Jason Lee Overbey (HeyOverbey!)

I’m a Droid man. My tablet, phone and laptop are pimped out with Droid. Almost daily I search for not just the latest, but coolest, apps. In my searching this week, I came across some really cool websites related to social media. Here I was looking for apps and ran into a lot of web sites. I thought you might want a press, too…

1 - TweetCongress.org Most of you on social media, I have noticed, are also active politically. Punch in your zip code here and get your local representative’s Twitter and contact info… and more. 

2 - Jackalopejobs.com Can this be any cooler? Here you search for jobs and then jackalope finds people in your social media networks that already work where you want to apply… to hook you up quicker! Amazing. This is one of my favs.

3 - TwitterCounter Most of us have heard of Tweetreach.com and I love that tool. TwitterCounter is pretty much the same but with more info and projections. I love Twitter analytics… and if you do, too, you will want to add this to your arsenal. 

4 - Socialbakers.com Get insight on popular brands and places. Also features social media stats for more than just Twitter… includes Google+.

5 - Social Media Cheat Sheet An article posted on Mashable by Ann Smarty (@seosmarty - she’s pretty nifty), this post on social media cheat sheets is a must have. Ever wonder how people post in bold and italics on Google+? Check this out. And, whoa, a lot more! 

6 - stock.xchng The leading FREE stock photo site. Share photos. Find photos to use. Hello! Awesome. 

7 - PostPost.com ”Dive into your Twitter timeline without drowning in it.” This site toplines content from the people you follow on Twitter. It is a personal Twitter search engine. 

8 - Facebook Calendar This article on socialmediatoday.com by @AllisonnTweets shows you how to make the most of facebook’s new calendar. You’ll use it! And, uh, follow Allison now, too! Yep.

9 - timehop.com What were you doing one year ago in social media? You’ll find out here. 

10 - Amplicate.com Find out what brands people love and hate on social media. This site “collects consumer opinions posted on social media, analyzes and compares them to let you know what consumers are saying about products, services, companies and sectors right now on Twitter and Facebook.”

11- HeyOverbey’s Facebook Page How’d that slip in here? Oh, well. Like me on facebook for sweet tips, articles and news in the social media world. I promise I won’t crowd up your timeline! 

12 - And, finally, here are 3 social media news sites - apart from those really big guys - that I source a great deal of usable information out of! socialtimes.com and socialfresh.com and thefuturebuzz.com. 

Give me a holler… JLOverbey@gmail.com and @HeyOverbey

“We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not seem to share this longing, which is one reason they write so very little. But we do. We have so much we want to say and figure out.”  - Anne Lamott Bird by Bird

I’m a bit of a contemplative, to be sure. I’m reading the book Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think edited by John Brockman (@edge). It is a collection of 150 essays by today’s leading thinkers in technology, art and science. And it got the old noggin to ponder about the uniquely human act of writing. Not communicating. Any old plant or insect does that. But writing.

It occurred to me how ancient writing is. People who study such things claim that even prior to spoken language the prehistoric human felt driven to express herself by drawing on the cave wall. To communicate… through writing… is truly a primal force that compels us.

I would then say that when we write, we are drawing on something deep within us that predates the pen and paper. Something very, very old. It predates even the necessity to communicate through the written word. It’s strange. It excites me.

It makes me think it has its rudiments somewhere deep in the code of DNA then. To the spiritual among us, they would claim that it is a God-authored drive. I kind of like the romance of that notion. The more prosaic in our ranks would argue that it is an emergent property that developed as tribes solidified and chores were assigned allowing us more free time to create and express. Still others would say it is an overdetermined phenomenon and probably has multiple factors involving its arrival in the human psyche. I simply don’t know. And past the fact that it is an ancient scenario, my pontifications on the reasons and the modality fail me. I can’t figure it all out. 

But what I do know: It’s there. It is in all of us. We want to write. From crayons to keyboards, the proclivity stays with us our whole lives.

Sure, a select and esoteric few are genius at it. Most of us fall in the skill level of writing that the average population does with math - we know a little more than enough to balance our check books and get the taxes done. I suspect, though, we could do a lot better if  we wanted  to. All primitive tribes have language. There are a few that have no more than two words for math, however. It seems that to count was not as important to survival - to being human - as to communicate and to write. I can relate. I would much rather write in my spare time than do calculus.

