This article was written for the appointment magazine (April issue).

The effectiveness of social media platforms as a means of finding a new job remains a hot topic of debate. Of the ‘big three’, LinkedIn seems to the most obvious fit for a career search. Certainly if you’re not one of the five million UK users now harnessing the power of this business-focused social network you could be missing out on a valuable addition to your job-seeking arsenal. But how to use it effectively?

Luke Williams, specialist trainer at SocialTech, provides some top tips for growing your network, optimising your profile, some of the general do’s and don’ts for job hunting on LinkedIn and outlines some strategies for finding that new job.

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Last weekend, I went on a bit of a road trip to feed my brain.

Regular readers will know that I favour the smaller, invited-to-talk or un-conference format events (ie: Bar Camp Bournemouth) over big sales-y or pay-to-talk ones.

On the Friday NxtGenUG was a trip down memory lane, seeing old friend Jon Skeet presenting “C# goes evil with sock puppets”. I understood more than I expected (my coding is quite limited these days) but I was slightly dis-appointed with the minimal use of puppets Jon! More puppets!

Saturday was TEDxCardiff, a couple of us from Bournemouth went last year and there was a larger group in 2011.

The speakers were good, with a wide range of topics (from printing human organs, friendship, Everest climbing and more).

Highlights for me were:

Dr Kelly Page‘s talk on the effect of social networking on the value and meaning of friendship.

Kevin Chester’s talk on creativity and “Eno And”

The award for most thought provoking has to go to Mark Chataway for his talk on attitudes to vaccination. Getting the audience to act as a jury in given circumstances really stopped and made a lot of us think hard.

While you (and I) wait for the real TEDxCDF videos to be released here’s a handy set of audience shot videos of the talks by Rai M Azlan’s blog post on TEDxCardiff.

Also interesting was the invitation to all to join the organisers and speakers for some food n drinks afterwards, we did and it was really good to meet Ben Hyde who’d excellent Ignite talk I suggest you all watch:

 

Ben Hyde – Playfulness and the Art of Getting Stuff Wrong from Ignite Cardiff on Vimeo.

 

By no means a big deal but personally I wasn’t a big fan of people just reading from ipads… tech should make talks better… not just be a replacement for cue cards!

Well done to Neil and Clare for an excellent event (again).

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It’s time to hang up the headphones and work on some other projects, so May 1st I’m playing my last dj gig with the original anthemia crew, simon m and the weatherman @ ibar, free entry, please come along.

The radio show is coming to an end as well… actually I’m handing over the reigns, but for me 12 years of weekly radio shows is coming to an end.

I’ve had some great times and met some groovy people through djing.

Yes I’ll miss it and I’m not saying never again to the odd gig (in fact I have one in nov).

Thanks to all the clubs for letting me play, the promoters for booking me, all the door staff, bar staff and other club workers I’ve met along the way… the biggest thank you to all the clubbers who’ve danced, cheered and waved their arms in the air along with me (not so much the whoop whoopers).

EDIT: Facebook event for anthemia reunion link

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A nice little piece on the front of Dorset Business, talking about the survey we undertook with Liz Lean PR.

More information on the ASA CAP code and our survey findings.

As well as the social media training we offer, we also work with organisations to create or review best practice and acceptable useage policies. For more information, please call the office on 01202 79098 or drop us an email.

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I really enjoyed speaking at the National Housing Federation #fedcomms event yesterday, in our session there were two 15 min talks, one from me and then Jamie & Michelle from Freebridge community housing followed by a panel discussion.

Here are my slides from the event, the rest are on housing.org.uk

The discussion was especially interesting, some good questions and I carried on some of the conversations through lunch.

I feel we covered the brief well, with only 15 mins the goal was to encourage people to start thinking about some of the issues and not to try and comprehensively cover all legislation etc

+ sorry to those that had to stand at the back!

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Today was a tough day, I had a lot to do. This morning I was feeling a bit tired so i purchased said items from the local shop as a mid morning pick me up…

Which worked for a bit, but then I started feeling a bit down and rubbish later on…

I battled on (being busy n all) until finally conceding defeat and going home for some proper food.

It’s only now looking back I realize how blatantly my poor snack choice had affected me, physically and mentally.

Reflecting on things, when I felt rubbish earlier, I started asking some soul searching questions…

Then after good food had kicked in a LOT of things fell into place.

It’s too easy to forget how simple choices can have a big impact, how our environment and the things we do to our body affect us physically and emotionally.

So, i’m going to be making some big changes… i’ll be writing them here as it seems the right place.

And although it’s more public, it somehow feels more personal a space than an update or note on facebook.

There are a few things i should of done a while ago, which I’ve been postponing that I think, finally, i’m ready to do.

Hold tight.

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Working with the team at Liz Lean PR we conducted a snapshot survey of 100 people (around Bournemouth, in February) to see what the general population were saying about their employers online and if they’d received any guidance from their employer on what they should say.

This was partly inspired by the upcoming (now live) changes to the ASA Cap Code:

“From 1 March, marketing communications on companies’ own websites and in other third party space under their control, such as Facebook and Twitter, will have to adhere to the non-broadcast advertising rules as set out in the CAP Code.” (Source: ASA)

A (massively) simplified version of the code would be: ensure that all your communications are legal, decent, honest and true.

We asked 4 questions:

1. Do you use Facebook or twitter? (yes/no)
2. Have you ever written about the company you work for on Facebook or Twitter? (yes/no)
3. Has your company given you any guidance on what you can/can’t write on Facebook or Twitter? (yes/no/don’t know)
4. Have you ever heard of the new ASA standards / CAP code? (yes/no)

Full details and responses to the survey in our press release on Pressitt.

The two key findings that stood out for me were:

1. Half of all employees have admitted to writing about the company they work for on a social media website, such as Facebook and Twitter (49%)
2. A staggering three quarters of those who have written about their company online either did not know of, or had no guidance from their employers regarding what they could or couldn’t write (75%)

Think about that for a minute, the implications that 1/2 of your staff are writing about your business online on social networks… and it’s not just the expanded ASA remit that needs to be considered, regulation such as the FSA could also apply to your business.

Liz Willingham, from Liz Lean PR summarises it better than me:

“The results of our survey highlight the importance of good communication from the top down. As ambassadors of your brand, employees need to be made aware and given comprehensive guidance on how to conduct themselves in all situations to protect the overall reputation of the company.”

We’re looking to put on an event for our clients after Easter, in the mean time if you’d like any guidance please do drop either of us a line.

If you want some interesting views from leading experts on the new ASA Cap code changes I strongly recommend this eConsultancy post.

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