Career Branding for Social Animals by Craig Fisher at Fishdogs.com

Part One - Everyone you know is a potential business lead.

That's right.  Whether or not you are currently a job seeker, chances are that you will be at some point.  I apologize up front, this is going to be a little long.  But it's worth it.

As a recruiter, I consider everyone a potential job seeker, even (maybe especially) other recruiters.  I also consider everyone a potential client, future partner, or employer. 

You should too.  My point is that you never know where your next lead may come from. 

Suppose Suzy is a stay at home mom.  She might not be any of those things listed above.  But her husband, neighbor, or cousin could be.  And if she knows about you, or what you do, or what kind of job you are looking for, etc., because you have been verbal about it on social media, she may very well be able to refer you into your next great opportunity.

And the more people you have in your network, friends, family, business people or colleagues, who get to know you better because of your profile and positive things you post, the better your odds are of generating those leads on a regular basis. 

Part 2 - My Facebook Profile is Personal, Not Business.  Phooey!

I just returned from a conference in London where one of the interesting topics that came up was that of using Facebook for business or career gain.  Recruiters and other business people in the UK are very conservative about opening up their Facebook profiles for business use.  Most can't imagine connecting with clients or job candidates in such a private place.

I told my Brit counterparts that we were a bit like that in the U.S. about a year ago.  And we got over it.  Facebook is the largest social network in the world.  And everyone on it is a potential lead.  Why would you not take advantage of such a great platform on which to brand yourself and grow a community of people who trust you and are willing to refer business or job leads to you when find them.

"But there is all this stuff there I wouldn't want anyone to see!" is the typical response.  Phooey!  You need to get that stuff off of your profile anyway.  Do you really think, just because you don't accept friend requests from people who you don't want seeing your private stuff, or because you have your privacy settings a certain way, that the private stuff you have on there can never be discovered?

Part 3 - You've Been Hacked

There are people who sit around all day with the sole goal of breaking these barriers.  Go to Google right now and search on "hack a Facebook profile" and you will get hundreds of thousands results and how-to's.  I'm not giving away any secrets here.  And chances are that most of these hacks won't work right this second as Facebook is constantly trying to stay ahead of the hackers.

But when is the last time you saw a Facebook virus send you or your friends profile on a spamming spree?  It happens every week.  Guess what.  That profile has been hacked. 

Part 4 - Just Keep it Clean and Keep Your Secrets Offline

The only way to completely keep people from knowing all your dirty secrets is to keep them to yourself.  But there are a few things you can do to keep your Facebook profile cleaner. 

For one thing, set your privacy settings so that tagged photos of you posted by others are not automatically posted to your profile.  And any photos that you do find that are tagged with your name that you deem inappropriate (or just ugly), simply untag them.  They cannot be tagged again unless by you.

And just watch what you say and what you allow people to say back on your wall and other people's walls.  If you don't like a comment, just delete it. 

Super blogger, Rayanne Thorn, in her session on Social Media ROI at the TRULondon II event, said that her rule of thumb is to always assume your mother is reading everything that goes on your Facebook profile.  Good advice.

You can find a few more good suggestions like this in this article,  Keep your Facebook profile clean! | Facebook.

So I say clean up your profile.  It's not really that private anyway.  And grow your network.  Start posting positive material there that sometimes tells people about what you do in business as well as in life. 

No spamming please.  You can't build a good online personal brand if you beat down everyone you know with your home-based business or MLM opportunities every day.  But you can build a good reputation and gain trust if you interact positively with your network and post helpful information (not just inspirational quotes) on a fairly regular basis.

This post originally appeared on the Matrix Resources Blog.  You can find great posts about social media, job search, and hiring each week.

There is a problem with the hotels in London. 

All the hotels?

It seems that way.

Geoff Webb is fielding phone calls from disgruntled conference speakers who are flying in to London from the states and elsewhere.  They are not happy with hotel issues and more.  Geoff does not panic.  He stays on task and keeps the ball rolling on day one (sourcing) of TRU London II.

Geoff, Bill Boorman, and Maha Akiki, the TRU Crew, are doing something that would normally require a large planning committee and sponsored staff to accomplish.  They are hosting a major international conference with speakers and attendees from all over North America and Europe.  It's a good trick.  I've hosted local events with more help, bigger budgets, and far fewer travelers, and it's still tough.

