SMB7 – Hiring/Getting hired in a Web 2.0 World

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On the morning of Thursday May 1st, Bryan Person hosted the seventh Boston area Social Media Breakfast. This time around, the venue switched to the spacious Ryles Jazz Club in Cambridge where there was a great mix of both new and familiar faces.

This month’s topic focused on hiring and getting hired in a Web 2.0 world. In support of the topic, Bryan recruited Stever Robbins, Aaron Strout, Todd Defren and Chris Brogan to present their perspective in support of the topic. Each speaker did a great job in telling their story as well as answering the audience’s questions during a short panel at the end.

I attended the event with video camera in hand to capture some footage for those who couldn’t be there in person. The first video we have available features Aaron Strout, VP of New Media for Mzinga speaking about his experience with hiring though the use of Twitter, LinkedIn and other web-based tools as opposed to requesting traditional paper resumes.

Once completed, the remaining presentations will be available on the PerkettPR Vimeo Channel. I’ll update this post and send out some “tweets” when the are complete and ready for viewing.


Thanks again to Bryan for hosting the event, and we’re looking forward to attending again next month!

UPDATE:

Additional videos: Chris Brogan

The CrunchNetwork Experience

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CrunchNetwork MeetupOn the evening of Thursday May 1st, we attended CrunchGear’s CrunchNetwork Meet-up Held at Red Sky in NYC. Having been part of several TechCrunch meet-ups throughout the last year, we’ve come to expect an environment that blends a level of traditional networking and vendor demos, with a healthy dose of hip and trendy party-going.

This particular event seemed to reverse the formula with a compact, oversold venue that at times felt more like a techie frat party with vendors thrown in for good measure. Unfortunately, the shoulder to shoulder, standing room only crowd and extremely loud sessions of Rock Band (played by hired gamers) didn’t allow for capturing a few video interviews like we have in the past. Ultimately the event catered to the the CrunchGear audience (as it should) and is clearly in a different category than the traditional TechCrunch experience.

With that being said, there were plenty of attendees who where very happy with the event and what it had to offer. All things aside, we still managed to spend some quality time with several notable individuals including Jeff Mould, President of Announce Mobile (and new client!), Joe Walsh of SquareLoop, Sarah Meyers of Pop17.com, Erick Schonfeld of TechCrunch, Andrew Keidel of ModMyLife.com, Gunnar Larson, CEO of NetworkGlobal.TV, Donna Bogatin, founder and CEO of StartUp Alpha and Hunter Cohen of NQ.com.

At the end the night we walked away from our first CrunchGear event with mixed feelings. It certainly wasn’t what we expected, but worked for the younger audience it was intended for. There were certainly plenty of smiling faces after the numerous raffle prizes were handed out! Ultimately, the experience, while not completely our scene, hasn’t soured us from attending again. Next time, however, we suggest a bigger venue and better locations for demo stations. Look forward to hearing more about bigger and better CrunchGear hosted events in the future.

Persuasive Picks for the week of 04/28/08

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20 Must Have Twitter Applications…for now
Once you get up and rolling on Twitter, you’ll begin to discover that there are a large number of third-party tools that take advantage of it’s API and can greatly extend the value of your Twitter experience. The Emerson Direct Marketing Observations blog sites 20 such tools that are worth taking a look at.

Report: Social Media Challenging Traditional Media
Richard MacManus from ReadWriteWeb summarizes some interesting stats on the adoption of social media tools found in the most recent report from Universal McCann. These interesting findings could be useful for marketers to consider when going through the process of developing a social media strategy.

Listening: An Action of Proportions
The process of listening is one of the most important things you can do increase your chances of success before engaging with online communities. Geoff Livingston shares some incites on the topic from the SNCR NewComm Forum, as well as a video clip of Shel Israel who adds to the discussion.

