Social media adds yet another wrinkle to the job search process. But why not turn your digital presence into a boon rather than a bane? You already know the importance of building a thorough LinkedIn profile and cleaning up that beer-soaked Facebook profile, so we turned to our friends on the HR, communications and startup scenes to go beyond the basics for digital job seekers. These ten tips will attract the right kind of attention to your social activity.

Amit De, CEO and co-founder of CareerLeaf recommends seeking out “niche sites that really highlight your skills, like Dribbble if you’re a graphic designer, Pinterest if you’re a photographer, or WritersCafe if you’re an avid writer. Find the best medium to convey your skill set, and really make it stand out.” Also be sure to check out local resources. Built in Chicago is one of our favorite hometown resources for content and networking, and they also have a consistently updated job board.

Sharing intelligent insights on the career you want shows your passion for the topic, says Claudia Ramirez, PR Strategist at Fueled. “If you’re trying to get hired at a leading fashion house, make sure you’re posting up-to-date information on the latest products, releases, fashion shows, and industry gossip. The same goes for any industry you are trying to find your way into. Retweet posts from your favorite bloggers and journalists relevant to your fields, include pictures of industry events, and stay up to date on the latest news. It will showcase your passion for the field.”

Starting a blog shows initiative, but consistency is equally if not more important. “If you plan on going into a career field that involves a lot of writing or social media usage, this will help serve as a bare bones version of a portfolio for you and help establish your name online,” says Heather Taylor, Social Media Manager at MyCorporation.com. But remember, putting your name on a blog with sporadic posting habits sends a message of its own.

LaMecia Butler recommends “changing your professional headline to the title that recruiters are using for the jobs you want.” Headlines are picked up in LinkedIn searches so be sure to optimize this component of your profile, and know that it doesn’t have to match your current job title.

“The website Meetup.com is a great way to find events to meet and network with people in person,” says Margaret Yekulis, Brand Marketing Manager at Fare Buzz. “There are plenty of groups for various fields to meet people who are already employed and may have a great connection, or be the great connection to get you your next great job.”

Brie Weiler Reynolds, Manager of Content and Social Media for FlexJobs, recommends using Pinterest to create a visual depiction of your resume. “Make boards for your experience, awards, degrees, examples of your work, and your hobbies and outside interests. Put a link to your Pinterest resume board on your plain resume, your email signature, your LinkedIn profile — anywhere potential employers might see it. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then Pinterest adds a whole lot more depth to your traditional resume.”

“The single best social media practice for a job seeker: engaging in career-related Twitter chats,” says Mark Babbitt, CEO and co-founder of YouTern. Every day of the week, there is at least one Twitter chat focused on beginning or improving our careers. Our favorites are #InternPro and #jobhuntchat on Mondays and #HFChat on Fridays. These chats feature career experts, recruiters, professionals from university career centers — and, of course, job seekers. Those in a job search can lurk at first; then, once confidence is gained, jump into the conversation. Twitter chats are also a great way to build followers and gain influence: just follow the participants in the chat; they’ll most likely follow you back.”

“Use the LinkedIn InMap app to map your network and see where you have a gap in your professional circle,” says LaMecia Butler. “Currently my university, former cities and industry maps are well covered. Since I’ve recently moved to a new city, I can see that I now need to build that city network as well as the new industry I’m working in.”

Since hiring managers are likely to Google the names of job candidates, it’s good to have an idea of what your search results page has to say about you. Andrea Eldridge, co-founder of Nerds On Call, recommends setting up Google Alerts for your name “so that you’re notified when something new about you hits the web.”

When updating your LinkedIn profile, consider momentarily swapping your settings to private. Do you really want your network to see that string of twenty changes you just made? Making these small tweaks is important, but using a bit of discretion throughout the process can’t hurt. Besides, as Delightful Communications Founder Mel Carlson points out, “if you’re connected to your boss, they could see that you’ve just posted a new CV or become connected to 20 recruiters or the HR person at your competitor company.”

Not content with being the second largest search engine, earlier this year YouTube beat Facebook to become the most visited social media site in the US.

Yes, you read that right. Research from Compete PRO, which operates one of the largest consumer panels in the US, indicated that unique visitors to YouTube edged ahead of Facebook by over 1.3m visitors in June 2014. While this may come as a surprise to many readers, it’s been on the cards for some time as this graph from Compete illustrates:

You can see that YouTube and Facebook had been slogging it out over the previous few months but finally sometime between May and June this year YouTube got the better of them.

This news mostly slipped under the radar at the time, mainly due to the way the major research and data providers aggregate all their figures for Google-owned sites rather than separately reporting data for the Google and YouTube domains. For example, comScore include YouTube visitors in their “Google sites” data:

However, research just published by GlobalWebIndex corroborates ComparePROs findings and goes one better, claiming YouTube has more visitors than Facebook worldwide (excluding China). The GWI Social Q3 2014 report indicates that while Facebook may have more members and active users its YouTube that takes the trophy for the highest overall visitor rates with 85% of online adult visitors compared to Facebooks 76%.