Rooming with Geoff,  I got a backstage view of what the they went through: logistical problems, sponsors who deserved more acknowledgement, and more.  I enjoyed unofficial TRU Crew status, along with Bill's very cool wife, Fran (love you!).  I have fond memories of carrying boxes and boxes of fish and chips for blocks in the rain to feed the grumbling conference masses at lunch - delays being not the fault of the Crew, but of the restaurant, trust me. 

 TRU London II brought around 200 great people from Recruiting and HR together for a truly special three-day learning party (err... unconference).  So many smart people from both sides of the pond made for valuable learning, cultural enlightenment, and intelligent conversation during the day. 

Then it was off to the pub, which was just as important as the conference room.  And the stimulating, albeit slightly less intelligible, conversation that took place at night was also immensely valuable. 

That's what Bill does quite well,  bring people together and let them roll.  Maybe even give them something to complain about?  Perhaps a good, if unintended, strategy.  We bonded nonetheless.

From a business perspective, there was real value and real learning.  Real partnerships and friendships made.  Real leads generated.  Real knowledge gained.   And a really good party - one of the best I've ever attended - all over London for several days.

The logistics must be smoother and sponsors must be appeased to ensure future success.  That will happen.  If they can pull off the party each time, I'm in.  In fact I'll be leading a track at TRU USA in April.  Hope to see you there.

Thanks again to Bill, Geoff and Maha.  And big shouts to all the lovely folks I met, led tracks with, drank beer with, and learned from.  Thanks for sharing with me.  I miss you already.  

Cheers, CF

Want to chat with me about some of the crazier things that went on there?  Or some of very interesting things we learned?  Let's catch up tonight on #TNL on Twitter at 8pm Central.

London?

London.

London?

TRU London 2, to be exact.  It has been 10 years since I last visited my favorite city in the world, London.  Much has changed (maybe more with me than with The Big Smoke).  I can't wait.

This dream of mine, I wrote about it in December: my prediction of, and quest for, more hand-to-hand networking with colleagues from around the world in the article Social Networking and Global Flesh Pressing in 2010.

And now, after some serious blessings from the schedule fairy, I am going to London to repay a gesture by my friend, Bill Boorman, who came to speak at our TalentNet Live conference in Dallas last September.  I will participate in a truly global networking event thanks to some help from Bill, Geoff Webb, and my favorite ATS, Bullhorn.

TRU London 2 will take place on February 17th, 18th, and 19th, 2010, in, you guessed it, London.  TRU stands for The Recruiting Unconference.  An unconference is an event that has no fixed structure and only two rules, no power point and no presentations.  TRU London had its inaugural run on November 19, 2009 in Canary Warf, London.  TRU London 2 will be held in the HQ of Twitter Job Search in Soho.

I will be helping to lead tracks on technology, branding, and more.  I will also be hosting a special edition of the TalentNet Live #TNL Recruiter chat on Twitter on Wed., Feb. 17th, and Tweeting from that hashtag throughout the event. 

Thanks to the TRU Crew for inviting me to be a part of such a great event.  I am also scheduled to lead tracks at TRU USA April 19-20th, 2010, in Madison, WI, with my partner in crime (business) Jeff Lipschultz. 

Wow.  I just confirmed that I am going to London next week!  I need to tell someone.  "Come, Watson, come! The game is afoot. Not a word! Into your clothes and come!"

See you on the other side.  Cheers, CF

Did you know that many corporate and staffing agency ATS's (Applicant Tracking Systems) strip your resume of formatting when the information is imported into your profile?  Or that when you forward your resume to a recruiter, they often have to copy and paste it into a new format that follows their protocol before they forward it on to the hiring manager?

Resumes that are heavily formatted with tables and graphics don't translate very well when they are pasted into a new document.  Your best bet is to use the 97-2003 version MS Word (not my favorite either), minimizing tables and graphics.  A Rich Text Format version works well too.  Here is a test.  Take your resume, select all, copy, and paste it into a blank Word doc.  How does it do?

