I have not heard many brands very excited about how Timeline would work for them, yet. Perhaps brands are happy with the current functionality and don’t want to lose it — or perhaps Facebook hasn’t given them enough information to form a true opinion yet.
If the brand timeline is anything like the personal timeline, it will provide great challenges for brands in their marketing.
Some areas of concern:
- Apps/Tabs – Where will they live in the new layout? Will their importance grow or be diminished?
- Community Management – Will Timeline make it easier to manage communities?
- Multi-Media – One frequent concern is how photos and videos appear on Timeline. They are stretched, squeezed and cut-off. Will that fly on brand pages?
- Switch Prep – What work will brands have to do to optimize their Timelines? Will ALL comments about a brand appear on a Timeline? Or can you toggle that feature like on the current brand Walls?
What questions do YOU have about Timeline for brands?
*Other factors and work experience contributed to ultimately getting hired, but the tweet got me noticed.
Guest Post by Jenny Weigle
When you find a job opportunity you’re truly excited about, it’s almost like the butterflies-in-your-stomach feeling on a first date. You’re hoping to impress somebody and that they’ll want to see you again, or in this case, hire you. That’s how I felt in October 2010. I was looking for a job in social media marketing or communications. At the time, I was lucky to find a number of these openings and had even lined up some interviews. A friend of mine emailed me a link to the listing for social media manager at CareerBuilder, and the butterflies grew as I read each bullet point in the description. “I can do all of this!” I said aloud in my apartment (alone).
Immediately, I started to work on my cover letter, which was my least favorite part of being a job seeker. My cover letters had never been my strong suit. I knew I needed an intro that would truly stand out. I decided to hold off on writing the intro and focus on the rest of the letter, discussing why I was qualified for the position and what I could bring to the table. In a few short hours, after many revisions, the letter was complete, minus the intro.
Since I wanted to work in social media, I considered that perhaps posting about my excitement on social media would work to my advantage. Or would that be considered tacky? Is it even appropriate to tweet about a job you’re applying for? Would the hiring manager even see it? And if so, would he/she be impressed or annoyed? I decided to go for it anyway. I posted the tweet below:
Then, I suddenly had a brilliant idea for the intro to my cover letter:
Dear Hiring Manager,
When my friend emailed me a link to the job description for Social Media Manager, I was so excited to read over it that I immediately tweeted “I have found the PERFECT job opportunity! Oh @CareerBuilder, I hope you like my resume and cover letter! #HopingtoImpressHiringManager.” As someone with a great passion for all-things-digital, I believe I would be an excellent candidate for this opportunity and could execute a brilliant social media strategy for CareerBuilder across multiple platforms and audiences.
I reviewed the cover letter and resume one last time and then submitted it to CareerBuilder. Less than two hours later, I received a tweet from the hiring manager:
The next morning, I had an email from the hiring manager, asking to set up a phone interview. After two more in-person interviews, I was offered my dream job! The most interesting aspect of all of this is that I didn’t even think to tweet about any of the other social media jobs I was interviewing for. (I guess none of them excited me in the way this one did.)
Lessons learned from this experience:
Don’t be afraid to connect with an employer’s public social media accounts (or send them a tweet)! Facebook and LinkedIn may be a bit too personal to connect on, but Twitter and Google+ would be fine.
Find a way to make your cover letter stand out from others.
Don’t rely on social media alone. I still had to make a good impression – in person – at every interview that followed.
Social media rocks.
Jenny Weigle is the social media manager for CareerBuilder. She shares her job seeker tips and social media marketing advice on Twitter and Google+.
As bookstores continue to close around the country, I remember spending hours going from section to section, sampling best-sellers, sports books, sci-fi and more.
The brain-child of Bob Fine, the magazine discusses everything in the social media world from various perspectives, with regular contributors and guest writers.
One of my favorite features is the cover. While many magazines have a cover “formula,” The Social Media Monthly has custom-made pieces of art contributed by different artists each issue. Brilliant and beautiful!
Full disclosure: the January edition featured an ad for my company, iostudio, included below (in the interest of shameless self-promotion).
But regardless of my or my company’s involvement in the magazine, I absolutely love the concept of a print magazine for a digital industry. If you want to learn about ANYTHING, there’s a magazine for you. So why should social media be different?
