Entrepreneurs and Companies: Peter Kim Your Guide Through Social Media Terrain

Recently I introduced Peter Kim to our readers, for some he was already a part of their regular reading, with the hopes that he could shed light on social media, measurement, and the trends that are developing. Including Patrick Kitano of Domus Consulting Group, Chris Brogan, and Guy Kawasaki, Peter Kim is one of the most important new thought practitioners of our times.

Who is Peter Kim?

Peter Kim is one of the most important architects of social media and a well respected social media expert. Peter is considered an expert in the art and science of “the intersection of social technology and marketing strategy.” He has been quoted by the most prestigious press organizations from the Wall Street Journal to CBS Evening News.

10 Articles Worth Your Time

At the end of each month, Peter performs his traffic analytics to see what was the most well read articles for that month. From this exercise, comes Peter’s Top 10 Content list. If you are a entrepreneur, small business, large corporation, or job seeker looking to move your message of value forward then this is a list that will provide great value:

1. A List of Social Media Marketing Examples
2. Social Media Predictions 2009
3. It’s Time To Transform
4. Why Web 2.0 Still Matters
5. Reputation Matters
6. How to break free from the echo chamber
7. A framework for measuring social media
8. Now’s the time, the time is now
9. The need for services in social technology
10. How to set an ego trap

Job Seekers and Entrepreneurs: Deliver Your Value First Through Social Media Revolution

Susan and I presented our workshop “Web 2.0’s Impact on Job Seekers: The Changing Roles of the Resume, Job Search, and Job Seeker” at CSIX this past Tuesday to a packed house of over 110 hopeful job seekers. As we settled into facilitating this workshop, we realized that for the first time we were about to present our complete thesis and theme.

Step 1

The most important step for job seekers and entrepreneurs is the understanding that you must deliver your value first, deliver it often, and deliver it to your strategically targeted audience.

“Hiring managers are using the Internet to get a more well-rounded view of job candidates in terms of their skills, accomplishments, and overall fit within the company”—Rosemary Haefner Vice President of Human Resource Careerbuilder.com

We have been supporting blogging as a more powerful and proactive “living” resume since June of 2008. Yet Tuesday was our first opportunity to evangelize the emergence of a paradigm shift, where social media tools and Web 2.0 strategies replaced the resume, as a job seeker’s main marketing tool.

Web 2.0 Paradigm Shift in Communications

The decades of mass media dominance and stranglehold over the control and flow of information is waning. Today is the greatest time in human history for communication, connectivity, collaboration, networking, and delivering your message of value, expertise, and experience to your strategicially targeted hiring managers and companies.

There is a global conversation going on between bloggers, people networking and finding opportunities on Linkedin, resources and messages being broadcast on Twitter, and companies searching for human capital talent throughout the social media stratosphere.

Companies Adopting Web 2.0 and Blogs: Tools to Promote Business

Our friend and blogger Ray Schiel, of globalsocialmedianetwork.com, has produced a massive resource page that outlines the participation of 105 major corporations in blogging, 64 on Facebook pages, 12 podcasting, 12 crowdsourcing sites, and 100’s of companies microblogging on Twitter.

Job Seekers’ Tip: These social media tools are being used by major corporations to promote their products, services, and business practices. If you want to connect with your target company, and they utilize social media tools, then this is a major opportunity to connect as well as demonstrate your understanding of their efforts.

Companies Monitoring Web 2.0 and Social Media: Screening and Hiring Practices

Not only are major corporations utilizing these tools for their own business practices, they are using them to find new talent and perform due diligence on potential applicants. Computer World’s “One in Five Employers Uses Social Networks in Hiring Process” outlines a Careerbuilder.com survey of 31,000 employers. The results are very compelling:

1.  24% of hiring managers “found content on social networks that helped convince them to hire a candidate.” In addition hiring managers said that “profiles showing a professional image and solid references can boost a candidates chances for a job.”

2.  22% of the 31,000 employers said they “peruse social networks to screen candidates.”