Some ATS systems will translate fancy formatting seamlessly.  But many companies, unfortunately, have systems that don't.  And your resume is most likely going to be viewed in a browser or system window of some kind, versus on a printed page, or as an attachment (which many companies see as being vulnerable to viruses).  Also consider the preview or cached version of your resume, which many recruiters and hiring managers will view to save time or to keep from having to open an application to view your document.  Fancy formatting doesn't translate in this instance either.

The information in the resume is far more important than a flashy style.  If the info is presented in a professional, straight forward way, you are ultimately better off and will have a portable resume that can be effective in multiple instances.

One of main considerations for your resume should be SEO.  That's right, search engine optimization.  Each company you apply to, be it corporate or staffing agency, will store your resume in a database of some kind.  And the way your resume is retrieved, when someone is searching this database for viable candidates, is by keyword search.  So make sure your document contains the proper keywords, that are specific to your skill set, throughout your resume.  Also make sure that your name and contact info are not embedded in a header (this also doesn't translate well in some systems).

Think of the world wide web as one big collection of databases.  Job seekers should have their resume stored somewhere on the Internet so that it can be found outside of a company's internal database.  Again, keywords are the method by which it will be retrieved.  And be specific.  Not "Manager", but "Six Sigma Program Manager".  Use the words that will set you apart in a keyword specific search.  And repeat these keywords where they apply in each job description so that the reader will have some context  as to where and when you used these skills.

Many resume writing services encourage fancy formatting to "set you apart".  Using color in a resume is a popular trend.  This is all fine.  There is nothing wrong with having a pretty version of your resume.  But if you are going to pay a resume service to help you, you might consider asking them for an html version that looks just as nice.  This can be the one you keep on your web site or blog. 

Also ask for a version that is in Rich Text Format, or MS Word without so much table formatting.  These can be the docs that are easily translated in corporate ATS systems and online job boards.  Put a link on there to the "pretty" version online if you like.  But also put the functional version online somewhere if you want it to be easily found and read.

A note on .PDF formats.  Many systems still don't translate .PDF resumes well or at all.  Some systems will but require a costly add-on.  And if a recruiter is tasked with converting your resume to a different format to comply with company guidelines or branding, yours may very well go to the back of the line if the busy recruiter is in a time crunch (which is often the case). 

Some candidates will complain that they don't want their resume altered in any way.  All I can say to that is that these candidates also don't want a job very badly.

Here are some additional articles you may find helpful.

Resume SEO: Get Your Resume to the Top

Top 10 Things to Leave OFF of Your Resume

Best Modern Resumes

About the Author

Craig Fisher is Co-Founder and Principal of A-List Solutions, an Information Technology Staffing, Executive Search, and Social Recruiting Strategy firm in Southlake TX.  His fifteen years in recruiting also include positions as an award-winning Account Manager and Sales Director with Stark Technical Group, and as a top-performing Senior Recruiter with MATRIX Resources.  Craig started his nineteen year sales career as a pharma and medsurge rep with Glaxo and Smiths Medical.

Craig is also a speaker and trainer for Social Job Search, Social Recruiting, and Social Branding strategies.  He hosts the TalentNet Live social recruiting forum on Twitter, featuring big names in recruiting and social media on the last Wed. of each month from 9-11PM Eastern at #TNL.  See www.talentnetlive.com for details.  Craig blogs at http://www.fishdogs.com and tweets at http://twitter.com/fishdogs.

Guest Post by Megan K Green

Branding. An important part of every company, product and celebrity. At first it seems a daunting task, but, once started, it's actually a fun and creative challenge. Anyone who has ever had to brand anything from the ground up knows that it takes a lot of time, effort, creativity and attention to details.

Wikipedia says that branding is a name used to identify and distinguish a specific product, service or business. But, it's not simply a name; it's a logo, picture, font type, color, ethnicity, style, or anything else that makes a business a business (yes, even the chair the business sits in contributes to its brand).

Recently, I've embarked on a branding project of my own. Not for a company or service or anything like that, but for myself - my Brand. The Megan K Green Brand (no period on the 'K' please).

Think about it - we all are perceived as a certain type of person with a certain amount of knowledge, and guess what? That's your brand. Whether you are perpetually whiney, happy, talkative, colorful or smart, that is how you will be perceived - and I want to make sure my brand (ME) is how I want to be seen to potential employers, event coordinators looking for a speaker, and overall, the people I collaborate with. I'm knowledgeable on public relations, social media and branding and I want to make sure they know that.