So I started wondering. In the age where social media ubiquity offers the unprecedented forum to write and to have people read it - why aren’t more people writing? Oh sure, they post about lunch. They post cute pictures with cats. They even let you know when they entered or exited a relationship (something I would never post about but absolutely love reading from others). But, surely, more of them ought to be blogging. Right? I mean in paragraphs. You know the sort of thing: a topic sentence, middle progression, and a cogent end bringing it all together for the reader.

Ah. I just dismissed it as fear. Laziness. Or maybe people are too busy.

But something nagged at me telling me there is more. Everyone has hobbies, interests and opinions. I know they can articulate them - they do every day at Starbucks. And then, right in the middle of my caramel frothy thing,  I heard someone say, “Yeah, but no one wants to hear what I have to say.”

Now that is an entirely different objection to writing from fear, skill or accessibility to audience. That’s about relevance.

People who say that no one wants to hear what they have to say often make the declaration with such authority that I often wonder how they obtained such absolute, god-like knowledge. You mean no one - at all - wants to hear anything - at all - about your story? At all? Wow. How’d you find that out?

I am thinking the average person feels like there are too many people crowded in the cave. And who wants to see one more pictograph of a man slaying a deer in the forest!

Ah ha!

So… whatever you feel about the subject of writing… you still have that thought to do it, don’t you? It may not be with you like a sickness. Like the “ick” that all adored writers through the ages declared they had to surrender to or face insanity. You may not have it like that. But to write is there. It may only feel like a shoe that doesn’t fit quite right. You can still walk just fine. You get through the day. But you are aware of its presence, its almost quiet ache nonetheless.

Arguing with your inner writer only leaves you exhausted and angry. Quit fighting.

I want to tell you today that I still want to see your drawing on the wall. I am convinced that being in the lineage of the ancient man with the same desire, you too, have returned from the hunt with a story to tell. I’ll even go to your cave to learn about it.

You may not be able to draw your story with the detail or shadowing of some. But should that alone prohibit you from taking up the pen? No one else can write your story for you. Not really. While the plots may vary but little, the voice of every storyteller is different. Always.

I want to hear about your journey. I do. I am a bit of a nosey quidnunc… fine. But I know others who want to hear you as well.

It is a human and ancient thing to sit alone somewhere and read the thoughts of another from a page. It wakes me up. It gets me thinking. At times it makes me outraged. I laugh. I remember. It takes me to new places. I can’t always determine whose words it will be that do all that for me.

So don’t just write for yourself. Write for me. Write for all of humankind.  

I love politics. I love world news. It excites me. I’m a bit of a quidnunc though. I also am enamored of social media and where it will go next. 

With that in mind, I have compiled a couple interesting links here for you to review regarding how government and world leaders are using social media:

1 - World leaders to get their own social network. Click here to read how “Tibco Software is expected to announce the launch of TopCom, a hyper-secure social network and video-messaging service that will be made accessible only to the top 200 members of the World Economic Forum”.

2 - The CIA now tracks social media for intelligence gathering. Click here to read how the CIA calls the information open source material and has a designated Open Source Center to track posts, hashtags, blogs and the like. 

3 - Twitter is blocked in China. But click here to read how “a number of Chinese dissidents have already left homegrown social media sites, choosing to create a community on Twitter that is beyond the reach of government censorship” and are getting past the firewall. 

4 -Government & Social Media Wiki page. Click here to read how “Josh Shpayher aims to help Congress, elected officials and their staffs from the Hill and around the country and the world, the media, and the public at large track who in government uses which forms of Social Media”. This is a powerful tool to track a  politician’s social media use.  

5 - Citizens can use social media to sway local government. I really liked these 7 ways the populous can use social media to impact their government from www.ohmygov.com

6 - Federal Government Guidelines for Staff Use of Social Media. Click here to read how “The rules lay out how bureaucrats should use public social networks to communicate with citizens and with each other, be it via sites like Facebook or those which allow multiple users to create and share information online”. 

7 - How New York City Government Is (and Isn’t) Using Social Media. A panel discussion by City Hall on incorporating social media in NYC. Click here. 

8 - How Twitter Helped the White House. Click here to read how the White House chose its latest hashtag on the economy that ended up trending worldwide within 45 minutes.

