AMBA600 Social Media Presence/LinkedIn

Introduction

The head of your company passes you in the hall and asks, "Why couldn’t I find you on LinkedIn? I want to make a connection with you!"

Such conversations occur more than you might think in the workplace, and they reinforce the fact that the use of social media in the job world has gone beyond using business sites such as LinkedIn to find employment connections. Companies today use social media for both internal and external purposes.

Companies are expanding their use of social media to external stakeholders for a variety of reasons, including, as cited by Social Media Today (2014):

• Customer service – successful use of social media provides channels to customers that allow for real-time communication that can be used to
  • answer questions
  • solve problems
  • support the sales process
  • convey care for customers
  • solicit customer feedback
• Brand building – by increasing exposure through more channels, brands can be strengthened by
  • building awareness and identity
  • associating a "voice" with the brand
  • reaching more customers
  • enabling competition with larger companies
  • expanding reach to global markets
  • while making relationships more personal
• Reputation management – through monitoring of online presence that enables companies to
  • become more accessible
  • drive more traffic to web presence
  • link to other partners
  • respond swiftly to negative comments and complaints

In addition, companies are employing social media internal to their organizations. Towers Watson (2013) found in its surveys that "56% of the employers surveyed currently use various social media tools as part of their internal communication initiatives."

• Internal communications – serving as official and unofficial channels of communication for the purposes of
  • sharing company-wide official information
  • introducing and reinforcing company culture
  • facilitating communication among employees across organizational boundaries
  • supporting collaborative work
  • building a sense of community

There has also been a rise in “social recruiting”: employers, recruiters, and job seekers employing social media to find jobs and hire candidates. Recruiting takes place over the web in the following ways:

• Employers and recruiters seek out prospective employees to obtain more information about them, both professional and personal; examine examples of their past work; and gain insights into potential "fit" with the organization
• Job seekers are using social media to gather information on potential employers, checking their outlets for information company culture, management, benefits, and employee opinions

A survey of recruiters reports that overwhelmingly, recruiters who use social media use LinkedIn to post jobs, search for candidates, contact candidates, and do preinterview vetting (Jobvite 6th Annual Social Recruiting Survey). A new survey from CareerBuilder found:

• 43% of employer respondents use social networking sites to research job candidates, and that
• 51% of those employers who researched job candidates found content that caused them to not hire the candidate

To understand the reasons why employers are disqualifying candidates, view the survey results at: Employers Passing on Applicants Due to Social Media Posts Continues to Rise.

For these reasons, understanding how to positively and effectively employ social media is essential, whether you are required to use it in performing your job or you want to optimize your presence to attract future employers. In this assignment, we will explore the social media platform, LinkedIn, which is designed for use by the business community.

Work through the following exploratory steps, with your LinkedIn profile as the final deliverable:

Steps to Completion

Step 1 – Engage in analysis and reflection, and make notes to inform Steps 2 and 3.

1. Reflect on your career: Where are you right now in your career? Where do you want to be? What are your goals and objectives? What particular positions do you want, and what is your time frame for obtaining them? It’s a good idea to have some steps along the way. Why are you pursuing your MBA? What's your career path: journey or destination?
2. What’s the market like in your industry Is the industry demand increasing, decreasing, or remaining steady? Is it better in some areas than others.?
3. What’s competition like? Who are the other competitors seeking positions in this profession? Who are the primary competitors for employment and upward mobility in this field? Can you identity particular individuals who are your main competition (which will be the case if you are competing internally). How do you compare to these competitors?

Step 2 – Create a Positive Personal Branding Statement

“Your personal brand is all about who you are and what you want to be known for”(Marrs, 2015).

Your reflection on your career aspirations in Step 1 provides some ideas for planning and direction. However, to present yourself to others requires a personal "branding" statement. This is often a hard thing for people to dobecause it requires being bold and focusing on personal attributes and strengths and learning what is unique about you. Here are some resources for tips to create your statement:

• 3 Steps to an Outstanding Personal Branding Statement
• Creating Your Authentic Personal Brand Statement
• Creative Personal Branding - Find Your Brand in 4 Easy Steps

Step 3 - Create (or revise) a LinkedIn page

Employ any aspects of the research and exploration performed in the prior two steps to develop your page. Other resources you may consult are listed below:

1. The Secret to Building a LinkedIn Profile That Gets Results
2. So You’re on LinkedIn … Now What?
3. 7 Steps to Creating the Best LinkedIn Profile
4. 4 Key Elements of a Killer LinkedIn Summary

Once you have created your LinkedIn page, go through the LinkedIn Checklist contained in this module and make revisions as needed.

Deliverables

• Personal Branding Statement
• URL link to your profile
• .pdf of your profile

Submission Instructions

1. Post your Personal Branding Statementto the assignment folder in support of the LinkedIn page.
2. Post the link to your profile in the assignment folder AND in the discussion area of the class for use in the next assignment.
3. Also post the PDF of the pageto the assignment folder. To create the PDF, right-click on the page. Select Print, and then Save as PDF.
4. If you revise a LinkedIn page, you need to submit a copy of the original LinkedIn page to compare to the newly revised page. To post a copy of the original LinkedIn page to the assignment folder, create a PDF. First, right-click on the page. Then, select Print, and then Save as PDF.
5. Please share with your classmates in the Discussion area.

References

CareerBuilder. (2014, June 26). Number of employers passing on applicants due to social media posts continues to rise, according to new CareerBuilder survey. Retrieved from http://www.careerbuilder.com/share/aboutus/pressreleasesdetail.aspx?sd=6%2F26%2F2014&id=pr829&ed=12%2F31%2F2014

Jobvite. (2014). Jobvite job seeker nation study. Retrieved from http://web.jobvite.com/rs/jobvite/images/2014%20Job%20Seeker%20Survey.pdf

Marrs, M. (2015). The first step to building your personal brand. Retrieved from https://www.themuse.com/advice/the-first-step-to-building-your-personal-brand

Social Media Today. (2014). 8 compelling reasons why you should be using social media Retrieved from http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/8-compelling-reasons-why-you-should-be-using-social-media

Towers Watson. (2013). Just over half of employers using social media tools for internal communication, Towers Watson survey finds. Retrieved from http://www.towerswatson.com/en-US/Press/2013/05/just-over-half-of-employers-using-social-media-tools-for-internal-communication