According to a white paper written by the consulting firm McKinsey and Company, their "…research shows, [that] companies with strong brands have shareholder returns of 1.9 points more than their industries' average…A process that once took decades now gets done in a few years, as shown by 13-year old Starbucks creation of greater brand strength than 108-year old Maxwell House! …These young brands have generated their strength by creating and consistently delivering distinctive performance benefits with compelling emotional benefits found in the brands personality."

Now, replace the word "company" with "me" and you get the picture. In layman's terms, branding can do so much for a company, and it's about time you did it for yourself.

If you're looking for a job, or looking to place yourself as an expert in your field, you must brand yourself. Use social mediums like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and a web site, all with the same picture, voice, mission, and goals. Maintain who you want to be on all facets, whether you want to simply be a funny blogger, or a knowledgeable knitter. These all transfer to your blog, Twitter account, LinkedIn profile, web site, etc.

I have a few friends who have branding themselves down to an art: people such as Lauren Fernandez (otherwise known as "LAF"), Matt Chevy (Life Without Pants) and Colin Alsheimer to name a few.

The amount of traffic they receive and the amount of acknowledgement as being experts in their fields boils down to marketing themselves through their brand.

“A brand name is more than a word. It is the beginning of a conversation.” - Lexicon

Megan Green is an advertising and PR professional specializing in social media and writing. Megan is a regular contributor to TalentZoo.com's Beyond Madison Avenue Blog.

Join her @megankgreen on Twitter, and on her personal blog at www.megankgreen.com

3 Personal Branding Thesis’s For The New World of Work | Personal Branding Blog - Dan Schawbel

Good stuff posted today from Dan Schawbel on the www.PersonalBrandingBlog.com site.  I posted the video here, but I encourage you to click the link above and read the full article. 

Dan Schawbel is the leading personal branding expert for Gen-Y. He is the bestselling author of Me 2.0, as well as the publisher of both the award winning Personal Branding Blog and Personal Branding Magazine.

This article originally appeared on the CruiterTalk.com Carnival on 1/07/10.  Thanks for Ryan Leary for including me!

Talent professionals in social media love labels.  Thus, those of us who use social channels for recruiting and networking together have brilliantly entitled our scene "Social Recruiting".  We've been doing this "social recruiting" thing for years with LinkedIn and recruiting networks like RecruitingBlogs.com.  But with the explosion of  Twitter, Facebook, and personal blogs, et al, we are now really connecting with others in our industry from all over the world in an unprecedented way, so we really needed good label.

Unconferences (interactive, less structured, more fun version of an industry conference inspired by social networking) are helping to take this to a new level as well.  Last year I was fortunate to have Bill Boorman come from London to speak at TalentNet Live in Dallas.  He has said that he took his experience there and decided to make the unconference a bigger part of of his consulting business (Bill is quite adept at forecasting successful trends).  He then attended the Recruitfest unconference in Toronto and hosted his own, TRU London, in London in November.  I hope to attend TRU London 2 in February to help lead a couple of tracks along with several of my peers from the U.S. and around the world. 

  This month I attended what may be seen as a new step in global networking.  Several of the top people in social recruiting, and social media marketing/PR from all over the U.S. and Canada attended a holiday Tweetup (#PunkATL) in Atlanta.  No conference, no unconference, no speaker.  Just a Tweetup.  A networking happy hour on steroids.  And boy was it cool.

I met so many people who I have networked and collaborated with for a long time, but had never laid eyes on in person.  The event was an effort to get people together for an Atlanta visit by PunkRockHR blogger Laurie Ruettimann.  With the co-hosting efforts of Stephanie Lloyd and Todd Schnick, this little get-together somehow swelled to over 200 people attending.

I was fortunate to appear on Stephanie's Dream Job Radio show with Laurie, Stephanie, and fellow social recruiting professionals Miriam Salpeder, and Geoff Webb and Maha Akiki who flew in from Toronto.  We did a pretty great show to assist job seekers in their search for employment.  You can get the podcast from iTunes if you search podcasts for DreamJobRadio, or listen to it here.

