Erik Qualman's Blog, page 587

The What, How and Why Of Website Usability Testing!

Usability is the core of any design and development project, it is at the forefront of most designer’s mind, something considered by both back-end and front-end developers and is there in the list of a marketers, SEO professionals and content creators. Usability tests can uncover problems with website design and functionality mostly the navigation issues, highlight overall design effectiveness, determine content relevance, and assess customers’ ability to complete critical tasks.

So, What grade your website will get, if it took a usability test? Well! You might not be aware that your website is getting tested for usability everyday and every time a visitor visits it. Just eleven seconds on an average and a visitor decides to stay or leave the website. But, in order to make your project a success, it is vital that you do the usability testing in-house using personal resources or outsource it by hiring professionals who are experts on getting the website back on track.

What?

According to an analysis done by Jakob Nielsen “The mean increase of conversion rates with usability optimization was 87%.” – (The usability of websites was optimized with the help of usability tests).

Usability Testing is the Black horse of improving conversions! If your website is hard to use and difficult to navigate through (or have other usability issues), it will definitely result in poor conversions. Thus, usability testing is observing real user’s website usage pattern, paying attention to their experiences and try to spot pattern based issues. Once you have the observations and analysis, iterate the website design, code or copy to diminish the barriers between your website and success. Suffice to say that a website works, if its users feel that it works!

According to the Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests by Jeffrey Rubin and Dana Chisnell:

“What makes something useable is the absence of frustration in using it” and further, “when a product or service is truly usable, the user can do what he or she wants to do the way that he or she expects to be able to do it, without hindrance, hesitation or questions”.

Why?

Well! It is common sense to plot your target audience and create a strategy before, start with design and development work, but it is never guaranteed that the first design received will be accepted by users as expected. Thus, this gives the answer to the question that “Why User testing is important?”. Usability testing ensures that at the launch day, you have a product that you know your target audience will love. Yes, you may have tested the website yourself, may be on multiple devices, but then you could have been a little biased and must get it tested by some less biased sources, probably your potential end users.

Also, appealing design and easy navigation is the key for user-friendliness and it is important that the user testing must be done considering this. The design and layout should be such that a click of a button could take the user instantly to where they want to go.

How?

Maybe you do not have a large budget or the time to outsource the usability testing job for your website. No Problem! All you require is a usability plan of action, and then implement it getting the input you necessitate to make assessments based on the outcomes of the testing, and then plan out how to tweak, modify, or fix the entire website based on your results.

Step – 1 Identify the right people associated with the website content, planning and development, Pool them together in “Usability Testing team”. This is always better than doing all on your own! Then create a usability testing plan that will outline the steps that what you are going to accomplish, How you will perform testing and what metrics you are going to capture and other such elements like scope, logistics, scenarios etc.

Step -2 Now, when you have a well laid testing plan, you can implement the testing without further delays. Testing will require participants that should replicate the actual target audience. Make sure your participants are comfortable, and have a facilitator explain the testing session, allowing them to ask questions.

Step – 3 After several objective and subjective measurements, you finally got the results. It is now time to collect and compile the data. Analyze the data both quantitative data (success rates, task time, error rates, and satisfaction questionnaire ratings) and qualitative data (observations that participants shared about problems they experienced).

Step – 4 You want to improve your website based on your finding and a proper report of the results can just help you achieve this. A solid report can help your website get back on track. Prepare a report that has results categorized on the level of importance and priority. Ensure to account any constructive findings, bring to light any opportunities for enhancement, and propose ways to leverage the good to make the website even better.

Step – 5 The final step is to decide on what changes exactly have to be made first as per the priority and while others can rest. List down the changes need to be made to make the website apt for a better user experience. What’s next? Get them fixed!

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Three Ways Social Media Impacts Small Businesses