Social Media Identity: Personal vs. Professional
One of the first obstacles that social media newcomers often face is how to (or whether to) separate their personal and professional online identities. This post from the “I’m not actually a geek” blog touches upon the topic and shows how the ties between personal and professional identities change based on the size of your corporate organization.

People Who Like This Weblog May Also Like These Books
Break away from the computer screen with one of Brian Oberkirch’s book suggestions. If you like the content on his blog, then his book suggestions will not disappoint.

The Corporate Twitter Discussion Continues at BusinessWeek

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On April 3 I wrote a post asking the community for opinions on corporations establishing a Twitter presence. We have been pleasantly surprised at the continued reactions and comments to this post and we have learned about some really cool trials taking place within the community. A good deal of folks – including some from Zappos, Stanford University and Mzinga (client) – have all chimed in with opinions and examples.

The conversation continues today at BusinessWeek as Heather Green wrote a post asking for examples of creative business use on Twitter – for a pending cover story. If you know of some examples, please pass them along to Heather by posting a comment on their blog. We are very interested in reading the article when it comes out, as well as continuing to learn – along with the community – about the best way corporations can successfully get involved in the social media landscape.

This is a fun journey!

Persuasive Picks for the week of 04/21/08

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This week brings five picks on a variety of topics to dive into. Enjoy!

Overcoming key resistence to adopting social media
If your company still hasn’t adopted a social media strategy, then it might be due to one of the reasons listed in this post. However, Shel Holtz lends his expertise to show you why these excuses no longer hold water.

Personal Brand Statement Contest – Win The Full Issue 4
If you haven’t paid for a subscription to Dan Schwabel’s excellent Personal Branding Magazine, then this post will allow you to download a sample of the upcoming issue as well as enter into a contest to win the full version when it comes out.

Video Comments? No Thanks – 5 Reasons They Don’t Work
Earlier this week TechCunch launched the ability to leave video comments on blog posts as an alternative to a traditional text comment – courtesy of the new Seesmic plugin for WordPress. At first, video comments seem to be hip alternative to typing, but in this post, Josh Catone clearly reveals a few downsides to adopting video comments on your blog.

del.icio.us as a PR measurement tool
Andrew Careaga of the Higher Ed Marketing blog gives some incite on a recent experience using the social bookmarking site del.icio.us as a measurement tool when keeping track of media coverage. His advice could also be carried over to similar tools like StumbleUpon, Digg and Reddit.

Seven Types Of Highly Effective Corporate Blogs
In this post, Mitch Joel covers 6 styles of corporate blogs and provides examples of each. Does your company’s blog fall into one of these categories? Or perhaps one of these blog types will inspire you to get one started if your company still hasn’t joined the blogosphere.

10 Blogging Tips from the Web 2.0 Expo

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It’s been building for a while now, but being at the Web 2.0 Expo and attending sessions led by, and attended by, some of the biggest names in blogging right along side first-timers, made me realize how common blogging and micro blogging are now. Every session had a plethora of busy bloggers/wannabes from all over the world, with laptops open with Twitter up all day, cameras and camera phones, audio recording devices and of course PDAs constantly in hand. Everyone in the same boat feverishly plugging down nuggets to share with their respective online audiences. We are all becoming bloggers and want to tell our stories in one way or another whether it be blogging or micro blogging or both, we were all there to gather information and share it with our friends and colleagues as soon as possible.



Image courtesy of James Duncan Davidson

One of the Tuesday afternoon workshops; Intro to Blogs & Social Media Marketing 101, hosted by Nick Gonzalez (SocialMedia), Eric Eldon (VentureBeat) and Trisha Okubo (eBay & Omiru fashion blogger) was my first observation point. The workshop was well attended, and though many more experienced bloggers probably found it fairly basic, they indulged the audience with their presence, rolled their eyes and probably left patting themselves on the back for how much further ahead of the game they were than others in the audience. For others it was an eye opening experience that provided some great basic tips on how to get into the game or be more effective as a blogger and micro-blogger.