There was also a broadcast of Geoff and Maha's The Recruiters House Party from the #PunkATL Tweetup on which I attempted to participate over the very loud crowd at FuegoMundo.  #PunkATL was huge success that is already on the books for a repeat in 2010. 

I expect this to become a regular trend in our industry.  We will surely see more informal international get-togethers as 2010 gets in gear.  With social media, and the large networks we are building, it is so easy to organize and get the word out.  And more TRU conferences are already scheduled for the U.S., India, Australia, and Ireland. 

I learn something important and make valuable connections every time I meet my peers in-person.  I encourage you to broaden your horizons, regardless of your industry, and get face-time with your peers from other cities and countries.  To put it mildly, it will enhance your perspective on business and life. 

Here's to a successful 2010.  Cheers!

Story from Craig Fisher Posted by Miriam Salpeter on Keppie Careers

Recruiters don’t ease up during the holidays – neither should you - Original post on KeppieCareers.com

Published on December 2nd, 2009

If you are a regular reader, I hope you are already convinced that it’s important to job hunt during the holidays. Do you know where you are going with your job hunt? Today, I’m happy to share insight from the “other side of the hiring desk.” Today’s contributor, Craig Fisher, is a management and information technology recruiter, staffing entrepreneur and co-founder of A-List Solutions.

 

I know Craig via Twitter and saw him tweet on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving about placing a candidate:

Of course, I immediately DMed and asked if he’d contribute to this series. This is Craig’s take on looking for a job during the holidays…

 

So perhaps you are thinking that hiring managers won’t be in the office over the holidays.  Maybe you should ease up on your job search.  But you should know that your friendly neighborhood recruiter is likely still in touch with those managers and trying to make placements happen.

 

As a case in point, I just placed a candidate in a great new position.  It is Tuesday evening before Thanksgiving.  I was able to facilitate a background check and offer letter while both candidate and client were already out for vacation.  All parties were thrilled and the candidate gets to start work on this coming Monday morning.

 

Today it is easier than ever for recruiters to do business even when nobody is at work.  Smart phones make it so easy to text and view documents.  And smart recruiters know that many hiring managers are trying to spend budget money right now before year end.

 

Just remember that we recruiters are ALWAYS trying to get people placed in jobs.  And we are likely in touch with many of our clients even when they are out of the office.  Recruiters work hard all through the holidays.  And if you are a job seeker, you should too.

 

Craig Fisher is a founding partner of A-List solutions, blogger at http://blog.fishdogs.com/ and host of the TalentNet Live #TNL recruiter forum. As a 15-year recruiting industry veteran, Craig is a social recruiting and new media branding strategist for job seekers and employers. Follow Craig on Twitter @Fishdogs

Recruiters don’t ease up during the holidays – neither should you : Keppie Careers by Miriam Salpeter

by Ron Callari

LinkedIn announced recently that it was opening up its platform to Open Source development, allowing public developers to be able to access the site's API and incorporate LinkedIn into their business and Web sites (similar to the process permitted by Facebook and Twitter).

In so doing, one could only hope that a developer will decide to create an API that will allow users to download videos into their profiles. However, if you don't want to wait on development, there is a short-cut for embedding videos into your LinkedIn profiles using Google's presentation application.

Niall HarbisonNiall Harbison, one of Simply Zesty's founders is a prominent PR/social media guru based in Ireland who assists small businesses in branding and disseminating their messages vis a vis social media. Here you can see, Niall successfully found a way to embed a video into his LinkedIn profile

In the absence of a formal API, this "how-to" video (below) will walk you through a somewhat  round-about way, but nonetheless an ingenious solution devised by Niall to accomplish the task of inserting videos into one's LinkedIn profile page.

Hats off to Niall and SimplyZesty for sharing his Irish 'trick of the trade' to incorporate videos into our profiles on LinkedIn.  As he notes on his Web site, "while adding video to LinkedIn might not be relevant to everybody...with video content...it can really be the difference in having your profile noticed or not."

Embedding Video Into Your LinkedIn Profiles | InventorSpot

By Sarah Evans on Mashable.com 

Sarah Evans is a public relations and new media consultant and speaker at Sevans Strategy. She also authors a PR and social media blog and is the founder of #journchat.