9 - The United Nations pushes NGOs (non-governmental agencies) to use social media to fight poverty. Click here to read how “The Division for Social Policy and Development (DSPD) organized a Panel Discussion on “How NGOs can use social media to create impact and eradicate poverty”, which took place on Friday 20 January 2012 from 1:15pm to 2:45pm in conference room 6 at the United Nations North Lawn Building (NLB)”.

I would be honored if you had some links to share with me! 

@HeyOverbey

JLOverbey@gmail.com 

So we’ve been on Twitter a while and we have gotten a few followers. Regardless of how self-serving it may seem, if you are anything like me at all, you love to see your name in lights. I get excited when I get an email from Twitter announcing that a tweet of mine has been favorited or ReTweeted or that I got a mention. 

If we have learned anything in social media work it is this: those mentions and ReTweets are a gold mine. We cannot afford to let them just sit out there. Apart from the opportunity it presents us to engage people and keep our brand in front of them (whatever that “brand” may be: a product, message or cause), it is also poor social media etiquette to not respond - some way - in kind. 

But here’s the rub: “Thanks for the RT @HeyOverbey” is boring, mundane and downright intolerable. How do we avoid the monotonous? The more followers we have, the more our timeline becomes valuable real estate. And when we sign off at night, the last thing we want to do is leave our last 3 tweets - the ones that display on our snapshot profile - hanging out there as mentions to someone that people do not know or care about it. Leaving people with that is like telling an inside joke at a party and excluding the crowd. They half smile, sure, but inside they hate those with the goofy joke. Who does that? “Oh, sorry, it’s an inside joke. You had to be there.” No, not at the party!

So we need to get imaginative. In the frenetic day-to-day of the social media world, it is easy to get lazy and I have been guilty of it, to be sure. But I will confess that when I go to someone else’s timeline and they do it, I shake my head… however hypocritical it may be. 

Here are a few ways we can freshen up the way in which we respond to those who took time out to engage us. They are strategic and purposeful. If executed properly, they satisfy professional etiquette and they position us and our timeline in an artful and pointed manner.

1 - Always link the responding Tweet by using the reply function on Twitter. It seems like a no-brainer but we all have seen the stand-alone thank you Tweet and wondered if there was some secret meeting on Twitter we were left out of. Using the reply function lets everyone in on the otherwise “inside joke”.

2 - Klout is a source of contention and chagrin for some - even mockery for others. But with corporate American jumping in on Klout and establishing them as a real player in the game,  we can hardly dismiss it out of hand. Chances are, most of the people we interact with on Twitter are on Klout. We get 10 +K per day to give away. We can use some of those to thank someone for a RT or mention. When we give the +K, Klout produces the Tweet option box and we have the chance to edit the phrasing. I have said things like, “I love seeing my name in lights! @susanavello mentioned me on Twitter so I gave her +K in blogging…” We can play around with the language but I am here to report that I have gotten a lot of response from this way of thanking someone for their ReTweets. 

3- Don’t directly thank them. Instead, using the reply function to link our Tweet to their efforts, we can post a link to their blog or site. “Have you folks checked out @new_resource’s blog! He is killing it this week in #HR writing. Read him at…” No boring “thank you” here. But by linking the Tweet he will get the “thank you” idea and our followers will have a Tweet to read with value in it to them!

4- #FF sucks! I know it’s not dead… yet. But it aggravates the love right out of me to see a block of #FF tweets in my feed. Ick. I am inpatient and somewhat controlling though. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em! But not exactly. I still participate in Follow Friday but with a twist. I like to add value and a reason for my followers to pay attention by putting a blurb in about the person. Posting “Stuck on your job search? Following @Resume_Strategy and @CornOnTheJob will pull you outta the mud! #FF” is so much better than saying “thanks for the mention”. And it tells my followers WHY I think they should #FF someone. Any other way, I think, is a close cousin to spamming. 

5- Alternative language to saying “thank you”. If all else is failing us and we just have the itch to say thanks, we can try saying it in a different way! That whole variety is the spice of life deal. It at least provokes a reader’s mind in a different medium than the monotonous. Continuing to use the reply function, we can play around with these words and phrases: 

+ Phenomenal               + Sensational              + You are amazing

+ You make me look so good               + No one holds a candle to you

+ Your social media presence speaks volumes. Gracias for the support! 

