With hundreds of applicants applying for every job right now, how do you make your resume stand out from the rest? One way is by creating an infographic resume.
My favorite tool for building a visual, dynamic, and interactive resume is Re.Vu. Re.Vu calls its self the “Cure for the Common Resume”. They not only offer free tools for creating your dynamic resume, they also let you select a custom Re.Vu url to direct people to. Continue reading
Social media is 24/7 but your customers/fans/followers are not on each social media platform all the time. So, the question becomes:
When is the best time to reach your customers using social media?
There a many factors that will determine the best time of day to use social media, including the platform you are using (i.e. Facebook or Twitter) and where your customers are located. The infographic below by Kissmetrics explains when the best time is to reach your specific customers.
How often do you Tweet or post on Facebook? Do you think ideal posting times vary by industry? I would love to hear your thoughts, please leave a comment below.
Have you ever wondered “Why did my followers like my Facebook page” or “Do I add value to my audience”? Well, even if you haven’t thought about either of those things before I recommend checking out Nick Martin’s post about how to Talk TO your audience instead of AT them. Social media is not meant to be used to shout your message to your audience, it is about talking to them to start a conversation.
Social media has become one of the greatest tools for companies to build relationships with their customers. While some companies are hesitant to use social media because of the inability to control negative comments, others realize that the benefits extremely outweigh the risks.
The infographic below breaks down how 5 companies were able to leverage the best features in social media and are rocking it!
Check out the social media strategies for:
Check out more about social media strategy creation and the future of social media.
Created by Voltier Digital for ScottMonty.com
Each year the Social Media Examiner publishes the ‘Social Media Industry Report‘. The report is based on interviews with over 3,800 marketers. This year, one of the big questions that they focused on was:
“How will marketers change their future social media activities?”
Overall, marketers plan on increasing their use of social media in the future. However, the tools that they utilize and how much the use each tool will change.
YouTube and other video platforms are leading the pack, with 76% of marketers planning on increasing their use of YouTube and/or video marketing in 2012.
Not a big surprise, Facebook came in #2 with 92% of marketers planning on using Facebook in 2012 and 72% planning on increasing the activities on top of that. Only 4%
of marketers do not plan on using Facebook at all; however, this is most likely due to the industry that their client is in. Clients in industries such as healthcare or manufacturing are less likely to include Facebook in their social media strategy.
I found it very interesting that Facebook is the #1 focus of those just getting started in social media. This makes sense because it is most likely the platform that they are most familiar with. In addition, B2C companies plan on increasing their use of Facebook much more than B2B companies. B2C companies are able to reach in customers more easily using Facebook than B2B companies. However, B2B companies can use Facebook for building and monitoring their online reputation. For more information about how B2B vs. B2C companies use Facebook, check out this infographic.
Overall only 69% of marketers plan on increasing their activities on Twitter; however, this increase will most likely be by enterprise level companies and local small businesses. Marketers realize that due to the real time nature, maintaining and monitoring a Twitter account effectively requires a significant time commitment. As such, marketers currently dedicating 21 hours or more per week on social media are more likely to increase their use of Twitter.
Blogs are great for driving site traffic and increasing search rankings. Due to the benefits of blogging, it is no surprise that 86% of marketers plan to either continue or increase blogging. Similar to Twitter, blogging requires a significant time commitment to write, edit, and post articles, as well as monitor comments. Due to the necessary time commitment, marketers who are currently dedicating 11 hours or more a week to social media are more likely to increase their blogging efforts.
The platform that most of us are aware of and probably have an account on, though we probably don’t use it much, is Google+. Some interesting statistics on Google+ usage include:
In 2012 B2B companies are more likely to increase their usage of LinkedIn, while only about 1/2 of B2C companies will increase their usage. As a tool for networking, LinkedIn definitely has more benefits for B2B companies than it does for B2C. B2C companies will most likely use LinkedIn as a tool to increase brand awareness in their industry and search for potential employees.
The industry report states that only 60% of marketers even plan on using photo sharing sites such as Pinterest, Instagram, and Flickr. 
However, I believe that these numbers no longer accurately reflect where usage is going based on:
I think that there will be a much larger increase in usage, as well as a decrease in the percentage of marketers who have no plans of utilizing photo sharing sites.
Of all the statistics in this section of the report, I found the information on Geo-location services and Daily Deals the most interesting.
