As some of our readers know, I’m an adjunct instructor of business writing at Boston University’s College of Communication. For years, I’ve loved and given my all to the gig, a blessing to have. When I started, back in January of 2003, my teaching method was close enough for jazz, but I’m much better today at muscling a classroom of students through a semester’s worth of information that’s at turns boring and tedious.
Yes, muscle can be necessary; creative writing my course is not. We’re talking the ins and outs of press release writing and similar fare, and it’s a pleasure to give the students a break from that and welcome outside muscle from time to time. A couple weeks ago was one of those times, when Jindrich Liska, CEO and founder of Jobmagic, was the guest speaker, sharing with my students his wisdom on how social media can help young people find an internship and, later, a job.
Jobmagic is one of those technologies that prove why #CareerGravity helps you to fashion the career you want. The tool that Jindrich and his team have developed to help recruiters find the very best job seekers in social media, Jobmagic is a play on the notion that hiring organizations benefit from an efficient way to listen for and find job seekers who are on social media. To me, that sounds like #CareerGravity—in reverse. And it is. Look at it this way: If hiring organizations are investing money in technology to help their recruiters find job seekers in social media, doesn’t it make sense for you to have the very best social media footprint around, to trump your competition?
Hello, Captain Obvious! Of course it does.
Famous People in Online Glass Houses
Have you ever poked around Facebook, just to see whether or not you could catch a glimpse of a famous person’s personal page? Yes, celebrities are fun to look up on Facebook. So are the monsters of business. Bill Gates, Oprah, Amazon founder Mike Bezos, casino magnate Steve Wynn and others come to mind. From the links, you can see that some, though not all, have a Facebook public figure profile viewable to anyone, friend or not.
During his presentation to my class, Jindrich shared one such businessperson’s public figure Facebook page, that of Marc Benioff. Benioff is chairman and CEO of salesforce.com, a company that gave rise to and then revolutionized and dominated cloud computing in the marketing and sales market spaces. The idea, for those interested in knowing, is that a software application can reside on the servers of a company that creates it, to be delivered via the web to clients, who then benefit by no longer needing to maintain the software on their premises. The potential for savings is high, and because of this, Benioff’s company has thrived.
Marc Benioff Meets the Black Eyed Peas and Neil Young on Facebook
Benioff is an avid user of Facebook, and his presence there is professional. His is in fact a case-in-point example of how you, too, can use Facebook as a projection of your personal brand, expressed professionally. Facebook won’t allow you, a mere mortal, to have a public figure page, but these famous people’s public figure pages can inform how you approach your own, regular page on Facebook.
Note, for instance, the image spanning the top of Benioff’s page. What’s there is provocative. To his left, isn’t that the guy from the Black Eyed Peas? And, to his right, isn’t that Neil Young? Apparently, Benioff, the Black Eyed Peas guy and Neil Young shared the stage for a panel discussion at some sort of an event. That’s interesting. Dig deep: You just might have an at once provocative and professional image of yourself to share. Consider making it the banner image of your Facebook Timeline, and consider reading our primer on Facebook Timeline.
image credits:
No comments yet.