I tell her often, but not often enough, how proud I am of the incredible, creative, community-building work she’s done.
And now Angie is looking for a co-pilot to help run what she has turned into one of the biggest chats on all of Twitter!
See the details below – and if you think you’ve got what it takes, apply! Even if you think you MAY have what it takes, apply.
Whoever gets this gig will be lucky to learn from the best!
SEARCH FOR A NEW #SPORTSPRCHAT CO-HOST
Deadline: MONDAY, Jan. 30 @ 12noon ET
Thanks for your interest!
#SportsPRchat is a Twitter-hosted chat that occurs every Tuesday night at 9pm ET. The chat features questions based on current sports issues and communications trends affecting the industry. We post questions that will encourage conversation and discussion, and sometimes, even invite industry professionals to be special guest participants.
That said, I’d love to bring in a fresh face to help develop the chat and continue the work that #SportsPRchat founder, Mike Schaffer (@mikeschaffer), began.
So, are you the new player* in the #SportsPRchat game? I’m hosting try outs.* Batter up!*
If you’re interested, please send an email to adtaylor08@gmail.com with the following information:
Name, Twitter Handle
Contact Information
What is your current place of employment? or, What are you currently studying?
Y/N- Are you available to host #SportsPRchat Tuesday nights at 9pm ET? (weekly duties are split between co-hosts, each runs chat every other Tuesday)
Favorite sports teams and/or athletes?
Where do you get your sports news?
What would make you a good #SportsPRchat co-host?
No need to write an essay, but I want to hear from you!
Thanks again for checking this out. Please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.
Recently, I’ve been honored to make a few high-profile media appearances and receive a tremendous honor.
1) When high-end on-call car service Uber came under fire from the DC Taxi Commission, WJLA, Washington’s ABC affiliate, interviewed me about the clash. You can read my initial post on Uber here, read the WJLA.com here and watch the story here:
2) One of my favorite new websites is www.DistrictTribune.com. They combine two totally different business models: online news content gathering and traditional print journalism.
Despite being a website, they produce a full update each week, creating a reason to come to the site each week, to see the latest content and analysis.
When they asked to profile me, I was flattered and excited!
Henry, the new site’s editor, asked me about social media, my career, fatherhood and a bunch of other topics.
I discuss my favorite professional moment (so far), how businesses can use social media, and what projects are on my plate right now!
It’s an honor to be considered in the same breath as the people on this list – and a blast to see so many friends recognized for their excellence, especially Krista Paplau, who’s blog was my favorite addition to my reader in 2011.
PLEASE read all the other blogs on this list. They are all incredible and bring unique and special perspectives to the overall discussion on marketing communications.
I’ll be rooting for the Broncos when they play the Patriots in the NFL playoffs this weekend. Naturally, I’ll root against them if they should play my Ravens in the AFC Championship Game, but that’s a post for another time.
But, yes, I’ve got a case of Tebowmania.
Why, you ask?
Well, I’ve rooted for Tim Tebow ever since I had dinner with him and his mom while he was still in high school (photo below). I was doing PR for an organization that was awarding Tim for his accomplishments as a high school quarterback. While my religious beliefs don’t match up to those of the Tebow family, I respected their conviction, apparent honesty and determination to do the right thing. (We can debate what the “right thing” is, but if you sit down with him for any length of time, you can see that he feels what is right for him and will do it. I can respect that.)
So, he’s a good kid from a nice family.
But there’s so much more to it.
I have Tebowmania because he has blown-up the notion of how an NFL team can win.
The Denver Broncos have just won. Their offensive stats aren’t great. Tebow is NOT a prototypical NFL passer. But the Broncos have found ways to win. And the NFL is about wins and losses.
General Managers can fret over Tebow’s passing yards, completion percentage, points scored – but the ONLY stat that truly matters in this league is wins. If you win more than you lose, you’re a success.
The Broncos – and Tebow – have taken advantage of situations to make sure that at the end of the game, they have more points than the other team.
The notion of “god” wanting Tebow and the Broncos to win is just laughable, but I do really like the idea of a team winning in an unorthodox manner (see what I did there?).
Tebow has captured the imagination of people – I read recently that he is currently the most popular athlete in America.
If he guides the Broncos to victory this weekend over the Patriots, Tebowmania will continue to explode.