Only 23% of marketers plan on increasing their use of geo-location services like FourSquare in 2012. This is particularly interesting since FourSquare just hit their 20 million user mark this week. (Check out more information here)
72% of marketers have NO plans to use daily deals, such as Groupon or LivingSocial. This percentage really surprised me since Groupons were recently very popular. The decrease in usage may be from lack of repeat participation by companies or lack of profitability.
I recently discovered what might be the best source for quality articles relevant to those in the digital community and probably my new favorite website! Inbound.org is a website designed for the passionate digital community. The purpose of the site is to provide the best and most current online content on all aspects of inbound marketing, including (but definitely not limited to):
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Inbound.org was launched mid February and has been quickly growing in popularity with those passionate about all things digital. The brilliance behind this site came from its founders Rand Fishkin of SEOMoz and Dharmesh Shah of Hubspot. It is kind of like the Reddit or Digg of inbound marketing, but with a MUCH more attractive site design. The simplicity of the site design and structure is perfect for perusing articles. Similar to other social bookmarking websites, Inbound allows users to Upvote their favorite articles. The design of the site has made it very easy for new users to determine how to “Vote” for the articles that they like.
A very intriguing feature of Inbound.org is that registration requires users to have a Twitter account. I really like this feature because if you are truly passionate about social media, web development, SEO, analytics, etc., you should are already have a Twitter account and be active in the digital community.
The Hot Articles page lists the most popular articles on Inbound.org at that time. Below is a screen shot of what you might see while on the Hot Articles page. I understand that the articles listed are the most popular, however I don’t quite understand the ranking method. Articles are not listed by the number of Upvotes, though it appears that their may be an algorithm that determines the hottest articles based on time of article submission and number of Upvotes.
The Incoming Articles page is similar to the Hot Articles page, but it lists the newest submissions in chronological order. Think of it as a Twitter feed of newly submitted articles and you are actually interested in all of the posts!
All the articles listed on Inbound.org are submitted by users. The image to the right is the Share Article screen that users can use to submit articles to Inbound. For the Article Title option, you can either select your own title or a title will be created from the article URL. However, it is almost always best to write your own title because the number of characters displayed in the listings is limited. As a base, I recommend following the standard for SEO best practices and keep the title shorter than 70 characters (including spaces). Keep It Short And Sweet! Since the listings do not include a summary of the article submitted, it is extremely important that the title is intriguing and does not get cut off.
When submitting an interesting article, you are also required to select one of 23 categories that the article falls into. This feature is very helping when searching through the Hot Articles or Incoming Articles lists because the article category is included in the article listing. At this time you can search for a specific topic but it pulls articles from varying categories. The one feature that I hope to see as the site grows is the ability to sort submitted articles by category, and maybe even by hottest or newest articles in a single category.
Inbound.org does a great job bringing together bloggers, marketers, and those passionate about all things digital. It may even become your main news source for industry news. Why spend extra time searching for the newest blog posts and articles that interest you when you have a haven of the best and most interesting articles already available.
WARNING! You may become addicted to this site and spend all free time reading the great article submissions! (I already have!)
Have you been on Inbound.org? Do you think you would use it as a source for industry news?
What should your focus be for your online marketing strategy? The infographic below breaks down what online medias companies will be using in 2012.
Takeaways 2012
Check out this interview Scott Monty, head of social media at Ford Motor Company.
During the interview, Scott discusses how to connect and engage with customers through social media. Scott also discusses:
How Ford Engages Customers With Social Media (socialmediaexaminer.com)
So what is a Klout score and why should you care?
Klout.com is becoming one of the most popular sites for understanding and growing your online network successfully. Klout was created to measure and understand, as well as leverage your brand’s influence online.
A recent article on Forbes.com by Dorie Clark breaks down why your Klout score is important for your brand. It also includes great tips from Alex Lightman, a high ranking Klout member, on how to increase your score.
Why You Should Care About Your Klout Score – Forbes.com
Your brand’s online influence can not truly be measured solely by the number of Twitter followers or likes on Facebook you have. True influence (Klout) is measured by the content you share and how frequently you interact with your community, as well how often they interact with you. Klout has created a process to convert your brand’s online influence into a number on a scale of 1 – 100. Some of the factors that influence your Klout score are:
Even though the list above mentions “likes” and posts, Klout is not measuring your level of “activity” it is measuring your level of influence!