So if this is true why is YouTubes huge popularity not featuring heavily in social media and digital marketing headlines? It may be down to the way people think of YouTube…

There’s some debate on whether YouTube should even be regarded as a social network. I’m absolutely of the opinion it is a social network but many consider it simply as a video-sharing site a utility which of course is exactly what it is. But isn’t YouTube much more than that? Let’s see how the simple definition compares with some of its peers in similar or adjacent media categories

Instagram, says Wikipedia, is “an online mobile photo-sharing, video sharing and social networking service”.

Pinterest is a place where users can “upload, save, sort, and manage images—known as pins—and other media content (e.g., videos and images)”

Facebook users are able to “post status updates and photos, share videos and receive notifications”.

If all the above are considered social media sites (which they most certainly are) then YouTube should easily fit the criteria. If you’re still in any doubt consider that YouTube is a (largely) free service that anyone can join and where users can perform the following actions:

Now doesn’t that sound very much like every other social media site? I rest my case!

All this news might have come as a surprise to many of us but it certainly didn’t to executives at Facebook where they’ve been quietly working on improvements to Facebook’s video product for many months. But it seems YouTube out-ranking them for overall visits was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Facebook’s June announcement of significant updates to video in the news feed coincided with the YouTube out-rank news in what can only be viewed as a knee-jerk reaction complete coincidence. The update gave significantly greater weight to videos in the Facebook news feed algorithm (commonly known as EdgeRank) meaning simply that people would see more Facebook videos appearing in their feed.

Then just a few weeks later they announced further updates to Facebook video causing videos to auto-play in the news feed for everyone (a feature they had drip-fed in beta testing since late 2013), adding an indicator of the number of views and providing brands with free ways to add a call-to-action.

Socialbakers data suggests this has all worked out perfectly for Facebook. In November more Page owners uploaded video directly to Facebook than they did via sharing from YouTube videos.

This is a huge turnaround which underscores Facebooks reign over Page owners; they have increasingly starved Pages of organic reach and this was the super-sized fast-food meal deal they craved to keep them sweet. If like me youve noticed a massive influx of videos from Pages in your news feed it suggests theyre being rewarded for their efforts.

Facebook means business – and they are showing clear signs of putting up a fight for market share of online video visitors and views. After all, more video views on Facebook leads to more time on site and ultimately more advertising revenue.

Okay, so Facebook is huge and has its eye firmly on YouTube. But for years we’ve known YouTube is a top contender in search and THE destination for video search something Facebook is definitely neither. But for all their effort brands, businesses and marketers have mostly struggled to gain any measurable traction beyond video plays and likes. And by ‘traction’ I mean referral traffic, because driving people to our website, ecommerce store or blog where they can buy or sign-up is more often than not where we derive some real value.

So its really disappointing that  on the whole such little value is directly referred by YouTube.  Take a look at this snapshot of social referral data from a brand I’ve worked with recently which is fairly typical of most I see:

YouTube is right down towards the bottom and frankly barely worth including in the list. Its only saving grace is session duration which beats Facebook hands-down, although with such tiny numbers it’s a near-useless guide.

It’s easy to see why Facebook is en-vogue when you look at data like this; all the other social networks combined don’t come close to Facebook for referral traffic. There are of course many reasons for this – not least that the data represents referrals from all types of Facebook content and not solely video content, so it’s not really comparing apples with apples. Plus way more effort (and advertising budget) is commonly put into Facebook by brands than other social platforms.

But it would be nice to get some referral traffic for our YouTube efforts, wouldn’t it?

In my next YouTube post I’ll show you how to significantly increase referral traffic from YouTube videos with a quick and simple trick. Hint: it doesnt cost a penny.

If youd like to learn more Carlton is running a series of training masterclasses in 2015 on YouTube, video marketing and social media marketing. Click here to register your interest.

Google Plus will most likely dominate in the coming years. Organic optimisation experts know how Google values its social media platform that sooner or later it will add optimisation points by utilising it. But as for now, Facebook is the most ideal social media to use for marketing. Active use are more prevalent in it than other platforms.

I don’t agree with YouTube being like most other social platforms. It may have some of the functions but my experience users go there for information consumption only and little conversation. Its a better TV for the majority.

I’m certainly not denying the importance of YouTube as a platform, but to compare with Facebook is apples and pears.

The biggest network with the most communication is actually neither Facebook or YouTube, check these stats http://www.zettasphere.com/mind-boggling-stats-for-1-second-of-internet-activity/

I understand your point of view Tim but it really does depend on purpose and demographic. The reason why people visit Facebook is different to Instagram which is different to Pinterest and, yes, is different to YouTube (and so on).