Twitter’s new Lists feature is all the rage right now. There are probably already millions of lists, and that number is growing by the minute (or second). So what are people using all these lists for? Are people creating lists just for the sake of creating lists? Savvy individuals are looking for ways to use lists to further their personal/professional agendas, and while we are all still learning how to harness the power of this new feature, here are a few ideas to get the creative juices flowing.

Let us know in the comments what other ways you’re using Twitter Lists.

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1. Industry Peers and Professionals Lists

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One way to use Twitter Lists is to keep your finger on the pulse of your industry. Tim O’Reilly (@timoreilly), founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media, for example, created the Gov 2.0 list to accomplish this goal for government tweeters. Once you create your “experts” list, share the link with your peers. (If you’re in a generous mood.) If you have a Twitter() network largely made up of industry peers, you’ll save them from reinventing the wheel by creating a public list that everyone can use.

Lists are still new enough that you can be the first to develop an “it” list. In other words, for many industries and topics you could create the de facto list of peers that others follow and reference. A list that garners a large followership means more attention for you and may increase your Twitter followers. Once you create the list, you’ll need to promote it. Add it to a list directory like Listorious for additional opportunities for people to view and follow.

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2. Experts Lists

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If you’re an expert, recognize other experts. Technology blogger Robert Scoble (@scobleizer) did this with his recent lists like, “most influential in tech,” and “web innovators,” for example. It’s a win both for Robert and for those he recommends. He continues to establish his credibility as a technology thought leader and others benefit from the recognition and online visibility. Many of his lists already have hundreds of followers.

You can also use Twitter Lists to highlight individuals that routinely offer insight, tips, tools, etc. about a particular topic. Do you have certain people you keep on mobile alerts or have a special column for in Tweetdeck()? It’s most likely a list in the making. If nothing else, lists like these let people you admire and/or listen to know that you appreciate the content they’re putting out.

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3. Recognize and Reward Customers Lists

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Lists can be used to promote your clients and/or customers. Depending on your industry, it’s an opportunity for your customers to connect with other like-minded people. You may decide sharing all of your customers on Twitter isn’t right for your business, but you can still take advantage of Twitter Lists to recognize your customers. You could, perhaps, implement a “valued clients of the week” list or run a contest that rewards a certain number of customers with a spot on a special list.

Another way to reward customers is to create a list of your company’s Twitter accounts that offer special deals, discounts, or exclusive announcements.

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4. Niche Lists

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The New York Times’ City Room crew created the “NYC Street Food Trucks” list for all things street food in New York City. Creating niche category lists can be very helpful for others, so think outside the box. Maybe there’s an audience who would love a list of all celebrities who have graced the cover of Vogue and tweet. Or, perhaps, a list of viral video stars (e.g., @daviddentist) would be useful for some. What niche can you identify that needs a list?

Lists can also be humorous. @daphnebegonia, who happens to be a dog, curates a list of “people I have licked.” It’s a funny idea that offers potential, and a concept that can work for other animal-related entities. I’m hoping for a Sea World, “I met Shamu,” list.

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5. Employee Directory Lists

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You might have a link to your Twitter account on your website, but don’t forget to make an official employee Twitter List. You should include all official company accounts, along with employees who tweet on behalf of the organization (or if you have a more open culture, you could include any employee that tweets). Mashable() has an employee list, as does Twitter.

Share the list internally, too. Not only is this a way to aggregate accounts, it also makes monitoring easier. Think about creative ways you can promote your company’s Twitter list (for example, from the signature line of emails, or on your business cards).

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6. Political Campaign Lists

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Running for office? Aggregate your supporters or “friends of” the campaign for increased visibility. It’s important to stay connected to constituents, especially during election time (every vote counts!). In fact, go beyond campaign supporters and create an “official” party list, or a list of all the newspapers that have endorsed a candidate.

If you’re a political reporter or blogger, create a private list of all candidates you’re tracking to keep tabs on their tweets more easily. (This same principal could be applied by journalists or bloggers to any beat, not just politics.)

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7. Location-Based Lists

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Create a list of everyone in your city/town who tweets. Or create a list of city and/or state employees who tweet. If your mayor, village manager, school district board members and others are on Twitter, group them together to create a resource for others in your area.

This idea can work in an official capacity as well. If you’re in charge of a municipality’s website, aggregate the feeds from these lists for your official website to offer real-time updates to your citizens.

