Since October, we have seen a myriad of changes on Facebook – many dealing with privacy  issues. In this article, I want to address some of the key changes you may want to make.

• Open Graph: Facebook has partnered with several sites, including 60 new ones in the past week (includes Pinterest, TripAdvisor, Urbanspoon, and more). Basically, these websites can post your activity on your wall/timeline without having to “ask” your permission to post your activity. Solution: Go to your “Account Settings” and select “Apps.” Select “Edit” by each app to change permission levels. I personally select “Custom” and then chose “Only Me.”
• Timeline: As I have delivered presentations in the Southeast U.S., I have found that most people are not aware that if they add status, photo, place, or life event on their timeline to fill in their digital scrapbook that the update is actually default on a “Public” setting. Make sure you adjust this to the privacy level with which you are comfortable.
• Frictionless Sharing: Even if you log out of Facebook, the site can follow and track every web page you visit. Websites can write apps so that your activity on their pages can be shared automatically to your profile. Solution: The easiest solution is to use a separate browser for your Facebook activity (e.g. Google Chrome) and perhaps Firefox for your web browsing. Cookies cannot be tracked browser to browser.

In my next article, we will review some other privacy control features you may wish to use on Facebook. Just make sure your posts can pass the following tests: (1) Your update would not embarrass you if it ended up on the front page of a major newspaper and (2) You’d be fine with your grandmother reading it.

©2012 Kristen Jacoway | Career Design Coach. All Rights Reserved.

In December 2009, research commissioned by Microsoft found that 79% of U.S. hiring managers and job recruiters reviewed online information about potential job candidates. If someone Googled you, are they likely to find information that supports that personal brand for which you want to be known or not? Consider this-in this same study, they found that 70% of U.S. hiring managers have rejected candidates based on what they found online about that person.

Surprisingly, though, as I poll audiences where I speak, people are still quite alarmed to hear these statistics and equally as distressing, have never Googled themselves. I wanted to illustrate a few famous examples of how lapses in judgment on social networks have cost people jobs and opportunities.

• Connor Riley got a job offer from Cisco and tweeted, “Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work.” Tim Levad, a Cisco employee, tweeted back, “Who is the hiring manager? I’m sure they would love to know that you will hate the work. We here at Cisco are versed in the Web.”

• The voice of the Aflac duck, Comedian Gilbert Gottfried, tweeted the following after the Japanese tsunami, “Japan is really advanced. They don’t go to the beach. The beach comes to them.” Aflac fired Gottfried following his tweet.

• A student / intern in an educational setting got fired for posting a picture on her MySpace account showing her drinking and a caption saying, “Drunken Pirate.” The university where she was attending also denied her degree just days before graduation. She sued, but a federal district judge rejected the claim saying that because she was a public employee whose photo didn’t relate to matters of public concern, her post was not protected speech.

Be mindful of what you tweet or comment on Facebook: Companies have employed the utilization of social media listening tools like Radian6, TweetBeep, Google Alerts, Company Buzz, and more. The majority will “hear” if you use their name. 

Set Your Privacy Settings: Most social networking sites offer privacy settings. If you are using a social network strictly for personal use, then set high privacy controls. Think about your objective for using the site—is it to establish your thought leadership and expertise? If so, you will not want high privacy settings so that you can be found.

Sign-up for Google Alerts for Your Name: Go to Google.com/alerts and sign-up to receive an email when your name appears on the Internet. Again, put your name in quotation marks to receive clean results.

In conclusion, monitor your online brand so that you can be proactive in managing your reputation.

This article first appeared in YOUnique Personal Branding Newsletter

©2012 Kristen Jacoway | Career Design Coach. All Rights Reserved.

In social media, it’s great to build your Google results by having profiles on social networking sites. I suggest to people that they pick 2-3 that they can update regularly. Which 2-3 should you pick? My general rule of thumb is to find out where your target audience (one we define through the personal branding process) “hangs out.” I am on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter for that reason.

Next, you need to develop your OWN guidelines / policies on accepting invitations from people. I know people on LinkedIn who only accept invitations from people that they have met and spent time with in person. On the other end of the spectrum, I know people who accept all LinkedIn invitations. Then, there are people who are open to accepting invitations from people they don’t know as long as the person includes a personal note and not the standard, “I’d like to include you on my LinkedIn network. ~ Kristen”

Facebook is the same–develop a policy and stick with it. I have created a business page to redirect people to where I post items of interest related to social media, job searching, blogging, etc. However, my personal Facebook account is one I reserve for my personal friends, family, and close colleagues. My personal page is where I share about my kids and other tidbits of my life that I want to remain private.

My personal Facebook page still is a great networking opportunity and as I have discussed in other blog posts, gave me a chance to reconnect with people from high school and college whom I might have never seen again. People there are able to read my profile and know what I do, however, I don’t “sell” and generally don’t promote things on my personal page unless I think that those people in my network would be interested.

Remember when you are “friending” someone on these websites to always include a personal note and let them know why you want to connect. If you don’t, chances are greater that the person will ignore the request. Develop your policies on social networking sites and use them in a way that best expresses your brand in the social media environments.

©2012 Kristen Jacoway | Career Design Coach. All Rights Reserved.

Are you wanting to find an automation tool to manage all your social networks. I’m going to discuss five such tools to help you streamline your time on social media.