Most everyone is familiar with social networking sites like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook even if they don’t use them. These sites have grown so much over the last several years that they have become more than just a place for people to socialize. They’re also a very effective marketing tool that can have a big impact on small businesses.
If you’re still trying to decide if using social media is right for your company, below are three of the major ways it can help your business.
It’s Offers a More Personal Form of Advertising
When friends share information about your company with others, it’s referred to as word of mouth advertising. Since networking sites like Twitter and Facebook are all about socializing, it creates the perfect environment for small businesses to take advantage of this type of advertising. People pay attention to the recommendations that friends and family members provide.
When they talk about the great experience they had when doing business with your company, it will encourage others to choose your company when they need the products or services you offer. Each time a follower likes your content or shares a post, you’re receiving free word of mouth advertising that can greatly impact your company.
It’s a Great Way to Conduct Market Research
Social networking sites provide companies with an excellent way to conduct market research because you can learn so much more about consumer habits than you can with surveys and other forms of research. You can learn what influences consumer behavior the most and use this information to create better marketing strategies to draw more attention to your company.
As your online community grows, you’ll gain even more insight into what influences consumer buying, so you’ll want to look for ways to encourage more users to become a follower. You have several options such as offering exclusive deals for your fans and providing useful information that will encourage people to like and share your content.
Users look at how many likes a company has when deciding if they want to follow you or not. This is why the fake ‘likes’ black market has grown a lot over the last few years. It peaks interest when users see companies with a lot of likes, so it is an option that many businesses use to increase their fan base.
It Makes Communicating with Customers Easier
The more you communicate with your customers, the more you’ll learn and using social networking sites make it easy to talk with your followers in a non-formal environment. You can learn what they like and don’t like about your products or services and why they choose certain items over others. This information will help you improve your business so you can continue to grow and thrive.
Social media does impact small businesses in many different ways. When used correctly, it can be a great addition to any marketing strategy. You’ll need to decide which one will suit your company the best based on your particular industry and then you can begin taking advantage of all the benefits it has to offer.
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The Digital Student: Take Social Media to a New Degree

Small businesses use social media to grow their clientele and expand their networks, individuals use social media to keep in touch with old friends, family members and colleagues, and now, hopeful college students are able to zone in on social media to help get into the school of their dreams.

In addition to you using social media to find schools, colleges and universities are searching for you online, too. No longer are just an admissions application and good standardized test scores all you need to get accepted, you need to have a good, well-rounded online presence, too.

Social media can also play a role in helping you decide what major you should choose.

According to the article “Find your degree match”, how you approach a group of people could say a lot about what type of degree you should pursue.

Do you gravitate towards the center of the group or find a quiet corner and keep to yourself?

This is similar to social media – do you enjoy updating friends and family on your life and being in the center of it all or do you prefer to simply watch from behind the scenes?

Searching for colleges with social media

Before ‘liking’ your favorite colleges on Facebook and commenting on their Tweets, you need to make sure your own social media pages are professional and give off your best impression.

Since colleges do look at applicants’ pages, you need to think twice about any comments or remarks before you publicize them.

You can also adjust your privacy settings so colleges can only see general information about you unless they ask for approval.

Once you’ve cleared out all your drunken photos or inappropriate comments, it’s time to start focusing in on which colleges and universities you hope to attend. Follow them on Twitter, ‘like’ their Facebook page and connect with them on LinkedIn.

Then, take it one step further by interacting with your schools of choice.

Instead of just following them on Twitter, Tweet them back, ask questions and get involved. Comment on their Facebook posts, respond to questions and really get yourself noticed in the social media world.

Express genuine interest in your choice

When using social media to get into college, be real with whom you are and express a genuine interest in your college of choice.

Don’t think that you’re just marketing yourself to the colleges, but instead really interact with them and be yourself.

Join communities, see if there are volunteer opportunities you can partake in, have opinions on the subject matters the schools talk about and be actively involved in your community.

Social media is becoming the next wave of this generation.

As a young individual looking to get into college and land a career in the field of their choice, it’s incredibly important to have an online presence.

Don’t wait to start your profiles until you’ve already graduated, but instead, start your networking now.

Photo credit: Image courtesy of Ambro at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Integrated Marketing: Making Offline and Online Work Together

Internet marketing saw incredible development in the last decade or so; to such an extent that one sometimes thinks that good old offline techniques are dead and gone – it is all about mobile devices, SEO, landing pages and Google Analytics now. You still use direct mail? It is so Stone Age.

However, those who believe that traditional methods are to be filed as history cannot be further from the truth. Which is this – there is no need to choose between the old and the new. Offline and online marketing can and should be used alongside one another.

Direct Mail

According to popular belief, direct mail marketing doesn’t work – people are too used to it and semi-automatically throw everything that looks even remotely corporate into a dustbin. The fault, however, lies not with the method, but with ham-fisted attempts of using it. And, of course, the secret is in making it an integral part of your offline/online marketing campaign.

99% of businesses don’t even try to make their mail look different from what people expect. They send run-off-the-mill envelopes with company’s logos and cheerful graphics – all the immediate markers of junk mail.

