With social media as big as it is now, learning how to find a job using social media can play a huge part in landing a good job because employers are watching and learning what a job candidate is really like through social media websites like Facebook. Social media is fast becoming the #1 hangout of most people with active users reaching towards 700 million by the end of 2011. College students make up a large part of the social media network industry, especially on.  With jobs being scarce as they are learning how to find a job using social media is not a bad idea, especially for college grads that have student loans staring them down.

Social media (incase you’ve been living in a cave, monastery or a convent without electricity for the last 6 or 7 years), is definitely a place you can let all your friends know what you have been up to, what you are doing, and is in many cases a snapshot of who, what, and how you are. And equally so, it’s a place where you can get a glimpse of what your friends (and their friends) are up to. It is the ultimate networking tool, whether you use it for a toy to waste time or a tool to build your personal or business brand.

Most teens and 20 something year olds are not too concerned about what their friends may say about them or carry on about on their profile walls or comments on their status messages, posts or photos. What this demographic (targeted group) often overlooks is that potential employers or even worse, potential ‘in-laws’ can also see who they are and what their lifestyle is like. Employers have found that social media provides them an excellent opportunity to learn more about potential employees. The harsh reality is that employers can also monitor the conduct of employees through social media network profiles. I know what you’re thinking. You’re saying to yourself, “I can just hide my profile from my boss,” right? How long will that last, especially if your boss or human resource manager asks why they can’t see it.

If an employer sees a lifestyle and reputation of an employee as casting a negative light on their company – especially in professional sales or where an employee has active interaction with the public – it could mean grounds for termination. If the proverb is true that says you become like those you associate with, it would not take an employer very long to decide if a candidate for a particular position or an employee in their company was ‘company material’ or not. Whether its your profile photo, your photo album, your status messages, the comments and banter that go with them, or even the profiles of your associations on Facebook (or whatever social media network you most enjoy), it can become a double-edged sword in your life if you are not careful.

Yes, it’s great being able to let your hair down (if you have it) and let ‘your world’ see how crazy and fun you are. No one knows better than this author. Keep in mind that the Internet can capture a single moment of your life (good or bad) or any indiscretions. Whether you want it or not, it can be forever online with your name attached to it. Keep in mind that in many cases, your life is only a Google search away from anyone that seeks to find out who, what, and how you are OR what you have done – whether for good or otherwise.

Here are some practical steps that you may want to seriously consider if you want to guard against the lure of ‘letting it all hang out’ online and suffering the consequences of doing so:

1) Decide once and for all if the Internet will be a toy in your life or a tool. I am not saying that you cannot enjoy using the Internet for recreation or for fun. I have personally enjoyed more hours than I would like to admit playing games online with my children – I mean hundreds of hours. The Internet is a great place to relax or decompress, for sure. However, we must each decide to what extent we will take our ‘enjoyment’ of the Internet, and how much of our enjoyment (personal lifestyle) will become public. Ultimately, the person that begins to see the Internet and social media as a tool, will be way ahead of the rest of their peers in today’s electronic global business world and marketplace.

2) If you have a social media network profile(s), consider purging photos of you that would cast a questionable shadow over your lifestyle and character. This means un-tagging yourself in photos that others have posted as well as removing photos that you have posted that just plain ‘stupid’ to have posted. It is even smarter to ask those who have ‘compromising photos of you to delete them completely, not only from their social media profile, but from their computers. If a picture is worth a thousand words, and a picture of you in a compromising situation could end up in front of your employer, or even worse, your future spouse… and even worse than that, his or her parents, your parents or even your children …by all means, do all that you can to erase those compromising photos from your history.

3) Never do or say or show anything online that you would not want the entire world to have access to or find out about you. Even with password protection, private communities, and personal Websites or profiles, most basic hacking tools can break through most privacy protections and gain access to your ‘personal’ life, especially if your personal life is not encrypted using SSL with strong encryption. If someone wants to dig up dirt on you, they can.

