8 Steps to Leverage Social Networks

By : John o'connor

Recently a colleague suggested I help an executive job seeker who was having trouble making sense of the online social networks he thought were supposed to support his job search. Let me call this person “Paul.”

Paul came to me with no less than 50 pages of contacts, resume material and logs from his multi-month job search online and offline. As he recounted the hours he’d spent networking, sending resumes, posting to blogs and using social-media channels, I realized that his unfocused activity had been counterproductive.

The following eight steps helped Paul put his online social networking into its proper place:

1. Focus on outstanding content, not simply exposure. Paul developed comments on blogs and
short articles for two industry-specific publications where he could grow his authentic brand.
2. Decide in advance what you want to accomplish with social networks. He stopped “chatting”
with people about myriad issues and developed a business plan for his search and
professional conduct.
3. How you behave online is how you will behave in person. He stopped the one-way
conversations (via opinions added to Comments pages) and started interacting with key
professionals in his field on a number of niche channels, groups on LinkedIn and more.
4. A weak online profile equals a weak executive. Paul had his resume professionally reworked,
then refined it to fit his LinkedIn profile and used various versions to populate other
channels where people could read his bio.
5. Your online profile must match the media. He created two one-minute, industry-focused
videos that demonstrated his activity in the industry and added them to his YouTube
channel.
6. Keywords, bio and resume must create a compelling brand focused on a productive purpose.
Paul engineered his bio to attract third-party recruiters and began communicating with
third-party and corporate recruiters he met through The Ladders Follow Me feature and via
other professional introductions. He was also found by recruiters who were hunting for
keywords, phrases and other digital insight that let them know he may be an excellent
placement candidate.
7. Concentrate on one or just a few social networking opportunities ... leave the others behind.
He simplified his social-media interactions on eight different channels and focused on a few
industry channels that helped him broadcast his value proposition vs. his needs; in fact, he
quit 10 “job-seeker” groups on LinkedIn in favor of industry- and association-focused
groups within his profession and started interacting with top peers in his field.
8. Social networks may require a new degree of transparency and originality — he stopped
trying to sell his skills and just enhanced his professional connections and brand.

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