For example, a rapidly growing young audience doesn’t visit Facebook at all – not for conversation or otherwise. They’re on YouTube looking at vlogs and using alternative social messaging platforms like Snapchat. But do they have conversation on YouTube? You bet! Someone like me, on the other hand, might only visit YouTube for ‘how to’ videos or product reviews. Different audience, different needs. There’s no one-size-fits-all.

There are some near-identical features across all the platforms but understanding the nuances of each platform – and crucially the psychological differences between why and when people would be using them – are key. This is where most go wrong in my view.

I think the important point to takeaway here isn’t about like-for-like platform comparisons but understanding the enormity of the opportunity. It’s no accident that Facebook is getting into video in a massive way.

Thanks for your comment.

FYI – Compete figs are desktop only

Thanks for that Dan, appreciate you taking the time to highlight this important distinction. For clarity, the comScore figures are also desktop only. However the GWI figures are for all platforms/devices.

Solve your Social media marketing strategies challenges with our FREE Social media marketing strategies template

Solve your Social media marketing strategies challenges with our FREE Social media marketing strategies template

Social Networks: The Next Generation

via Social Networks: The Next Generation | lonelybrand.

Digital marketers, and now Wall Street, are cashing in on major social platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. But nipping at the heels of these wildly successful services is a new generation of social networks. Catering to niche audiences with visual appeal and lightweight web and app-based clients, these networks hold great potential for marketers.

And with new social networks come new challenges. Adding yet another social tactic into the marketing mix can seem daunting to professionals just now gaining a foothold on older, more established platforms.

Let’s take a look at the latest developments in four fringe social platforms and proposes tactics and real-world examples for utilizing them to successfully connecting with consumers.

In the world of social networks, size and engagement are everything. Without a critical mass of engaged users networks cannot monetize. Today, older, more established companies dominate the playing field. That’s an important distinction for marketers to make, and the reason why we chose to lead with this data point.

According to data released by Facebook, the final quarter of 2011 saw 45 million regular users – defined as members who accessed Facebook in the last 30 days – added to the service. And while that number may seem large, it’s the smallest increase for the social giant in nearly two years. While the reason for the slowdown is difficult to assess it does serve as a reminder – social networks have come and gone in the past. Low barriers to entry and pressure to innovate mean a stream of competitors for the social king of the hill.

The staggering growth of the microblogging platform and social network Twitter has been offset by an uncertain future and ambiguous revenue model from advertising. eMarketer predicts revenue from advertising will rise to $540 million in 2014 from $139.5 million in 2011 based on international expansion and increasing domestic advertising appetites. Speculation aside, data on engagement and active accounts remains mired in fake accounts and hundreds of software products that duplicate the website experience. In recent weeks Quantas, Microsoft and a US Senator were high profile victims of separate Twitter incidents, proving the platform may face challenges with marketers willing to spend advertising dollars chasing after what are essentially non-existent profiles.

A recent report from LinkedIn notes that 14 million profiles were added in the final quarter of 2011, bringing its total to 145 million. New features and dramatic growth in advertising revenue point to a strong 2012 for the largest social network for professionals. In addition, LinkedIn has recently released a feature allowing companies to embed a “Like” button. Similar to Facebook and Twitter, the new feature will encourage more professionals to engage with brands on the LinkedIn platform and serve as another mechanism to drive revenue through upgraded company profiles.

Blogging stalwart Tumblr has proven that a light interface combined with customizable elements leads to high engagement. Though user base is small compared to top social media contenders, the future may hold growth. Though not currently monetized, Tumblr is seeking to begin drawing revenue from advertising. The plan and timeframe for execution are unclear, and the company is openly searching for an executive to lead the ad sales charge.

Adding traffic is only part of the social equation. True user interest can be measured by time on site, clicks, sharing action and other metrics indicating engagement with a social platform. And in that bucket of activities Google+ seems to be falling short. The newest major entrant also faces a big challenge: direct competition with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. While Google backing does afford a limited need to demonstrate profitability, a lack of original features may be making it difficult for the fledgling network to steal attention from incumbent competitors.

Visual stimulation seems to be a significant unmet consumer need in 2012. Social networks Pinterest and Instagram both offer unique and simple ways to discover and share imagery with connections. While Pinterest focuses on organizing preexisting still images into groups on a desktop computer, Instagram encourages users to take pictures with a mobile device, apply unique visual effects and share them online. Their popularity and rapid growth demonstrate the power of online images and prove that a social network does not have to be feature rich to garner significant engagement figures.

New networks mean new distractions for marketers. Successfully connecting with consumers in the social space includes driving awareness, engagement, conversions and sales. That takes time. By focusing on the networks that matter most, marketers can avoid falling victim to shiny object syndrome while building lasting value.