4) A social media presence is the ultimate character reference in some employers eyes, because it reflects the sort of person you are and the sort of character you have.  Jobs have even been lost because of employers finding and reviewing potential employee’s social media profiles. Consider rewriting your social media network profile to show the ‘adult’ you to the world and what you really are like at your core as an individual and responsible adult. This will be one of the greatest assets in reflecting who you are to a potential employer. And yes, employers DO check social media profiles (and even sometimes ask for you to show them your profile while interviewing you so that they can learn more about you and how you will fit into their organization. Be excited about sharing it with them should they ask, and be able to because you know that it is something ‘your momma would like.’

5) Consider setting up a self-hosted Website for yourself where you can post your résumé, letters of reference, and information about the real you to a potential employer. Having a ‘cleaned up’ social media profile is important, but having your own self-hosted Website is the greatest business card, whether you are looking for a job or looking to start a business online. This is an inexpensive and very productive tools in today’s highly competitive job market. Those who don’t have their own Websites will never know what hit them when it comes finding a job, since employers most often are very impressed with someone who has enough going for them and is savvy enough to know that an online presence is important to building personal brand.

6) Companies are being very careful on how they present themselves to the world and tightening the requirements on employee behaviour in public whether on or off the job. As a result, social media profiles like Twitter and Facebook are often considered by human resource departments and job placement organizations as a way to screen likely candidates for employment positions. Become known for what you are passionate about in your life and what your ambitions and focus are. This impresses potential employers or clients (if you are in business for yourself).

There is no better way to show a potential employer that you are a top candidate than by having your own Website, a clean and positive social media profile, and a large following on Twitter and your social network profile that shows your posts as being intelligent, responsible, socially responsible, and portraying a positive public image.

What? You’re NOT a Twit yet? OH! You are, but just not really sure how to use it properly. That is totally understandable. Not many people really do understand the power of Twitter yet. But, if you are reading this article, you most likely have already at least heard about Twitter, at least by name. It’s a small upstart that went ballistic to the point of contagiously viral a few years back. It uses a basic platform of sharing status messages among social networking Websites and cell phone texting services.

It has evolved into a major conduit for communications of sorts. And, from the look of it, it is no more a fad than social media. Users were tweeting about 5,000 times a day in 2007. By 2008, that number grew to over 300,000, and 2.5 million a day by 2009. As of last month, February 2010, there were over 50 million tweets per day – an average of 600 tweets per second. These tweet numbers are adjusted to reflect the removal of spam tweets. What this means is that life in cyberspace is coming of age and how we use it to our advantage will determine much of our success in the 21st century.

Now, about Twitter for those of you who are still learning about it, the whole platform for twitter was built around this simple question, “What’s happening?” The fun of it is that you only have 140 characters to tell the world (your world of followers) what is happening. The cool thing is that it really is convenient for people wanting to stay informed about what is going on with others to do so. Twitter is not just for business, but the business of tweeting is becoming big business. There are of course your fairly normal tweets that are the typical ‘on the fly’ day to day non-business tweets that keep our friends and family abreast of what we are doing. Here is an example of keeping friends and familiy of one Twit as an example:

‘Out of diapers. Going to pick some up.’
‘Just ran over our dog going to get diapers. The kids are going to hate me.’
‘Stopping by pet store to look for another dog that looks like our old one.’
‘Found a new Charlie at dog pound! Kid’s don’t know.’
‘All is well, except Charlie only answers to Susie!”

Yes, this was an actual flurry of tweets from someone I was following. And, then there are the really important ones like:

“The waves are great. Let’s meet at the pier in 15 minutes for a surf session!”

OK, the last one may be wishful thinking on my part right now since there are no waves right now and I am 80 miles inland at present, but you get the point that I am making here, right? Tweets are for what’s happening in your world that you want others to know about or where you want to communicate a specific message to a specific group that is important.

Where Twitter gets interesting is when you use it to build your personal or business brand. Twitter has by all accounts but by the dwindling words of the few naysayers that remain, become an important part of a comprehensive online marketing strategy for most anyone who is making or wants to make money online. Your “What’s happening?” answer is very important to you if this is your primary reason for using twitter. Do I think it’s important personally? Yes. I have five twitter accounts. I have one for personal use, and the rest for my targeted interests in business and public involvements.