What should you do if you want your mail to be read? Make it look non-corporate, personal. Eliminate all the mentions of your company name on the envelope. Put a stamp at an angle. If possible, write the address instead of printing it. Put a small object inside to make the envelope look uneven and pique the addressee’s curiosity. And, to tie it all together with your Internet marketing campaign, include your URL or a QR code, bringing your potential client to your website.

As you may see, direct-mail marketing provides some opportunities that are impossible in digital world – and you should fully embrace them.

Flyers, Leaflets and Booklets

Not all people are going to look for your site or product on the Internet – they may be simply unaware of the fact that they need it. So make them aware – think of places your potential clients are most likely to frequent and hire people to distribute leaflets or flyers with your latest offers, adding your URL and some incentive to visit your website – for example, a discount code. Make sure you utilize a catchy design and order your print media from a high-quality provider, like Print-Print.co.uk – people don’t usually spend more than a couple of seconds studying a leaflet, so yours should make a positive impression right away.

Online Tools to Track Offline Efficiency

A good marketer should analyze how efficient this or that method is and, if necessary, make corrections. And while Internet marketing provides a lot of opportunities to get highly reliable statistics on how you are doing, offline marketing is notorious for being hard to follow.

Fortunately, online tools like Google Analytics and Omniture coupled with a bit of ingenuity provide an excellent opportunity to track the effectiveness of your offline campaigns.

Pay Special Attention to Landing Pages

When your potential client visits a link received by offline means, he or she should perceive consistency – the landing page should be specifically tailored to what he or she read in mail or a booklet. Don’t reuse URLs from previous promotions – thus you will be able to easily check the results they are having.

Offline Marketing Is Still Alive and Kicking

Don’t be misguided by all the fuss around online marketing – when done correctly, offline methods may be just as effective, if not more. And when used in conjunction with all the newest approaches dictated by our information age, it may produce results that will surprise both you and your competitors.

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How to Master the Art of Saving Money Using Internet

Can you suggest what is the hardest thing about dealing with money? If you answer that it is earning it, then you are dead wrong – and this opinion is probably the source of all your financial problems.

It is not all that hard to make money – or at least, to make enough money – but making money stay with you is a much, much less trivial task. While earning money is a craft anybody can master, saving it is an art that eludes most people. According to the numerous surveys people are often too tired to be able to think about this.  And the Internet is a perfect tool to make this process much easier.

Here is a list of tips and suggestions that will help you master it.

1.     Know Money’s Comings and Goings

Why a lot of people who seemingly make a decent amount of money always turn out to be strapped for cash, while others who earn several times less are doing alright? The secret is simple, and its name is budgeting. Take notice of all the things you spend money on and compare it with how much you earn. Consider whether you really need all the things you are wasting money on. Read a detailed guide on making a budget – it is the first step to getting control over your life and then you can start making budget using online tools.

2.     Multiple Accounts, Specific Goals

Keeping money in a savings account literally saves your money – from you. It is one thing to keep all your money easily available; it is completely another to have it neatly tucked in a bank. It is a good idea to keep the majority of your savings in high interest accounts – they restrict your ability to move money around, and this way you will be less tempted to buy this new flatscreen TV you’ve just seen. Keep money for different purposes in different accounts. For example, you may want to have one account for unforeseen situations, one for retirement, and one for major purchases. Here are some other savings strategies for you.

3.     Invest to a Gold Saving Company

Are you worried about the current economic state of the world and afraid of losing your hard-earned money? Then you may play really safe and invest in precious metals – for gold is never going to go out of style. There is no need to do it personally – today people don’t bury treasures under the trees, they go to Gold IRA companies that take care of all the eventualities. Read  more information on this topic – it describes how such companies work  and will help you understand whether  you really need their help.

4.     Don’t Try to Reinvent the Wheel

The Internet is rife with sites made by experts in saving money, finding the best deals, using coupons and, in general, being responsible about spending. Why not use ready-made techniques instead of trying to reinvent them on your own? There is a range of free grocery coupons, a number of ways to buy clothes cheaper at such platforms as Shopify for example and many more.

5.     Avoid Consumer Loans by All Costs

When you take a consumer loan you pay for the privilege of living better than your current income allows by cutting your future incomes. Let’s be honest – if you don’t use it to buy something that you need for your work, you don’t need it. It will eat your money, undermine your financial stability and make you miserable in the long run.

Saving Today Makes You Happy Tomorrow

It is fun to live in today, spend as much as you please and generally have a good time. But how long will it last? Nobody knows what awaits us ahead and when you are going to need the money you don’t have right now. There is no better time to start saving than today – and we hope these few tips will make it easier for you.