3.  9% more of the 31,000 employers said they are planning to do so

4.  A total of 9,600 employers are going to search for candidates and perform due diligence rather than rely on resumes to tell a job seekers story

Deliver Your Value First

The conclusion is that job seekers must deliver their value first before attempting to deliver their resume. Social media and Web 2.0 are changing job search. The resume is no longer a job seeker’s marketing tool. It is up to job seekers, in this very rough job market, to utilize these tools in order to stand apart and become memorable.

Entrepreneur’s Ultimate Twitter Guide to Applications

Twitter is one of the most important social media tools for entrepreneurs, job seekers, small businesses, and large companies. The multiple roles this tool plays in my business for Inner Architect are as research resource, broadcast mechanism, customer service pathway, and most importantly direct pipeline to new trends.

In addition to all this functionality and value, Twitter has a huge legion of fans dedicated to creating open source (free) applications to be used along with Twitter. The following list is a fantastic resource provided by blendingthemix.com. Thank you goes to my new friend, and essential read, Paul the creator of Blending the Mix–I owe you!

The Top 100 List

Ok, so the title is a little sensationalist, but I had to get you here somehow so you could see the most bookmarked web-based Twitter applications of the moment!! Note that these has been put together on the basis of the number of saved bookmarks on delicious and clearly not THE definitive list based on registered users or traffic.

• twitter (13566)

1. twittervision (4282 overall)
2. twitterfeed (3867 overall)
3. twhirl (3319 overall)
4. tweetscan (2655 overall)
5. twistori (2631 overall)
6. twitter-search (2500 overall)
7. tweetdeck (2439 overall)
8. twitpic (2244 overall)
9. hellotxt (1979 overall)
10. twitterrific (1729 overall)
11. twitterholic (1612 overall)
12. tweetstats (1549 overall)
13. twellow (1527 overall)
14. twitturly (1460 overall)
15. twitter-grader (1431 overall)
16. twitscoop (1410 overall)
17. quotably (1334 overall)
18. twitterlocal (1319 overall)
19. monitter (1285 overall)
20. twubble (1264 overall)
21. twittearth (1191 overall)
22. grouptweet (1180 overall)
23. hashtags (1124 overall)
24. tweetburner (1113 overall)
25. twitbin (1093 overall)
26. twittercounter (1081 overall)
27. tweetlater (994 overall)
28. terraminds-twitter-search (966 overall)
29. tweetvolume (944 overall)
30. qwitter (935 overall)
31. friendorfollow (929 overall)
32. twitthis (902 overall)
33. twist (883 overall)
34. twitter-karma (854 overall)
35. xpenser (822 overall)
36. twittermail (813 overall)
37. twemes (803 overall)
38. tweetbeep (803 overall)
39. twitdir (770 overall)
40. twitxr (767 overall)
41. twitterfox (760 overall)
42. hahlo (688 overall)
43. twinfluence (654 overall)
44. tweetmeme (652 overall)
45. tweetwheel (647 overall)
46. twuffer (636 overall)
47. botanicalls-twitter-diy (631 overall)
48. twittersnooze (629 overall)
49. twtpoll (614 overall)
50. mrtweet (609 overall)
51. twittercal (605 overall)
52. remember-the-milk-for-twitter (594 overall)
53. snitter (593 overall)
54. twitterpatterns (585 overall)
55. strawpollnow (575 overall)
56. twitterfone (547 overall)
57. whoshouldifollow (539 overall)
58. twitbacks (539 overall)
59. tweetr (526 overall)
60. twitdom (525 overall)
61. tweetree (522 overall)
62. favrd (520 overall)
63. election.twitter (506 overall)
64. peoplebrowsr (501 overall)
65. tweetclouds (498 overall)
66. pockettweets (498 overall)
67. cursebird (488 overall)
68. twistory (480 overall)
69. twitterverse (470 overall)
70. tweetgrid (470 overall)
71. twittermap (466 overall)
72. tweetag (458 overall)
73. twilert (457 overall)
74. twitterposter (456 overall)
75. loudtwitter (443 overall)
76. twitterfriends (439 overall)
77. spaz (431 overall)
78. be-a-magpie (421 overall)
79. tweetake (420 overall)
80. twitter-friends-network-browser (419 overall)
81. matt (414 overall)
82. twitter100 (411 overall)
83. colorwar2008 (411 overall)
84. twitteroo (408 overall)
85. tweetrush (389 overall)
86. fuelfrog (385 overall)
87. twitter-blocks (383 overall)
88. tweeterboard (375 overall)
89. spy (373 overall)
90. twerpscan (372 overall)
91. splitweet (371 overall)
92. twittergram (364 overall)
93. twittgroups (362 overall)
94. brightkit (361 overall)
95. twitlinks (359 overall)
96. twitternotes (358 overall)
97. tweetwasters (354 overall)
98. foodfeed (352 overall)
99. twitterblacklist (348 overall)
100. twitku (347 overall)