If you want to positively affect your personal and/or business brand, here is an initial Twitter Must Do List that you want to be sure you use to answer the question, “What’s happening?” They the short version of my ‘Must Do List for Building Personal Brand with Twitter’ that is found in my eBook ‘How to Use Social Media to Build Your Brand and Make Tons of Money,’ but they are still a great start for you if you are just getting started.

Tweet links to your personal articles or blog posts.  I am assuming that most of you who are reading this are visiting this Website and reading this blog post to learn more about how to be successful in your online marketing efforts. If that is the case, it goes without saying that if you are using a blog format for your personal or business Website, that you take the time to see that your content is quality stuff, and original if at all possible. That is why I coach on the importance of discovering what you are most passionate about in life and what your life purpose is. It is from this sort of personal understanding that you can write about what you know and are most passionate about. See my article entitled, “Writing a Blog that Makes a Difference”

Tweet links to reputable and safe Websites.  Your goal in building personal brand is to become a good source of good information or opportunity. All of the content that you provide others does not have to be your own content. If you work within the Success Alliance Team network, you already know about promoting other blogs and other peoples’ content as well as your own. If you are not a part of a cooperative marketing affiliation, I suggest that you find a few good blogs that have good content on subjects that you feel your followers would be interested in, that are not necessarily in direct competition with you or what you have to offer. By subscribing to these Websites where content is constantly updating, you can actively promote yourself as a good source of information by tweeting links to good information to your Twitter followers. It provides you the ability to have your tweets (you name) seen regularly by your followers, and associated with quality or thought provoking content.

Retweet the tweets of others.  Make it a practice to retweet (RT) worthwhile or pertinent information that is tweeted to you from someone you are following. The best retweets of course are those that share links to quality content of the individuals whom you personally know as being reputable sources of information. The absolute BEST retweets of those you are personally affiliated with. This is explained in detail in my eBook, ‘How to Use Social Media to Build Your Brand and Make Tons of Money,’ but the gist of it is simply this. You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours. Retweeting significant or notable quotes or statements made by someone of importance in an industry or niche market that you are a part of can be equally as impressionable in building your reputation as someone that is connected to smart people and quality content.

Be attentive to breaking news, and be the first to share it.   As an information driven society, our day to day lives, and the news of our lives and those around us moves at the speed of light. Anyone with a i-phone or Internet access can immediately broadcast breaking news to the world, where only a decade or so ago, most people would not hear about something that happened early in the day, until they watched the 6 or the 11 o’clock news. Fact is that we are no long a major media dependent society, but a society of media makers. People tend to look at news as it happens via their phones or the Internet LONG before the major networks report on it. The goal for you in tweeting breaking news to your followers is to build credibility of becoming a good source for noteworthy news on the topics that interest your followers the most.

Always be quick to Tweet a thank you to someone for sharing good information.  Have you ever done something for someone and they showed their appreciation in public by giving you credit for what you did for them? I know that most people do not live for this moment, but it is a good feeling when someone validates you in front of others. It is the same on Twitter, and it builds enormous good will with the person that has shared the information or article. When you do, us the ‘@USERNAME’ function to do so, so they get notice of it being done.

Don’t over do telling people about what you have to sell.  This is a huge mistake of many twits (I say twits in the most respectful way, speaking of those who tweet) when they get moving on Twitter and are trying to drive traffic to their Website. Don’t be sucked in by the ability to blast your product or service to all of your followers all of the time, unless you want to have ZERO followers.

Post tweets about up and coming events where you live.  Twitter has some really cool features, and one of them is that you can pull up tweets from any particular location that you want to follow tweets for. When you post up and coming events, it provides a service to the world in that particular city, and the result is that you will pick up more followers who will want to benefit from your ‘in the know’ about what’s happening where they live. Be sure to include the name of the city in your tweet otherwise people in that city doing a search on twitter by locale will not find it.