Here are the Top Ten take aways Nick, Eric and Trisha shared during the session:

  1. Create content that’s easily packaged and reusable for example; Top Ten Lists and How-To’s
  2. When blogging or micro-blogging provide news or exclusive content that’s not available elsewhere
  3. Remember Seth Godin’s Purple Cow use catchy headlines and out of the ordinary content to draw attention
  4. Take advantage of blogging distribution channels and measurement tools such as; FeedBurner, Digg, StumbleUpon, Yahoo Buzz, Friend Feed, Facebook, Techmeme, Del.icio.us, and Aide RSS to ensure maximum distribution
  5. Let your fans know when a new post is up, email influencers and key sources cited to let them know you’ve posted and ALWAYS give credit to other bloggers and use link backs on Twitter, and other micro-blogging applications, whenever appropriate
  6. Do offer free advice and incentives like a free informational PDF file or white paper as an incentive to gain new subscribers
  7. Guest write on other blogs and offer the opportunity for other bloggers to guest write for you
  8. Share opportunities with other bloggers and get involved in the community, posting regular comments on other blogs
  9. Meet other bloggers in the ‘real world’ to get know each other in person
  10. Be passionate about your content and don’t shy away from including some of that passion in your blog profile page, the more your readers know about you the more they will connect with your content.

Hope you found this information helpful. Just remember if you do end up using this content in your own blog or micro-blog please follow tip #5 and cite PerkettPRsuasion as the source! 🙂

PerkettPR Interviews Sean Percival of Mahalo

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Although the lighting gets a little dark in places (they were testing the lights while we interviewed), Sean Percival of Mahalo tells PerkettPR why people should be paid for content. Lisa Dilg learns more.



Persuasive Picks for the week of 04/14/08

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This week’s picks include some diverse topics like podcasting and viral marketing. Enjoy!

Embrace unsatisfied customers to bolster your brand?
Stephen Shankland posted this great article on the CNET News Blog that was based on discussions during a panel at the Ad:Tech conference earlier this week. Do the people who handle customer complaints and the social network-savvy folks in your company reside in different departments? Check this post out for good examples of why merging these groups together can be a positive change for your company.

“Podcasting 101” on KCBS with Tim Coyne & Lance Anderson
If “Podcasting” is still a foreign word to you, then take a look at this short clip of LA-based podcasters Tim Coyne and Lance Anderson as they help explain the basics during a CBS news TV segment.

BlogPulse: Metrics Based on Conversation
As the search for the “silver bullet” of Social Media/Blog metrics continues, take a peek at this surface level view of BlogPulse as an alternative tool to using Technorati or Google Blog Search.

Groundswell Discussion Forum Now Open
Following the release of his and Charlene Li’s highly anticipated book, “Groundswell,” co-author Josh Bernoff announced the launch of the official discussion forum site in support of the book. Everyone is invited to participate and join in the conversations starting there now.

What I’ve Learned About Viral Marketing in Three Weeks
Diana Huff continues to deliver up useful content for the B2B marketer with this post on the reality of viral marketing and includes links to some useful resources on the topic.

PerkettPR Interviews JoAnna from ChefJoAnna.com

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Even professionals who may seem non-techie are embracing social media technologies to boost their business. I ran into Chef JoAnna at TechCrunch and had to find out just why a chef was at this “geeked-out” LA party. She tells us more about her business and how she uses podcasts, Twitter and Facebook to market herself and communicate with customers. Cool stuff!



PerkettPR Interviews Loren Nason from The Future of Real Estate blog

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Vertical industries are embracing technology in new and interesting ways all of the time. There’s an abundance of opportunity and – as Loren Nason of The Future of Real Estate Technology tells us – a lot of need. He explains more in a brief (slightly noisy) interview at TechCrunch/PopSugar’s MeetUp. (Pardon my interview skills, I’m used to putting others in front of the camera, not myself.)