+ Much obliged for the RT! I enjoyed your blog post yesterday on_______

+ You’re one of the reasons I love coming to Twitter, thanks!

+ You’re the bees knees           + Cheers       + Let me know how I can help        

+ Brilliant content today in your timeline, thank you.

+ Fantastic               + Incredible               + Amazing

6 - Post a link to someone’s tweetreach. Like Paula Dean does, we can start everything with butter. If we want to lay it on especially thick we can, still using the reply feature, post a link to someone’s tweetreach. “You are rockin’ it this week @animal. Your tweetreach is: 124,512 people & impressions http://www…” I bet you 10 ReTweets this gets attention and is a lot higher quality than TY.

7 - Post a link to our reader’s comments on our blog. If someone has mentioned our blog and also commented there we can post in the reply Tweet: “Appreciate your comments on my blog post about facebook. Insightful. http://www…” 

8 - Dig up their old chart toppers. We can really go the extra mile by taking some time to go through their old tweets, blog posts or videos and post the link to them when we reply in thanks: “You’re amazing, thanks! Your YouTube video from last August on setting up Linkedin Groups is a must-see for newbies. http://www…”

I think we get the idea.

As with any effort on social media, we have to mention that our response must be genuine. Any feigned emotion will easily be spotted and turned away from on Twitter. When we are honest in our praise and professional sucking up, it will play out in our Tweet. It will have that ring. As we toy around with the verbiage, our own voice will come out.  

People’s time is precious. We don’t want to waste it with the stale and dusty. I am convinced that as social media use becomes more ubiquitous, we not only can build a better thank you on Twitter… we have to.  

You’ll thank me give me +K for it later.  

@HeyOverbey

JLOverbey@gmail.com 

PJ Neumann (@Neumania513), a Finance major at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, conducted this interview with me for his Business Technologies course by way of facebook chat. 

PJ Neumann:  Thank you for taking time out of your day to do this for me and my education.  For whom do you work and what is your job title?

Jason Lee Overbey:  I am an independent contractor. I consult for a recruiting firm name sourcing talent for open positions.  I also consult with businesses on their SM projects and sometimes their credit and collections projects.

Pj Neumann:  I see. How long have you been employed in this discipline?   

Jason Lee Overbey:  About 1.5 years for sourcing. I just jumped on social media work - there is a real need for small businesses who have not yet jumped in or need help with it. I have 14 years now in credit, collections and accounts receivable work.

Pj Neumann:  Is the utilization of Social Media an effective way, for an individual seeking employment, to network? 

Jason Lee Overbey:  Not just effective; today it is necessary. Most all quality, experienced recruiters now have a heavy presence on Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook and now Google+. Not to mention the ancillary platforms. 

Pj Neumann: Ah. Took the next question right out of my mouth (fingers?). Of the SM tools listed, which would you say is the most effective?   

Jason Lee Overbey:  Depends on what you are measuring, your aim. I have to list Linkedin and Twitter. Linkedin is the obvious answer but recruiters and career “gurus” chat all day long on Twitter.   

Pj Neumann:  I heard that linkedin is great for individuals with experience in the field they are currently employed in, but what about college grads with basic work experience and skills?

Jason Lee Overbey:  Every college student should ALREADY be on Linkedin.  There, they can post the word “seeking” in their title along with their target job.  They can then be found by recruiters, companies and similar people in the field to build a network BEFORE they need to use it. Get started now.

Pj Neumann:  That is news to me. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Jason Lee Overbey: (1) It allows the student to build a network before they need to use it. (2) Linkedin allows you to join up to 50 Groups. There, you can connect with “thought leaders” in the industry, other students, and recruiters. (3) This gets your name established as someone studying in the field of your interest. You’ll get a… presence in that niche.  (4) When the student graduates they will have a great network already established; and (5) they will have real time access to professionals in the field with whom they can interact and ask questions about trends in their industry. Ultimately, they will have contacts they can draw on for work. 

Pj Neumann:   My question was more toward why all of this is news to me. I am nearing my 4th year in college and I was unaware of the benefits of Social Media!

Jason Lee Overbey:  AH!  Yes… colleges are behind the times for some reason and recruiters and career guides bemoan this fact on Twitter daily.  I am not sure why but i do know that colleges are dropping the ball here.  Perhaps it is the traditional mindset. But I hear this a lot. Almost every college student that has approached me in the last 6 months has bad information or none at all about Social Media.