1. Hellotxt (http://hellotxt.com/) is what I term as a social networking aggregator. Hellotxt posts your status updates from web, mobile, SMS, email, or other 3rd party applications through their API to more than 50 social networks. So, when I feel there is something I’d like to post to my Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter accounts, I’ll update my status at this one website. It only takes me a few seconds to do and I’ve pinged all three of my networking websites.
2. Ping.fm (http://ping.fm/) works much the same way as HelloTxt, posting your messages wherever you want to more than 30 social networking sites.
3. You can also add this application (http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2231777543) to your Facebook page so when you update your Twitter status, you’ll update your Facebook status. You will want to decide, though, if the people who are Facebook will want to read your tweets-especially if you tweet several times per day. I personally do not use this application anymore because my Facebook personal page is for friends and family. My Twitter account is more for expressing my personal brand for my business. To install it, you will click the “Go to Application” button and follow the instructions.
4. If you are on Twitter and want to ping Facebook and LinkedIn, simply use the hashtag #fb (Facebook) and #li (LinkedIn) at the end of your tweet. You can also check the Twitter box by your status update on LinkedIn so you can ping your Twitter account with the same status update (see picture to the right).
5. Hootsuite is another tool I use to schedule tweets (adding the #li and #fb hashtags) – see my previous blog post on Hootsuite for more information.

©2012 Kristen Jacoway | Career Design Coach. All Rights Reserved.

Have you wondered why in the past several days that people from whom you normally read posts are no longer showing up in your “Most Recent” feed on Facebook? In the past, when you switched from “Top News” to “Most Recent,” you were able to see all your friends and Liked pages posts. Facebook recently made a change and now the posts you see are based on an algorithm that shows the posts from the friends and pages with whom you regularly interact.

If this change works well for you, then there’s nothing you need to do as your default setting is at “Friends and pages you interact with most.” However, if you want to continue seeing posts from everyone, then changing your setting is easy to do.

First, click “Most Recent” at the top of your news feed. You will see a menu appear as pictured below and you will click the “Edit Options.”

Next, you will see a pop-up window that says, “Edit Your News Feed Settings.” All you have to do is click on the drop-down box by “Show posts from” and change your settings from “Friends and pages you interact with most” to “All of your friends and pages.”

Why did Facebook make this change? For some people, they will appreciate being able to cut out some of the “noise” on the news feed by just seeing the activity of friends you interact with most. However, for me personally, I’d rather glance / read through all my friends’ posts as well as the pages I have “Liked.”

Networking, both online and offline, is the most critical key to your job search success. In the ExecuNet Job Market Intelligence Report 2010, it is reported that 68% of executives found career options through networking. Networking is not just a job search strategy, it is a continual process of strengthening existing relationships as well as cultivating new ones.

This article first appeared on Classroom to Cubicle online magazine

©2012 Kristen Jacoway | Career Design Coach. All Rights Reserved.

One of my colleagues, Maria Duron, posted information on Facebook about Wisestamp. You can go to http://www.wisestamp.com and download a free version for your Firefox browser. At this writing, it is not supported on all email platforms, but is supported on many of the major platforms (i.e. Gmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL, and Hotmail).

3 Reasons to Use WiseStamp in Your Email Signatures

1.     You can include links to your social media platforms where you are active (they have 40+ social media platforms) and IM profiles.

2.     You can enter your blog’s RSS feed. As you see below, my signature includes the four social media platforms where I have an active presence. The “Career Design Coach’s Blog” includes a link to read the most current blog post. When I publish a new blog post, the link is automatically changed to the new URL and title.

3.     WiseStamp now offers an Email Apps Gallery that includes Twitter, StumbleUpon, Disclaimer, and more. The Twitter app shows your latest tweet, StumbleUpon lets you share your recent stumbled web page, and the Disclaimer app lets you add a disclaimer at the bottom of your sent emails.

As you are building your personal brand across social media, Wisestamp provides an excellent tool to brand your email signature. It supports HTML, so you can use a tool such as www.mylivesignature.com and “sign” your email with either your own signature (fee for this option) or with a font that you choose that most closely resembles your signature. I also use the “My Live Signature” to “sign” my blog posts. You can see in the picture below how my email signature currently appears. I use the signature HTML at the end of my blog posts on Career Design Coach to sign my name.

©2012 Kristen Jacoway | Career Design Coach. All Rights Reserved.

I created this video originally to demonstrate some pretty fascinating statistics about the power of social media in a job search. However, this information is equally relevant to career management. One of the strategies for establishing your personal brand online includes building profiles on professional platforms. Naturally, if you are working within a company, you will want to adhere to the company’s social media policies.

Top 5 Social Media Platforms for Career Management

How is building and participating on social media platforms helpful in career management? Networking and showing your expertise/thought leadership! Laurie Smith stated in her article, “Using Social Media as a Career Management Tool,”  there are five main tools that are especially effective for business owners, executives, and professionals looking to manage their career. They include:

• Facebook
• YouTube
• LinkedIn
• Blogging
• Twitter

Key Ingredient BEFORE Building an Online Presence

Remember, unlocking and leveraging your personal brand is the critical step prior to building online results. Why? Simply, you want to establish your expertise in the area(s) that best match your long-range goals.

Interestingly, Kelly Global Workforce Index™ reported on Nov. 11, 2010 that Americans say personal “branding” is key to employment opportunities. The traits individuals identified as most important in this article include:

• Verbal Communication Skills
• Technical Knowledge
• Resumes
• Written Communications
• Personal Attire
• Use of Social Media

During the next several articles, I will take you through steps to establish yourself and build your presence on these five platforms, giving you resources along the way. We’ll start with LinkedIn and look at building a stellar profile, importance of keywords (and a little known tip for a keyword-rich profile), must-have apps for your profile, building your network, and many more. We’ll also take a look at LinkedIn’s beta project, LinkedIn Signal, and discuss how this tool may revolutionize the way you utilize LinkedIn.

©2012 Kristen Jacoway | Career Design Coach. All Rights Reserved.