My favorite feature on Klout is the “Klout Style” report. The report measures:
Based on these factors and more, your brand is categorized into one of 16 categories, including:
For example, Klout categorizes me as a Networker. Klout defines a Networker as:
“You know how to connect to the right people and share what’s important to your audience. You generously share your network to help your followers. You have a high level of engagement and an influential audience.”
Also, you can find out what topics you are most influential on, compared to those you assume interest your followers. Klout helps you better understand your brand and determine if your strategy is successful. Check out my Klout profile to find out more about what you can learn about your online community Being Your Brand Klout Score
There are many social media platforms to join and watch this year. However, there is one new platform that is getting a lot of buzz and is very intriguing, it is called Newsle.
Newsle is a web app that finds and sends you articles in the news about you, your friends, and anyone that interests you, as soon as they are published (at least within a couple of hours of time of publication). Newsle searches through every major news source and blog published online, as well as many of the smaller ones.
I had one big question when I found this new site. “How do they know if an article is actually about me?”
Well, their search algorithm is very sophisticated; it can determine whether or not the person you asked it to search for is actually the person mentioned in an article. How it works exactly is a secret, but I am quite impressed either way.
A feature I really like, is that you can import both your Facebook and LinkedIn contacts. This feature is important because typically one’s Facebook community is much different from their community of LinkedIn connections. Also, I am personally more interested to know when someone I am connected to 
on LinkedIn is mentioned in the news, than when one of my Facebook friends is. Newsle is a great tool to stay informed about what is going on in your industry, without actually having to dig through the all the articles published online everyday. I also imagine that people interested in sports and/or participate in fantasy sports leagues would be very interested in signing up for Newsle to keep track of their favorite teams and players.
Above all, this new platform is a great way to monitor your personal brand, or your company’s brand. Google Alerts has been my monitoring tool of choice for a while now, but I tend to receive many results that are not relevant. With Newsle’s algorithm, the list of stories I receive is much more pertinent. Because of this, Newsle is a great tool to monitor your online reputation. I would definitely recommend this platform for college seniors looking for jobs. Find out what your future employer might see about you in a Google search, before they even get your resume.
Similar to what we are used to seeing on the Facebook and Twitter homepages, the Newsle homepage features a feed of the newest articles about those you follow. There are two feeds on the homepage, one for your friends and the other for public figures. In the public figures feed, you can choose to filter your feed by the public figures you chose to follow or today’s top people in the news.
To find out who is getting the most results right now, check out the Trending People list in the right hand column. It is an easy way to see if you missed any of today’s BIG stories.
When I went to my Newsle profile for the first time, I noticed that I was able to choose the URL of my personal page. I really like this feature, because it will be easy to share my profile in the future. (A combination of a dozen or so letters and numbers does not make for easy sharing) When creating a unique URL for a social media profile, I recommend staying consistent and straight to the point. For example, my Twitter handle is @brianna5mith so to maintain consistency I try to use the same wording in my social media URLs. Therefore, I made my Newsle public profile URL http://newsle.com/brianna5mith. (This is just a small personal branding tip; you do not have to set up your personal URL this way)
Here is a screen shot of what my personal profile looks like. Unfortunately, there are not any recent news articles out there about me so it looks a little empty. However, I do like the robot that fills up the empty space. (particularly neat touch)
Since my page is not terribly exciting to look at right now, I thought I would share the Newsle profile page of a local New Orleanian, Fleurty Girl Lauren Thom. Below is a screen shot of her Newsle profile. Lauren’s page is a excellent example of what this platform can do.
When visiting someone’s personal Newsle profile, you can do many things:
If there is an article about someone that you do like, you can share it on Facebook or Tweet it right from his or her profile. There is also an option to tell Newsle if an article is about the right person, or if the search got it wrong.
You have may have noticed a blue circle with a number and the words Fame Factor on both the profile pictures. Lauren’s circle has the #28, while my profile only shows the #0. Fame Factor is a scale Newsle created to rank a person’s prominence in the news, on the scale of 0-100.
If you are curious about what is out there about you on the internet, or if you want an easy way to follow you favorite celebrities, authors, etc., I highly recommend checking out this new site. This is definitely a website to watch in 2012.