading our latest position paper and blog entry entitled
“Influence Your Community by Engaging Them”. Read the posting in Solari’s
“Toward Humanity” blog and leave a comment. Or download a PDF .

Tell us what you think.
Copyright Solari Communications

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Blog, to grow your business: a Solari Position Paper

Do you want to grow your business, engage your customers, enhance your
brand, elevate your reputation, and increase sales?

Blog.

Properly carried out, blogging is good for business. Your blogs can
cultivate a community of customers, prospects, and advocates to help attain
the goals mentioned above. You can discover how in our latest position paper
entitled “Embrace Social Media: Blogging and Microblogging”.

Read the position paper as an entry in Solari’s “Toward Humanity” blog: and leave a comment.

Or download the PDF and click the top link.

Tell us what you think. Your insights are welcome.

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STC Scholarship Opportunity

On April 1st, the STC Technical Editing SIG announced that we were accepting scholarship applications for 2009. The deadline for applying for a $2,000 scholarship has been extended to Sunday, May 10th, 2009. If you intend to submit an application and have not already done so, please go to the STC Technical Editing SIG Web site and apply. There will be one graduate and one undergraduate scholarship awarded.

Co-manager, TE SIG

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To Tweet, or Not to Tweet?

You can’t turn on the radio or read the newspaper without hearing some mention of Twitter, one of the fastest growing social networking sites, allowing short posts comprised of 140 character limits.

The question on everyone’s mind is ‘What is Twitter and why should I care?’
I can’t make your mind up on if you should care, but I can at least provide some insight.

Myths and Mysteries
My first reaction to Twitter was an absolute “NO”. I could see no reason for anyone to know what I was doing at all times. Don’t get me wrong, I love the social networking sites like LinkedIn, MySpace, and Facebook, but I don’t want everyone knowing what I am doing at all times. That is a whole new level of stalking that I am not ready for. (You CAN end sentences with prepositions. Your teacher was old and lied to you.) But, being too quick to judge, I found out that Twitter does not have to be the ultimate stalking tool. You don’t have to be the self-centered ‘Twit’ who posts about their daily grind!

How Can Twitter Help Me?
As I added valuable friends, which I consider as professionals in my industry and peers whose opinions I trust, I realized that their posts were not a 24hr fest of ‘Naptime over- now it is time for a trip to Half Price Books.’ Ok, so one of you DID post that, but I didn’t mind. Read the rest of this entry »

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The generational effect on social media – Our youngest generation sets the tone while the rest of us struggle to engage

The year you were born has a profound effect on how well you ‘get’ social media, and how comfortable you feel communicating through its numerous channels. The generations—Baby Boomers, Gen X, and Gen Y—all perceive and employ social media in markedly different ways. Understanding how these generations grew up sheds light on why this is so.

Baby Boomers. Most Baby Boomers simply don’t get social media. And why should they? Born at least 50 years ago, Boomers grew up when many telephones were shared party lines; when calling long distance required operator assistance and was saved for Sunday afternoons (reserved for the few family members living out of town); when all your friends lived in your neighborhood and you went to their house to talk with them; when television was black and white, had only three stations, and only broadcast during the day; when letters were written regularly; when essay test questions were answered by handwriting in ‘blue books’; where the library was for conducting research; and record players spun 45s of Elvis embodying the breathtaking new sound of rock ’n’ roll. Read the rest of this entry »

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