Pj Neumann:  The types of questions that enter my mind about SM include: 1. how do I portray or brand myself using SM tools; 2. do I create a “fun” account and a “professional” account for each tool; 3. how much do I let individual’s see; 4. is my personal info to reflect my resume and skill set; etc.  All of these questions have dominated my thoughts for the past 6 months and I seek clarification.

Jason Lee Overbey:  1- Social media is just an extension of a “brand” (and people are growing tired of that word but what should we use until a better language develops?) that should be established in traditional methods as well. Have a clear, written mission of what you want to accomplish to guide you.  The second part of that is consistency - have your message and facts about you be the same across all SM platforms.  The third part is be accessible - on all of those platforms. Let the reader know how to reach you further and make that easy. 

The MOST IMPORTANT part is to ENGAGE.  Do not just be a broadcaster or a “preacher” on SM. Respond to people, comment, repost other people’s work, ENGAGE! 

2 - When you write out your mission from part one you will have the answer to this question. Clearly, if you have a professional aim in your branding then you are not going to use your SM platforms to post the more lewd side of your life. So, yes, many people have multiple accounts.  Having said that, you have to be human in your professional posts and humor goes a very long way in attracting and keeping people engaged with you. 

3- This question comes up every week. The advice I always hear is don’t post anything that you would be uncomfortable having posted on a billboard in your home neighborhood.  More and more though (thinking about Google+ and the new facebook timeline rolling out) people are going to be able to choose who exactly see what posts. 

4- Personal bios should reflect the written mission you came up with in answer 1. If that mission is to feed hungry children then the bio should reflect that, if it is to find a job in the medical profession it should reflect related schooling, accomplishments, desired company maybe. And you can always add a quick funny one-liner or quote. Anything that appears forced, plastic or computer generated is going to be passed over. It needs to be perky, alive and reflecting a real person behind the bio/avatar.

Pj Neumann:  All of this is very useful information but how do students on limited budgets receive consulting on these topics if they are not getting it on campus?   

Jason Lee Overbey:  Twitter is saturated with SM enthusiasts and career guides who love to help college students. Right now it seems that the colleges are not bringing in SM leaders so the students have to go to them…. I always point people to tweetchat.com. There they can put in hashtags surrounding keywords of their interests. For example: #recruiter. Then, start following a bunch of them. But more than that, reply to a few of their tweets, read the links to their blogs and comment there and then ask to connect on Linkedin.  They almost always do. You can then reach out and ask questions.  Most recruiters have lists they keep on twitter.  For instance, here is a list of 497 companies that recruit candidates on Twitter alone: http://twitter.com/#!/JobHuntOrg/employers-recruiting. (via @JobHuntOrg) You will hear different things about their effectiveness but that is another conversation left to the recruiters to fight out.

Jason Lee Overbey:  That is a lot of twitter accounts to start connecting with.  The person tweeting from those 500 accounts is mostly the corporate recruiter.  BAM you are in!  They LOVE to talk.

Pj Neumann: Thank you!  If a student was to approach you and ask what it would cost for them to have all 4 SM accounts setup and basic coaching associated with each, how much would you charge them?

Jason Lee Overbey: PRICING wow…okay!  Well right now I see “experts” (and there is no such thing because SM changes each week) but they are charging $50-$300 per hour.  I charge BUSINESSES $27-$35 an hour and up.  STUDENTS:  I usually help for free if I know them but $75 bucks for 2-3 hours and then 90 days of access to me by phone/web.  This shows them the main 6 SM sites,  analytic sites and 3rd party apps. Who to connect with. And, a lot of questions come up in the first few weeks - a lot.  I will retweet them on my account and stay available to them.

Pj Neumann:  That is very reasonable. The 90 day phone access is worth the money alone!

Jason Lee Overbey:  It is!  A lot of issues come up and it takes 3 months to build a foundation.  Only celebrities get overnight success. And that is suspect. The main way to look at this is as a guide. I have been down the path and know where the snares and toils are and can point people away from them and toward a smoother trek. That’s really all a SM consultant can do: guide.

Pj Neumann:  What types of “success rates” do you see?  Employment within 90 days of graduation of students using SM versus students not using SM?