If you begin using these first seven basic marketing strategies for Twitter, you will begin to see your following grown as others pick you up from your followers’ lists of followers. By using this organic method that mixes personal relationship marketing and proactive communication with those who follow you, you will begin to see your list of followers grow as the value of what you have to share with the world begins to be seen.

The importance of getting what you have to say or offer to the world and how effectively you do it will determine your level of success and how fast you will get to that success. This is especially true when it comes to Internet and Mobile marketing. Learning to use technology to your advantage in a technology-dirven world is no longer an option, but a requirement if you want to build your personal or business brand. One company that is continually helping legitimate online marketers to do this is Google.

Google is a company that continually steps up with a determination to raise the standard of communication and the distribution of content. The launch of Google Buzz and their mobile application upgrages have the potential to revolutionize how we do business, who we do business, and most importantly, who will do business with us as online marketing professionals. One thing is for sure. Google has raised the standard for the potential of social media and the power of their search engine to bring Internet and mobile phone users some really slick improvements in their product offering.

I believe (rather predict) that those who will be the success stories of the 21st century will be the ones that learn to utilize these and other social networking and communication tools. The more you communicate quality information to others, the greater the possibility you have to build your personal or business brand in a credible and profitable way; and Google is helping to make that more possible. Check out what they have just rolled out!

There is no place for any more doubt that the explosive growth of the Internet is signaling to the business world that it is time to take online marketing seriously. With this extensive growth, the explosion of social networking sites has caught even most of the tech savvy companies of corporate America off guard. With this new dynamic in play with Internet usage, there is a whole new world of opportunity to position yourself or your company for explosive growth along with the Internet and social media.

Netizens – those people who are actively using the Internet and social networks like FaceBook, YouTube, Friendster, and Twitter – are reconstituting business as usual online. Where a company just a few years ago would use massive mailing campaigns and online advertising campaigns to capture leads that cost in excess of $50, per customer like that of the reported cost for AOL to get a single customer, social media is revolutionizing how companies grow their business.

Using the powerful connection factor represented in social media where people share viewpoints, information, opinions. and even personal life experience, business owners are seeing a prospect rich environment for building their businesses through warm contact and personal relationship marketing. All of this is in stark contrast to even four years ago when the internet was a simple venue for static information. It is now a socially charged live and dynamic forum and resource for individuals and businesses to build their personal and/or business or corporate brand identity.

The power of social media to reach all age groups, social, economic, and geographic groups is beyond any marketing and advertising think tank’s wildest imagination. The problem with social media for them however is that people no longer need marketing and advertising companies to come up with slick marketing strategies and advertising campaigns for them. Through the use of something as simple as a personal blog or posted video on YouTube, someone can be exposed to literally hundreds of thousands of visitors (potential prospects and/or customers) in a matter of a few days or weeks – for free! This is something that marketing and advertising companies have only dreamed of being possible in the past.

Social media allows for a venue that people can congregate and interact in real time, as well as through regular or periodic postings to their personal profiles within the social networking Website. By its very nature social media is intrinsically social and a non-threatening forum for like-minded individuals to connect. However, this sociability doesn’t fully describe the reality of people using social media beyond that of just socializing – that of using it in a proactive manner to connect with total strangers for the sake of marketing products, services, and opportunity to those they connect with. All the while, concurrent to this sort of online marketing tactic for new lead generation, those new contacts become a part of the personal and social life of those they befriend for business purposes where sharing of personal issues, viewpoints, opinions, beliefs and current events and personal news take place among several thousand people who would not normally have met or known about those ‘new friends’ that before connecting with them did not know them on any level of connection.

Social media will continue to blossom and evolve as social sites pop up and more and more people find yet even more people who share the same passions about the things in life that they do. And, because social media appeals to the core needs of most humans, i.e. that of being recognized, appreciated, and respected, where people continually give encouragement as ideas and thoughts and life experience are shared. This being the case, it is an imperative that anyone that is sincerely interested in promoting an organization, business, cause, or even their own personal brand must learn how to effectively leverage social media to their advantage.