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8. Event Attendees and Live-Tweeters Lists

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Hosting an upcoming event? Encourage people to submit their Twitter IDs when they register. Share the list pre-conference and encourage people to connect. Don’t forget to update the list during the conference. You could also create a list of all speakers or sponsors for a conference to share with attendees, who can then familiarize themselves with the conference lineup and supporters before they get there.

Creating a special list of those live-tweeting events can make it easier for people not able to attend to follow the action without worrying about the noise created by extraneous hashtag conversations or spammers.

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9. Self-Serving Lists

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Lists can help you out, too. If you’re out of work, for example, you could create a list of company or recruiter accounts to monitor for job postings. Or if you need to stay current on a topic for work, you could create a list of companies or bloggers active on that subject.

Just the act of taking the time to research a comprehensive (and accurate) list will help you as much as the information that will come through from tweets. And if you decide to share your list, it could have the potential to garner a large following, which can boost your online credibility.

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10. Promote Your Affiliation Lists

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Twitter Lists may also be good for promoting or listing your affiliations. Collegiate alumni associations, for example, are constantly looking for ways to keep people engaged, enter the “University XYZ Alumni List.” This concept works for any group, organization, association, etc.

Journalists, bloggers, promoters, and others could also create a list of affiliations as a way to disclose potential conflicts of interest. A public relations professional, for example, could create a list of their clients as a way to let followers know which of their tweets may exhibit a conflict of interest.

How do you creatively harness the power of public Twitter Lists? Please share in the comments.

10 Ways You Can Use Twitter Lists

Over the summer I did some Twitter and Social Media recruiting/branding training for the Dallas office of Matrix Resources.  I worked at Matrix from 1996 to 2000 and was a top performer on the contract IT staffing side.  That training led to a webinar I did recently for Matrix job candidates to help them promote themselves better through social channels (we are still working on re-recording that session since the audio had some problems).  Matrix recently unveiled their great new blog, the Matrix Wall.  Adam Waid, who does CRM and Social Media for Matrix asked me to write a guest post.  Hope you enjoy it.

The Geeks Are the Cool Kids

By Craig Fisher

You heard me. I said the geeks are the cool kids. Last night I attended a meeting of the Social Media Club of Dallas. You may be saying to yourself, "Hmmm, that sounds about as much fun as Physics Club..." But I'll let you in on a secret. All the cool kids were there. And many of them were self-proclaimed geeks.

Social media is all the rage in recruiting, job search, marketing, etc. And the people who are at the forefront of it are mostly techies. This point was raised by the keynote speaker, Tim Walker, Social Media manager for Hoovers.com. He gave a great presentation about the value of Social Media for companies. You see, the techies are always the early adopters of new technology. They were with the internet, and they are with social media. And they are also the people I most want to recruit for the IT jobs my company helps to fill for our clients.

Early adopters are the ones on the cutting edge of new technology. They are smart, and ahead of the curve. They are cool. I met so many great people at this event that I would have gladly paid a large sum of money to attend. Fortunately we had some great sponsors including nomee (these folks introduced me to a cool new social media aggregator that runs on Adobe Air and sits on your desktop.  It does what Plaxo would do if everyone used all Plaxo's features. It's like FriendFeed meets Tweetdeck.  Yes, I'm a geek too.), and Moroch PR (our location host), who made it possible for all 110+ attendees to attend for free.

Tim also made a point about cool kids when someone asked a question about the new Twitter lists feature. The question was about whether these lists will create some kind of exclusivity in the Twittersphere. Walker quipped that the people who would attempt to exclude others by using lists are the same ones who sat at the cool kids table in high school. He didn't have time for them then, and he doesn't now. I suspect Tim Walker was plenty cool in high school. But don't tell him I said so.

My point here is that the cool kids, for me, are the techies, the early adopters, the bleeding edge thinkers. Many of them proudly call themselves geeks (a Tweepsearch of Twitter profiles for the word "geek" returns over 46,000 users). And geeks are cool. So whether you are an employer, a marketer, or a job seeker, go seek out your local social media club.  If your town doesn't have one, start one up.  This is physical world networking, and you should be doing it.  You may find your next superstar employee, or your next job, or client. Let your geek flag fly. It beats the heck out of Physics Club.