Jason Lee Overbey:  There is a chat every Friday on twitter called HireFriday - #HFChat - that boasts thousands of participants. We hear a lot of success stories there and in other places the #HFChat conversation takes place (start with http://www.hirefriday.com). Some numbers I hear thrown around right now are 6-9+ months to get a job today…. 4-7 if you are on SM. But I am just throwing out what I have heard. Who knows. The question is does SM help? It most assuredly does because it is networking.  The key factor is the quality of one’s network.  Anyone can be on SM but are they ENGAGING and networking?  All of this must be followed up by getting on the phone.

Pj Neumann:  Absolutely. Of course, the discipline is a factor as well. I would imagine that business people are seeing higher successes than teachers.

Jason Lee Overbey:  Oh, of course. I do know some professors actively using SM and they have been asked for more speaking engagements. If you look at the marketplace today…. if you don’t have the little “in”, the “t” or the “fb”, etc. after your product or brand it will viscerally delegitimize you in the “consumer’s” eye. Whether or not they click for more is unclear. But a product has to have the SM platform available. That is the same with your product, as a student, too.

Jason Lee Overbey:  Even if they don’t follow or “like” you - they need to know you are there.  This goes for blogging too, it needs to be showcased on your blog site.

Pj Neumann: SM is just a part of life, today. It really seems so time consuming. How many hours a day do you suggest individuals use SM?

Jason Lee Overbey:  Who can say, really! I would guess students need an hour a day - and that can be split up 20 min in the am, afternoon and at night. That way you hit all the primetimes. Also, there are a lot more schedulers out there so you can post tweets, status updates, blog posts, links for whatever time you want then go to bed.  But, you have to still jump on to engage. That is where the goods are - in hooking someone into conversation with you - whatever that looks like.

Jason Lee Overbey:  It really depends on your mission again.  Recruiters need more time on SM than a doctor would but BOTH need to be on there.  A first year college student is going to have different goals/needs than the graduating one. And as social media evolves so will the requirements. But it all leads us back to the phone!

Pj Neumann:  Well, I appreciate you taking time out of your busy day for this interview. I have become aware that my life is lacking effective SM skills. I think employing your services would behoove me.

Jason Lee Overbey:  I would be glad to work with you. We will really cover a lot more. And I love the word, “behoove”.

Pj Neumann:  How does your schedule look for…

What are your friends in university saying about how much they are being taught and hearing about social media?

Find me on Twitter: @HeyOverbey

facebook: http://www.facebook.com/HeyOverbey

This is by no means comprehensive. That’s probably not possible. You’ve heard of a lot of them, to be sure. A lot of these sites are helpful. Some are funny. A couple are weird. All are interesting. Add your own to the comments section and I will feature them - and you - in Part II.

1 - Social Chiefs. See a weekly report of the top “social chiefs” across facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. Sign up and see your position. http://www.socialchiefs.com

2- TwimeMachine. See your last 3,200 tweets. You always get new followers and they didn’t see your really good stuff from 6 months ago. And your other followers don’t remember so you can repost. http://www.twimemachine.com 

3- Social Media Glossary. Get the definitions to 120 social media marketing terms you forgot the meaning of. 

4- Email Alerts. Important stuff coming up? Send yourself reminders in your email with alertful. http://www.alertful.com 

5- Highlight Webpages. Easily highlight sections of any webpage that you want to emphasize and share the highlighted link with coworkers and friends. http://www.awesomehighlighter.com

6- Customized News. Compile top news you choose in one site. http://www.topicfire.com

7- Search Twitter Bios. Looking for specific Twitter people in a certain niche? Search their bios by keywords. http://www.followerwonk.com 

8- Your Twitter Account Price. See how much your Twitter account is worth in US dollars. http://www.whatsmytwitteraccountworth.com 

9- Online Coupon Codes.“In this economy?” Get tons of codes for online coupons for thousands of retailers. You can even upload ones to share. http://www.retailmenot.com 

10- Need a Public Toilet? Find a public lavatory anywhere in the world. Share locations of clean restrooms you have found. Talk about the power of social media to help! http://www.sitorsquat.com

11- Printable Blogs. Turn your favorite RSS feeds into a magazine and printer-friendly versions. http://www.tabbloid.com

12- No Gray Areas in Life. Play the game Which Is Worse? You are presented with two scenarios and you HAVE to pick just one. Funny and, at times, thought provoking. http://www.whichisworse.com

13- Free facebook Page Tabs. If you don’t know code but still want a decent welcome page for your facebook page pagemodo will let you create an iFrame for free. http://www.pagemodo.com

14- Scatterbrained? Sync your Google calendar with facebook here.

