Digital Biographer™

This article was originally published here at Digital Biographer in January 2008. That’s Eight. A year ago. I think it still is very relevant a year later.

The significance of social networks is now starting to become obvious to the marketing departments of larger companies, largely due to two factors - 1) Traditional advertising channels are proving less and less effective and 2) Marketing and advertising agencies have started to realise where people are spending their time.

They have seen the writing on the wall - with one particular statistic likely to be a challenge for many a marketing manager: “Social networks will become the dominant channel for viral marketing campaigns - email has been the dominant channel for viral marketing campaigns since the mid 90s, but social networks will overtake it in 2008.”

Another fact that’s staring marketers in the face - a tipping point that only has one further hurdle to clear: “In October 2007, Social Networks accounted for 7.7% of upstream Internet traffic to all other websites, making the category the second most important source of traffic after Search Engines.”

The next hurdle of course is for social networks to become a more important source of traffic than search engines. That’s a whole blog of its own, however.

An article in this morning’s Financial Times is entitled “Business urged to woo social network figures“, and uses language very firmly couched in the tradition of ‘moving product’ and the pages of publications such as ‘Campaign‘. This all suggests to me that although businesses may have woken up, they have not actually smelt the coffee - they still have the urge to sell cereals.
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2.0, brand, conversation 2.0, corporate blogs, search marketing, social media Blog, Business, Marketing, Marketing and Advertising, online reputation management, social media

Twellow, the ‘yellow pages for Twitter‘, has improved its utility with the ability to create your own biography entry.

As well as being able to claim your twitter profile, and classify yourself in up to 10 categories (although I’m in 14 for some reason), you can also add your own social media links to your profiles on Pownce, LinkedIn, Flickr, FriendFeed, etcetera - as well as creating a brief summary and what’s termed a ‘bio’ or biography entry.

The search facility in Twellow includes the data in your summary and pick ups keywords and links used there, and your biography information can also include basic HTML, so links and visual formatting can be added. The summary is indexed in search - the biography does not appear to be indexed yet.

Apart from being a great way to find people using Twitter with similar interests, and pinpointing interesting people to follow, categorized Twellow profiles are also becoming visible in Google and Yahoo searches. So I’d recommend making sure you claim your profile at Twellow and add your details and social links to ensure your online visibility and credibility stay high. It’s free, and there are over half a million people listed there, so it’s worth spending a few minutes to make sure you’re visible, coherent, and linked up here.

2.0, authority, brand, googlicious, linkedin, microblogging, online identity, search marketing, social media online identity, online reputation management, search marketing, twellow, Twitter, visibility

Twenty-two percent of hiring managers said they use social networking sites to research job candidates, up from 11 percent in 2006, according to a nationwide survey of more than 3,100 employers from CareerBuilder.com. An additional 9 per cent said they don’t currently use social networking sites to screen potential employees, but plan to start.

Of those hiring managers who have screened job candidates via social networking profiles, one-third (34 percent) reported they found content that caused them to dismiss the candidate from consideration. THAT IS MORE THAN ONE IN THREE.

Top areas for concern among these hiring managers included:

• 41% - information about them drinking or using drugs
• 40% - provocative or inappropriate photographs or information
• 29% - poor communication skills
• 22% - screen name was unprofessional
• 19% - shared confidential information from previous employers

On the other hand, social networking profiles also can give job seekers an edge over the competition. Twenty-four percent of hiring managers who researched job candidates via social networking sites said they “found content that helped to solidify their decision to hire the candidate“.

Top factors that influenced their hiring decision included:

• 48% - candidate’s background supported their qualifications for the job
• 43% - candidate had great communication skills
• 36% - candidate’s site conveyed a professional image
• 31% - candidate had great references posted about them by others
• 24% - candidate’s profile was creative

So, if you’re aiming to be hired, you need to make sure your online profiles match the picture you want a potential employer to see, because there’s a greater than one in five chance that they will check out your profile online, and an even greater chance that if they see something they like there, that fact will help you to get the job you have applied for.

