Welcome to Career Flash, a new feature from Onward Search where I share articles and stories that offer career boosting insight and advice. Let’s get down to business, shall we?
This post is from one of my favorite bloggers, Lisa Barone, over at Outspoken Media. While the debate over the merits of Quora continues, Lisa extracts a very important point from those conversations about Social Media ROI expectations. She creatively calls it “The Drive-Thru Mentality Of Social Media”.
The point here is simple and it applies just as much to job seekers and creative professionals as it does to marketing executives: the time and effort you invest engaging and interacting with others will dictate your Social Media ROI.
This means if you’re a job seeker, you can’t expect to strengthen your personal brand and expand your professional opportunities just because you’re “on” Twitter and you “have” a LinkedIn profile. Tom Hull, VP Executive Search, from the Onward Search Executive Search Team remarked, “Interacting and participating in social communities will raise your professional profile, and more importantly, separate you from other candidates that have a similar skill set. Your social media strategy should be to link your professional experience with who you are: your personality, interests and thoughts on the industry. The more you put in, the more you’ll get back. ”
The real reward to be gleaned from using Social Media comes from reaching out, asking/answering questions and above all else, offering something to the world.
If you’re not actively participating in Social Media to boost your career or your job search, reach out to Tom or anyone of the Onward Search recruiters. Not only will they connect you with top job opportunities around the country, they’ll give you the best advice on leveraging Social Media for your career.
Have a success story about Social Media ROI? Share your techniques and anecdotes below so we can all benefit from your experiences!