15- Share Screenshots of Web Pages. With Bounce you can capture any screenshot of any webpage. You can then make notes and share the link. http://www.bounceapp.com

16- Cut Any Song to Custom Length. Need a song for a ringtone or other use? Cut songs here: http://www.mp3cut.net 

17- Prove A Point. Create a Google search for someone and share the link with Let Me Google That For You. You can have all sorts of fun with this one. http://www.lmgtfy.com

18- Purge Inactive Twitter Uses. Strengthen your Twitter following-to-followed ratio by unfollowing accounts that are not tweeting. You can specify the number of days since last Tweet. Each month I purge all accounts that have not tweeted in 45 days or more. http://www.untweeps.com

19- Track Your Brand in Your Email. With Nutshell Mail you can monitor your brand presence on facebook and Twitter by having a summary sent to your email. http://www.nutshellmail.com

20- Do Anything You Want. If you go to http://www.zombo.com you can do anything in the world you want to do.

We talk about Linkedin every day. I read a post about Linkedin every day. I can’t beat ‘em… so I thought I would join the choir. My voice might be a lil rusty so forgive me if you’ve heard these before.

Some cool Linkedin tips and insights:

1- Blog Link App. Promote your blog on your Linkedin account. It supports all platforms. It also automatically pulls blog updates from your connections on Linkedin so you get all the news and posts from people you chose to connect with professionally. Click here for the app. 

2- Leave Some Groups. We all know you can join up to 50 groups on Linkedin. I tell everyone new to Linkedin: “Join up!” I was only active in a few of my 50. I relied on the emails that Linkedin sent me for the latest about what was going on in each community. Until recently… when Linkedin informed me they were changing certain group’s email alerts because it didn’t look like I was active in them. So I thought, why don’t I toss it up? I left those groups (for just a couple weeks). I joined several groups that have no correlation with my current career path whatsoever so I could eavesdrop on their powwows and see how they did things. I tried a molecular biology, law enforcement, and poetry writing group. My findings were staggering. They do not post like the recruiters and #HR clans do. I learned a lot. Toss up your memberships and rejoin your old haunts after you have learned a few new tricks.

3- Speaking of Groups… No matter what your ilk is on the site, you can benefit from specific, sometimes lengthy, boolean operator searches. And of course, you can use boolean for searching outside of Linkedin. Before your eyes glaze over, there is a Boolean Strings Group on the platform with loads of useful search tips, starter articles/links and they will even write a search string for you on a particularly troubling query if you suck up properly. Most helpful! They once helped me write a search string for all the hospitals in Chicago hiring OR managers. 

4- Customize the Link to Your Public Profile. If you haven’t done this, you have a bulky link to your page on Linkedin. It can be very cumbersome when you are on Twitter or in a quick meeting and you want to share with someone about how to find you there. Go to the profile tab on the top bar.  Click “Edit Profile” from the drop-down box. Scroll down to the box on your profile containing your public url link. Click the “edit” after your link. On the right upper hand section of the newly opened page you can choose a tailored link. Use your name. This will affect how you appear in search engine results - part of managing that social media image you are working so diligently on. No more cutting and pasting of an over-sized link. You’ll remember it now. 

5- Recommendations. I do not take these lightly. It isn’t like a, “You were so cool this semester. Have a good summer. See ya next year!” yearbook entry. Having said that, you might be wondering how to get more recommendations to beef up that section of your profile. I think it’s easy. Recommend someone else. 

What if you haven’t worked directly with them? Last month, I took 5 people that I have been following on Twitter, interacting with through blogs and listening to on blogtalkradio or YouTube. I wrote careful, glowing reviews about each one. I was sure to use a tone that made it clear I was recommending their content and not a co-working relationship. The results were successful and I plan to do it each month this year. You don’t have to sit next to someone in an office to vouch for them. You can recommend someone right now!

6- Weekly Linkedin Updates Email. If you are not sitting with a direct business need it’s sometimes challenging to engage connections on Linkedin outside of such a need or group dialogues. Each week I get an email from Linkedin with updates from what is happening with my connections on the platform. What I have been doing is going through each one and congratulate folks on new positions or comment on other changes. I get a response every time and my contacts stay in touch with me. 