The careerbuilder site gives a number of fairly obvious tips to ensure you are viewed favourably, but I have a few more:

1. Use online profiles to create positive information about yourself, and ask for recommendations or testimonials from others that can be placed on these profiles. LinkedIn is probably the best example where you can receive testimonials from work colleagues, associates and employers.
2. Monitor your own name with a service such as Google Alerts - or if you are really serious about managing your reputation online, try Trackur - it has a 14-day free trial.
3. invest in your own name as a domain name, especially if you have a common name. I own both davidpetherick.name and davidpetherick.com, for example. And add content and commentary there - preferably right in the heart of your area of expertise - but also as a place where you can show diverse aspects of your personality or interests.

The survey was conducted online within the U.S. by Harris Interactive on behalf of CareerBuilder.com among 3,169 hiring managers and human resource professionals (employed full-time; not self-employed; with at least significant involvement in hiring decisions) and 8,785 employees (employed full-time; not self-employed) ages 18 and over between May 22 and June 13, 2008, respectively.

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Two terms have come to my attention in the last 24 hours. One was “Social Media Management Fees“, the other “Authority Blogging“.

Social Media Management Fees

Yes. The term makes sense, now that I’ve heard it.Mike Coulter of Digital Agency coined the term today, in a thoughtful blog exploring why what should be an invoice item adding significantly to the bottom line of numerous ad agencies, pr companies, digital agencies and general ‘new media’ outfits, isn’t.

I realise I’ve been charging customers Social Media Management Fees (SMMF) since 2006, but only now realised there was such a concise term to describe what I’m charging money for. I always hated ‘online reputation management’ because it always suggested spin and PR, and glossing over things - something I don’t, and won’t do for customers.

Blog Authority / Authority Blogging

I added the term ‘Authority’ to the list of functions for my company Clarocada in 2005. Clarocada Russia, Clarocada Emedia, which is now termed Clarocada Interactive, Clarocada Barcelona, and Clarocada Authority. I initially was aiming to help authors (those with authority, if you follow) to create a voice online, through blogs and social media, and to help them to promote their work to readers, and to perhaps gain other writing assignments.

I’d forgotten, of course, that authors are, in general, a complete pain in the butt to work with. (There are exceptions, but I am not one of them). So I moved more towards offering my services to those in business, who were idea-rich, but time-poor, in order to let them gain ‘Authority’. The term ‘Digital Biographer‘, which I was tentative about using up until it became the headline in a story on the BBC, has always been one that’s not entirely described ‘the full story’. If it’s good enough for BBC News, it’s certainly good enough for me.

I was also interested to note that in May 2007, Technorati coined the term ‘Authority’ to refer to the number of blogs linking to a site in their ‘Technorati Authority’ - so if 193 sites link to you, you have ‘higher authority’ than if, say, 6 sites link to you.

But it was when I read an article referred to by Chris Brogan yesterday, in his Google Reader Share List, where the term “Authority Blogger” was used to describe a service ‘to learn how to use a blog as a way for growing their profile, credibility and influence’. As I looked at the term, I realised this was what I should have called ‘Clarocada Authority’ three years back.

Never mind. A similar phrase did still appear in the description of the service for writers as ‘Blog Authority’.

Calling Names and Bad Language

It’s natural that as a new set of terms and services evolve, language evolves and new terms are created to describe them - some of which dates and is irrelevant very rapidly, and other elements of which becomes common usage. The term ‘new media’ is already looking a bit tired, but it was all the buzz around 2001. By the same token, the term ‘blog’ is far from universally understood even now, in September 2008. And don’t let’s get started on what ‘Web 2.0′ really means…

However, it’s nice to see that a term I’ve used in the past has come to roost in a niche it describes fairly precisely, and that others use the term with essentially the same meaning. As Mike Coulter put it - “I might be on to something.” An accurate way to describe the service I’m asking people to pay for is most definitely an example of good language!

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