The other day I posted on how to blog when your industry or occupation hasn't embraced the whole social media thing. Today I ran across a great article on 15 Practices to Deepen Human Connection and Engagement Online that I think are a nice complement to some of my previous suggestions. Some of these ideas include: Ask people for advice and favors. People like to help. Helping others gives them... Read more →

Twitter--the 140 character social networking site--is becoming increasingly useful for job seekers. It doesn't work for everyone, of course, but it can certainly turbo-charge your networking, a key strategy for successful job hunting. It can also be an effective part of your personal branding campaign. Here, then, is a (somewhat) definitive link guide to getting a new job (or losing your current one) through Tweeting. (I put this together for... Read more →

I've written before about the importance of monitoring your online reputation. In today's economy this is even more important, both for individuals and organizations. Here's a nice article on strategies for monitoring your social media presence in 10 minutes a day. (There's some argument as to whether or not 10 minutes is a realistic timeframe, but still this is a do-able daily list). The comments offer a few additional ideas,... Read more →

Networking 2.0: Blogging Your Way Out of a Job... and Into a Career View more presentations from Sacha Chua. (tags: blogging web2.0) Last week, I asked my readers to share their best advice for using a blog for personal branding and job searching. As usual, I got some incredibly thoughtful and helpful responses that merit elevation to a new post. I've also added some links and other resources. So below... Read more →

Yesterday I suggested exploring your personal brand by using Wordle on your blog. Shannon Turlington tried that exercise out and found that she didn't like the results, so she "wordled" her semi-private journal where she's been writing about what she wants to do for the future. The results were much more to her liking. I think this is a great twist on the idea if what you're doing now isn't... Read more →

If you haven't seen it already, definitely check out Chris Brogan's free ebook, Personal Branding for the Business Professional. It's a quick read--mostly bullet points--and sums up some excellent strategies for building your professional reputation online. There's a lot you need to do offline, as well, like working to make yourself a career untouchable. I'd also suggest exploring the Total Leadership model. This is something I'll be using in the... Read more →

Apparently Glenn Tilton, President and CEO of United, didn't get the memo on personal branding. He didn't own his name as a domain, so the United pilots looking for his ouster purchased it and are using it to as the URL for the website, Glenn Tilton Must Go. A significant amount of Google juice there, as number 4 on a search for his name is the anti-Tilton site. Not that... Read more →

A few months ago I wrote a post on how to use del.ico.us to create an online portfolio. Yesterday Will Richardson posted that he'd used the idea to create his own portfolio, adding a couple of twists. First he suggested that he could repurpose the tag feed by pulling it into a Pageflakes (or Netvibes) tab. That's a great idea and one that could work really well if you wanted... Read more →

I've always said there's no such thing as job security. Whether we realize it or not, most of us are essentially independent contractors, working at the whim of our customers, assured of employment only as long as we are able to add value in some way. This weekend I started thinking about ways to become a "career untouchable." That is, how do we position ourselves so that we are always... Read more →

Why do you go to work in the morning? More importantly, what makes you WANT to go to work in the morning? Yes, it might be that pesky thing called a paycheck, but I'm guessing that those of us who bound out of bed, ready to hit the day, do so because we believe that the work we're doing has meaning, that we're contributing to something important. A lot of... Read more →