7- Fill Out Your Skills & Expertise Section. I am still not hearing this taught. Increase your chances of being found on Linkedin. If you want recruiters to find you, possible business partners, or companies with propositions - they will find you by these keywords you enter. Click here. Linkedin also gives you a snapshot of each skill you search by showing: the demand of the skill, people who claimed the same skill, related companies and related groups, and open jobs in that skill category. Wicked cool.

8- Add YOUR Company. Do you work for yourself? Freelancer? Small business partner? After you create and tweak your personal profile, increase your brand presence by adding your company. From the main header bar click on “Companies”. From the drop-down box click on the first option “Search Companies”. On the top right-hand side of the new window choose the blue “Add a Company”.  Have fun.

9- Get a Client Recommendation Badge. After you have claimed your company in step #8 and filled in your services/products, you will be able to get a code from Linkedin to add a badge to your site. This badge will allow your clients to recommend you on your LI profiled directly from wherever you display the badge. 

10- Search Your Contacts. Try the app: IN stant. After you authorize the app you can begin searching all of your contacts… well, instantly. I really like the graphics and arrangement of the people in the search results. All you do is click on a contact and you are taken to their profile. It is much less cumbersome than sifting through connections directly on Linkedin. The REALLY employable feature is that you can search by keywords such as: recruiter, attorney, or social media.

There’s 10 Linkedin insights that aren’t your average tips. Watch out for Part II. 

JLOverbey@gmail.com

Twitter is ablaze with news about Klout’s new influence calculating algorithms. A new spoof account, @OccupyKlout has even arisen.  Mostly the talk has been about people’s own personal “Klout Score” going down in… “value”.

Now do not misunderstand me, please - I enjoy Klout and I visit their site almost every day. I give away +K (and even have some available now to donate to those of you who are in need of a boost). Klout, like empireavenue, et al, is not a game, however. It can actually be used as a great tool. And with their improvements I am sure it will only grow more in its utility.

But as a social media obsessed community we need to be very clear on exactly what the Klout tool is and what it measures.

I am here to announce today that Klout does not measure influence. Of any kind or scope.

Authentic influence is effected on someone when the person who is influenced is moved to TAKE ACTION based on the influencer’s behavior or content.

Anything less that occurs is merely inspiration, or at best, engagement.

All that Klout can really do - and this is great - is measure true engagement.

If I draft a Tweet and send it out - and it is embedded with predetermined Klout Topic keywords - and many people Retweet me or reply to me, Klout calculates that in the determination of my influence score.

All they have truly measured though is words and engagement. They have not - and I argue cannot - measure my influence over you. They have no algorithm in place that can quantify how and in what capacity I have driven you TO ACT. They cannot weigh out how many of you called to meet with me, asked for direction or bought a product of mine (order now!).

Consider this: I spearhead a new committee designed to raise funds so that lesbians worldwide will finally be fitted into jeans that are flattering. I put a lot of work into this and create a buzz, generate publicity and prepare an event. Hundreds of people show up and I give a stirring speech replete with slides and visuals of the wonder jean for lesbians that cultures worldwide can incorporate. At the end I give a call to action… to carry the message into your own communities and to, most of all, each give $200 - tonight!

If, as a result of my content and persuasion, you fork over the dollars or organize a local LIFJ (Lesbians-In-Flattering-Jeans) chapter - then I have genuinely influenced you. I have driven you to action. My group could measure that.  Klout could then say I have lesbian influence. Or fundraising influence. Or activism influence. Or maybe even fashion, though my close friends would disagree.

But if you only meet with me afterward to further discuss the greater existential questions surrounding lesbian outerwear, or, to praise me or agree with me (ReTweet) then I have only managed to ENGAGE you or perhaps inspire you. 

And that is wonderful. Because an engagement could hook you. I may have inspired you to think more and to come back. But I have not produced true, even more to the point, measurable influence over you.

For now Klout measures engagement based on your words. I love that - so long as we are clear that’s what it is. 

I would also contend that they do not even measure social media influence as all social media is a platform to connect people outside of the medium.

To pretend Klout can quantify influence - social or otherwise - is, like blondes and other things,  a distraction.

JLOverbey@gmail.com

Twitter: @HeyOverbey