Category: Random Thoughts

How do you share a company post on a personal profile?

As a rule I suggest to my clients that they post to the company pages that they have first and then share that post to their personal profile. I also advise that they encourage any employees to share a company post on their personal profiles as well. This is extremely useful if the company is hiring or sponsoring an event.

Here are the steps to do just that for LinkedIn! If you are the page administrator, you will need to switch views. If your employees share and are not managing the page, they will skip to step 2.

• Top right click View as member

 

 

 

• Look for the posts – click See All Posts

 

• Sort by Recent – if the post you want to share isn’t at the top

 

• Select Repost
• Repost with your thoughts to enter a sentence in addition
  • Repost goes out without anything extra added
• Verify it is your personal profile NOT your company
• Add a sentence

 

•  Post
• Grab the link to share to Facebook or Twitter company page (it is better to share website link than the LinkedIn item on Facebook).

Watch for another article on how to share a Facebook company post to your personal Facebook profile.

How do you make a Generic Resume?

I know that everyone tells you to customize a resume based on the skills listed in a job posting. That is well and good. But, I propose that a generic resume is needed as well.  You need to have a resume ready to go at the drop of a hat in the event that you are out and about and run into someone that says, “Hey, you got a resume that I can give to my buddy? He is looking for someone like you!”

Generic Resume Components

Contact Information – nowadays, I support the premise that you don’t need to include your address on your resume. Phone, email and LinkedIn URL are sufficient in addition to your name. So many companies are allowing remote or virtual workplaces, or working from home to cover a territory that living close to your work is not always necessary. Personally, I have had clients in Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, Wisconsin, and Illinois. Being able to work virtually truly depends upon the job you do, but it is becoming more and more prevalent.

Skills – in a bullet list. Include  your primary skills, and keywords. Read articles on keywords here, here, and here.

Functions – this works very well for job seekers with over 20 years of experience. Address a specific keyword with a problem you faced, an action you took, and the result. The result needs to related to money, time, percentage or number of something that you either saved the employer or gained the employer. One example I use is in my LinkedIn Summary. It says that after working with me, one client noticed a 35% increase in traffic to his website. Pick four or five keywords that you can address.

Experience – for this save some space on your resume and list chronologically the Company name, your title, the city / state of the business, and dates your worked there. Don’t go back further than 20 years. If you need to break one employer up to show different positions, do that.

Education – DO NOT include the dates of graduation unless it is within the last 10 years. DO NOT include the date of High School graduation ever!! If your education is newer, you may want to place it above your experience.

There you have it. The best generic resume you can write.

Now where can you put it besides in an envelope in your car or backpack?

• Post a PDF version to your LinkedIn profile.
• Add it to an on-line portfolio.
• Add it to Dropbox or Google docs to send out quickly to someone by email.

Hope this works out for you. If you want a great tool in which to build a resume, check out the tool on Illinois workNet. So many great functions available for FREE!

Net Neutrality is something we all need to consider!

I wasn’t aware until early this week that today is the day organizations across the world are voicing opinions about Net Neutrality. Do you want your internet capabilities to change?

Read more about it in these articles. Form your own opinions and if it is important to you, share your thoughts on what is currently the free internet.

Wikipedia typically gives a non-political view of what something is. Of course it is not without faults, but… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality

You can join a protest here: https://www.battleforthenet.com/july12/

The Tech companies of the world have banded together to support net neutrality https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/12/15957800/day-of-action-protest-net-neutrality

This one looks like a different opinion https://www.wired.com/2014/06/net_neutrality_missing/

And, this article provides some thought provocation that makes sense about why taking away net neutrality could be good. https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshsteimle/2014/05/14/am-i-the-only-techie-against-net-neutrality/#4ec67f8c70d5

Personally, I don’t know what the right answer is. I will research to the best of my ability. I would love to read your thoughts! Share them in the comment section. Perhaps we can come to an educated decision together.

Which type of business do you have?

First, consider whether a business is B2B – Business to Business, or B2C – Business to Consumer. The difference is which tools used in a marketing effort, especially if they are on a limited time or money budget. After that determination, look at how the tools used interact with the website and the other marketing components.

All business, whether they are a mom and pop spot or a Fortune 50 company have the same goals when using social media:

• Brand Awareness – making sure that customers and potential customers recognize your brand – what you provide and what your brand represents.
• Thought Leadership – customers want to feel like they are getting an authority in their field whether it is a plumber or an HR representative.
• Sales or Lead Generation – everyone needs new customers. If you are using social media to reach out to them, you need to track the flow of contact to contract.
• Customer Support or Advocacy – this is when help desk support is provided through social media. Depending upon your business, it may require 24/7 responsiveness.

There are over 1000 digital properties that you can use for your business. Some are more appropriate than others. My preference is to start with the most common ones and branch out from there. Let’s talk about my top 10 and for which type of business they are best suited:

• Blogs – is short for weblog. This is where we get to share our thought leadership. If you are strapped for time, this is the one thing that I recommend you do. Regular new content bring the search bots back to your website on a regular basis. Slight edge to B2B for this tool.
• LinkedIn – if you are in business you need a LinkedIn personal account. Create a Company account for your business, which requires an email address at your domain name. Just another reason why you need a professional email address. The edge goes to B2B on this as well.
• Facebook – is very definitely B2C, although many B2B business like my own can benefit from a regular presence on Facebook. Pictures and videos win on this platform. Offer rewards to customers who check-in or tag your business in one of their posts.
• Twitter – is limited to 140 characters at a time. This is a great customer service tool. Many businesses alert their customers to specials of the day. Tie between B2B and B2C.
• YouTube – is the 2^nd largest search tool and it isn’t even a search engine. 4 billion searches a day, do I need to say more. This is a win for B2B with product demonstrations and how-to’s.
• G+ – provides an edge on Google search results. It works like Facebook but not as many regular users. Worth investigating for B2B and B2C.
• Photo sites – Instagram is the big player in this arena. Very definitely B2C with all the clothes, food and check-ins that happen with these types of platforms. Think about other platforms like Flickr and Picasso.
• Pinterest – gets its own category as both areas can link to things on their websites, especially if you include an image in a blog post, then pin the image. This is a win for B2C.
• Location sites – include Yelp, Bing places, Yahoo, Foursquare and the like. Even if you don’t have a storefront location, you may want to “claim” your business on a few of the appropriate sites. Winner again is B2C.
• Emails – while this is not a social platform, it is social. People read more emails now because of smart phones. Don’t over send and make what you send worth reading. B2B and B2C.

Those are my top picks. How did you do on the comparison of B2B vs. B2C. You don’t have to use them all at once. Try working with one and then expand. Make sure to track incoming calls to know which ones are working best for you!