2010 Tips for Executive Leadership and Job Search Effectiveness shows how you can get ahead, business-wise and career-wise, by using social networks efficiently.
LinkedIn and Blogging Top the List
In 2010 Predictions and Recommendations for Web 2.0 and Social Networking, I recommended to executives to increase their Web 2.0 competitiveness because everyone’s skills are improving and you need to outperform to maintain your advantage + the market will not get measurably easier for most people in 2010. Competitiveness will increase. Here I’ll summarize how individual executives can outperform competitors in 2010.
Having an effective LinkedIn Profile now involves two best practices, one of which is new: 1) create a strong profile that emphasizes your goals, expertise and past experience (most execs know this) and 2) manage your Profile’s new moving parts (most people don’t know about this). Outmaneuver rivals this year by:
- Taking your LinkedIn Profile up a level. People go to LinkedIn when they are looking for expertise. Remember, Web 2.0 is about interaction, not content. You can pay for content, but your attention is priceless. On LinkedIn, interaction means:
- Interacting in LinkedIn
Answers: comment on LinkedIn posts and updates, and ask questions; this attracts attention; when you have a LinkedIn plan, this is very manageable timewise. Here’s a way to increase your payback. - Putting your slides on your profile via LinkedIn’s Slideshare App (top navigation bar, “More” dropdown, “Application Directory”)
- Invoking your blog posts on your profile with the WordPress or BlogLink Apps (top navbar, “More” dropdown, “Application Directory”)
- Look at my profile if you want to see how these things look.
- Interacting in LinkedIn
- Start blogging. Here is my free Blogging: Quick Launch Guide to get on in about an hour. I predict that, within three years, an increasing portion of executives will make/lose deals and jobs based on their blogs. Get on in about an hour and learn how to blog effectively while using minimal time.
- Commit to tweeting. Twitter is a new mode of communication that you need to understand because it is transforming communication and creating new kinds of relationships. See Twitter: Key Disruptive Innovation of the Decade and Twitter: Quick Launch Guide. It shows you how to get in the game for an hour or two per month. Your clients and employment possibilities will increasingly expect you to tweet. Move first.
- Cut back on unproductive networking. Don’t fall into networking as an activity trap. If you drive half an hour to and from an event and spend 3 hours there, that’s half a day. You could have written 6 blog posts and answered 4 LinkedIn questions. When you have a content strategy for your blog, it creates digital breadcrumbs that are always working for you. If you choose the LinkedIn questions you answer judiciously, people will discover them at any time. At face-to-face networking events, the value dissipates much more quickly. I’m not saying to reduce face-to-face significantly, but cutting back on two events per month will give you more than enough time to ramp up online, where the leverage is far greater. Optimize.
- Relentlessly conduct yourself so that you increase trust with people who count. Make introductions, answer questions, give help, ask for help, follow through on what you promise. In Web 2.0 environments, other people are observing our interactions. We can choose to be creeped out by that, or use it to our advantage. When you are authentic and help people, other people see. Huge leverage.
- Commit to understanding the wacky business environment. You’ll save yourself time and grief. Read the 2010 Predictions and Recommendations; it also contains numerous links to drill down into Twitter, Facebook, executive employment and enterprise social networking case studies.
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