Thanks to MOMB for doing all the hard work.

Golden Gate Computer Society Presents Tony Stubblebine of Crowdvine

The Golden Gate Computer Society is a fantastic group designed to help educate people, provide networking opportunities, and create a forum for new ideas and trends in the computer industry. Keeping with it’s long standing practice of presenting important speakers and information, tonight’s event, at the Four Points Sheraton Hotel in San Rafael, showcases Tony Stubblebine of Crowdvine. Watch the video to learn more about Tony and his innovative company:

Entrepreneurs and Corporations Measure the Impact of Social Media

Today 105 major corporations, more adopting everyday, have corporate blogs that engage their audience, tell their story, deliver their value, and offer a place for insight. Entrepreneurs are at the forefront of this evolution. In addition, many of these corporations are adopting social media tools like Twitter and Facebook as tools to help create audience and “evangelists” for their products and services. The following are steps provided by Peter Kim on how to measure a social media campaign.

Peter Kim is one of the most important architects of social media and a well respected new thought practitioners. Peter is considered an expert in the art and science of “the intersection of social technology and marketing strategy.” He has been quoted by the most prestigious press organizations from the Wall Street Journal to CBS Evening News.

In Peter’s article “A framework for measuring social media” he outlines four concepts that provide the framework for social media measurement or ROI:

1. Attention: “The amount of traffic to your content for a given period of time.  Similar to the standard web metrics of site visits and page/video views.”

IA: Your readership can vary in many ways and although measuring number of readers and page views is quite telling, average time per visit is a major factor. Simply put how long a person stays on your site reading your content can be indicative to your content’s value in the eyes of your readers.

2. Participation: “The extent to which users engage with your content in a channel.  Think blog comments, Facebook wall posts, YouTube ratings, or widget interactions.”

IA: Key is a users willingness to engage with other users on your site. The comment section for each blog post has the potential to become their own mini “forums.” Within these forums your readers debate your content, collaborate, and communicate freely. One of the best examples of this is on ChrisBrogan.com another social media expert.

3. Authority: “Ala Technorati, the inbound links to your content – like trackbacks and inbound links to a blog post or sites linking to a YouTube video.”

IA: Although Technorati is the most well known inbound link measurement site, it is often not as accurate as Google. Peter is right on the money here with the fact that your trackbacks and inbound links are absolutely critical in measuring your content’s effectiveness in attracting readers.

4. Influence: “The size of the user base subscribed to your content.  For blogs, feed or email subscribers; followers on Twitter or Friendfeed; or fans of your Facebook page.”

IA: Attracting subscribers means you are producing excellent content. Yet in some cases, the subscription numbers can be “infected” by misleading subscription growth trends based on inaccurate numbers.

New $330 Million Class Action Suit Targets LandAmerica 1031 Exchange Services and Sun Trust Bank

Chicago Sun-Times news service published this deansguide article 1-21-09

In what must be the most frustrating of 1031 exchange collapses, clients of title insurance mainstay LandAmerica have filed a $330 million class action suit against  the failed LandAmerica Exchange Services, part of LandAmerica title, and Sun Trust Bank. According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch story the charges specifically focus on actions of “defrauding clients by using their money to pay off other clients.” That would sound like an old fashion ponzi scheme and have we not heard this story before in the Ed Okun 1031 Tax Group travasty?

Two Principles Named

According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Emily C. Dooley, two top executives for LandAmerica 1031 Exchange Services were named in the suit a Stephen Connor and G.William Evans. “Evans is also the chief financial officer for LandAmerica Financial Group” according to the story.

The Final Final

According to Dooley’s report “The lawsuit claims that LandAmerica used money from new customers to pay off older customers whose money had become inaccessible because it was invested in auction-rate securities, a type of credit that froze in February.”

Remarked Robert L. “Rusty” Brace  California attorney for one of the victims: “Once that market failed, [LandAmerica Exchange Services] should have shut down.  .  . Our money was used to pay those other exchangers.”

Tips for Entrepreneurs: How Do You Work on the Road?

Chefs.com published this deansguide article 1-14-09

Special welcome to Chefs.com as a new publisher of deansguide content. Thank you and welcome!

What does a networking day look like to you? I drive 150 miles round trip to network in Silicon Valley one to two days a week. The following are tips on how to develop your day, on the fly, when things change unexpectedly. The first scenario represents my original plans for my day. The second scenario is the reality that was my day.

Road Tips to Save Time, Educate, and Accomplish Tasks

1. Practice Time: I practice one of my 5 workshop presentations on the 60 minute drive to the Valley. It is quiet time and a great place to practice

2. GPS: A GPS system for your car is a simple tool to keep you from losing time consulting your iPhone or laptop in search of directions.

3. Buffer and Flexibility: Schedule enough time between events, sales calls, or appointments so that you can reconnect with business tasks, call backs, and keep your day moving on all fronts of your business.

4. Give Value : Be prepared to give files, printed materials, articles, and any reference resources when you are making sales calls, new consultations, networking events, or any other place you wish to give value or support your points.

5. Be Ready for Opportunity: Be ready to present your case, workshop, or product at the drop of a hat.

My Schedule Before the Day

1. 10:00am-1:30pm  CSIX Connect: This is the best employment group meeting in the Valley. The meeting runs from 10:30-1:00 at the iRestaurant in Cupertino. It includes lunch, networking, and speaker’s workshop. This is stop #1 in my day.

2. 2:00 and 3:00pm Consultations: I scheduled two consultations after the CSIX meeting.Both of my consultations centered around current clients’ needs and my need for an evaluation of their efforts to date.

3.  3:30pm Sales Call: ProMatch is a large Edd group in Sunnyvale that Susan has presented to in the past. My goal is to secure a speaking engagement on blogging to employment, Linkedin, Twitter or any social media Web 2.0 subject.

4.  4:30pm Administration: Send follow up documents and monitor our blog.

5.  5:30pm De Anza Community College: Inquire about facility rental, sales call, schedule meeting to pitch social media curriculum.

6.  6:30-7:00pm: Final call backs, wait for rush hour to thin begin home at 7:00pm

My Actual Day

1. 10:00am-3:00pm CSIX Connect: I met 7 new contacts and our lunch conversation continued until 2:00.

2.  3:00-3:45pm New Consultation: I met with a new contact to discuss social media for job seekers

3.  4:00-5:00pm New Consultation: I met with a new contact to discuss change, transition, and understanding direction.

4.  ProMatch: my opportunity to reconnect with my contacts at ProMatch is gone as they close at 4:00pm

5.  5:20pm Phone Consultation: In coming call from former client to reevaluate past issues. New focus and strategy discussed. Invite to attend ASTD monthly meeting.

6.  6:00-8:00pm ASTD “Mentoring” : Kim Wise gave a very interesting presentation on the benefits of mentoring to companies and individuals, software developed for mentor selection, and her vision of future trends in organizational development.

Win $1 Million California Home for $150

The auction and contest trend for selling a home in a tough real estate market continues with the latest edition. The Bahms of Tracy, Ca have created a contest with a twist. For the price of a $150 entry fee and the answer to their own word question, you can be the lucky owner of their ranch style home.

The Deal

The Bahms make make money on their contest by selling 11,000 entry fees at $150. That is the minimum number of tickets necessary to make the contest official. With that number the Bahms would be looking at a cool $1.6 million. They decided to cap the number at 13,000 which would mean $1.9 million payday.

The Charity

The Bahms have been quoted, by the Contra Costa Times, as stating they would like to donate $300,000 of their fee total to the charities of their choice. In any economic times, that is a noble gesture.

Job Seeker’s Guide to Making the Hiring Manager Happy

Careerbuilder.com ran a survey of 31,000 employers about their use of social media in screening and finding job applicants. The results include:

• More than 1 in 5 employers use social media sites to screen job applicants
• 22% of the 31,000 employers said they use social media to find human capital
• 9% more said they would begin utilizing social media sites in 2009
• 31% or nearly 10,000 employers will focus on social media as a recruiting and screening tool in 2009

The writing, pardon the pun, is on the wall. If you want to make a hiring manager happy, and help yourself, you will adopt all of the steps outlined below to help you–stand apart from the competition.

Silicon Valley star Guy Kawasaki did not intend for his chapter “The Art of Driving Your Competition Crazy” in Reality Check to be job seeker’s advice; yet the main theme is vital for any job seeker’s success. The chapter outlines 8 steps to drive your competition crazy aimed at helping entrepreneurs and corporations understand how to win at the art of business.The most valuable theme and step is “Focus on the customer.” Guy outlines the irony that entrepreneurs and businesses should not take action against the competition–don’t do anything to them but everything for the customer.

Theme: Make the Hiring Manager Happy

The idea and theme here is to ignore your competition and focus completely on a hiring manager’s happiness. Ignore the millions who are out of work and competing for the same jobs, ignore the pundits who continue to fuel the panic, ignore the negative naysayers who continue to bring your spirit down.

Instead think about what makes hiring managers happy? How about taking the task of reading resumes off their plate. What about saving them time, energy, and focus by removing the screening process that entails resumes and cover letters. Why not remove the gray areas and guess work for a hiring manager by delivering a better more revealing resource than a resume which is simply a job seeker’s listing of their value? How about removing the issue of back checking aka background checks to validate claims on a resume? Why not attempt to reduce their time wasted recruiting and looking for the right candidate for the job when you are available?

Most Hiring Managers Dislike:

• Deluge of resumes create huge time crunch
• Lost productivity in their own jobs due to resume review process
• Tasking other people from their jobs to help in the review of resumes
• Guess work involved in hoping they choose the right candidate
• Decisions about new hires ultimately reflect upon the hiring manager’s own judgment
• Lack of information or verifiable proof that job seeker can deliver their listed values in their resume

Make a Hiring Manager Happy:

• Craft your value message of expertise, accomplishments, and experience
• Establish your “employment campaign” blog that delivers your value message
• Research how you can provide value to targeted hiring managers then deliver your value message
• Write a keyword rich, descriptive, and opportunity message Linkedin profile
• Utilize Twitter to broadcast and deliver your value message
• Research your target companies for their participation in Web 2.0 blogging, social media networking, and engage them through these channel

California 1 of 5 States With Worst Unemployment Rate

FoxBusiness.com published this deansguide article 1-11-09
The Courier News member of the Chicago Sun-Times News Group published this deansguide article 1-11-09
Post Tribune member of the Chicago Sun-Times News Group published this deansguide article 1-11-09

California has 1 of the 5 highest unemployment rates in the country according to a new report from the Associated Press Ray Henry and Christopher Rugaber. The most telling factor is that each state has something in common “a heightened exposure to the root causes of this downward spiral.”

Factors in Common:

• Housing collapse
• Auto Industry implosion
• Financial Services meltdown
• Manufacturing decline

5 Worst States by Unemployment Numbers and Symptoms:

1. Michigan: Auto industry’s near collapse and uncertainty.

2. Rhode Island: Manufacturing decline and construction stoppages

3. South Carolina: Manufacturing decline, construction losses

4. California: Housing market implosion, lender meltdown, builder losses, foreclosures

5. Oregon: Timber industry hurt by housing stall

Real Estate’s Role in California’s Economic Woes:

A very telling fact is  California’s unemployment rate of  8.4%, third highest in the nation, has been primarily due to the collapse of the real estate market. Nothing surprising in that statement but “in the year ending in November 2008, 71 percent of the nonfarm jobs lost in California were housing-related.”