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3 Overlooked Ways to Integrate Social into Your Company’s Product Packaging

While it may be true that your company needs a strong social media presence, saying so in a marketing advice column has become tired and cliché — like, eye-rolling levels of tired and cliché. But keep those eyebrows unarched for a moment just yet: while you probably have the online space covered, have you ever thought about bringing your social media presence to the physical world? If not, you’re missing a prime opportunity to connect with your current and potential consumers during key decision making moments. There’s one easy place to do exactly this: your product packaging. Here’s how.

1) Coke

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If you’ve turned on a TV, browsed your Facebook or Twitter feed, or even just headed to your local convenience store this summer, you’re bound to have encountered Coke’s #ShareACoke campaign, a project that combines social media and product design at every level. As you can see from the above photo, the brand has printed the 250 most popular first names in the US on their bottles to create a personalized–and in many ways flattering–experience for their customer base. Those with less common names need only head over to the ShareACoke microsite to see their name on a bottle.

Customers are intrinsically motivated to share posts about their customized bottles on social media, but the company further encourages sharing with their #ShareACoke and #SelfieSweeps hashtags for Twitter and Facebook, for which customers need only take a selfie with their bottle. Prizes are also available for sharing a coke with a friend at the My Coke Rewards microsite. Not surprisingly, the campaign, which has infiltrated so many different aspects of the customer experience, has been enormously popular–specifically, to the tune of 125,000 posts across all digital channels in less than a month with 45% of the posts positive and only 5% negative.

2) Red Bull

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As one of the first brands to embrace QR codes, Red Bull was also one of the first to fail too, seeing as how they put them in a subway with no mobile reception. The second time around, the company went for some place much more functional: limited edition product packaging. This one was designed specifically to promote Flugtag, a unique event the company started in 1992 that invites participants to design crazy creative flying crafts and drive them off a stand into the water.

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 The QR code taps into that same spirit of creativity and playfulness by leading customers to an interactive game in which customers design their own craft. Winners earn the chance to compete in the competition at the national event — a big prize, since getting into the competition via the normal application process means having to beat out thousands of other competitors. Overall, it’s just another way that Red Bull gets its customers out of their seats and going extreme — so not only is it fun, but it’s also totally on brand.

3) Tim Hortons

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If there are two things that go well together, it’s coffee and the news. But why carry around a newspaper when you can simply scan a QR code on the side of your coffee cup and get the latest? If that sounds appealing to you, then you would have liked Tim Horton’s partnership with Gulf News, which had the coffee company regularly printing news and codes onto sleeves so customers could read while they drank. QR codes often fail, but this particular project was successful because both Gulf News and Tim Hortons knew who their customers were, and therefore, what they wanted. With this depth of knowledge, they were able to create a rich, experiential campaign that provided customers with information they actually sought, rather than something that was more blatantly promotional.

The Takeaway

From iconic soft drinks to morning pick me ups, today’s top brands understand the power of bringing social media to their product packaging. There are tons of potential in imitating them, but to do so effectively you’ve got to know the ins and outs of product packaging design, for which this guide will prove enormously helpful. As you create your campaigns, think deeply about your customer’s mental state when they interact with your brand, and use these two unique platforms to ease, guide, or expand their experiences. Have fun, and good luck!

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3 Key Strategies to Grow Your Hotel on Facebook

It’s important now, more than ever, to actively pursue Facebook followers through strategic tactics. Changes in the Facebook algorithm means that as little as six percent of your followers get to see your post without paid advertising. Below are three key tactics to maximize your hotel marketing strategies and engage more fans without having to throw in the big bucks for advertising:

Think outside your property

Good content creation can be difficult to do if you limit yourself. It’s great to talk about your property, but it’s also essential that you remember that your followers do have an interest in other things.

Constant updates about your property that don’t interest your followers will cause you to lose them. At the same time, posting more content that is interesting but not related to your brand message will grow the wrong audience. So how do you segment your audience and get a grasp on what to post? Take a look at what your competitors are doing and see how people respond. Find out what inspires them, what they find funny, what they are more likely to comment on and share, and that is how you can develop a better brand as a whole.

Aim to follow the “80/20 rule”, which is when 80 percent of your content is non-self-promotional and 20 percent or less of your content is used to talk about your property. You will achieve more by being personable with your followers rather than regurgitating the information they can find on your marketing brochure. Social media is about creating dialogue with potential guests, not being shameless in self-promotion. It’s also worth mentioning that it’s best to steer clear of topics that can cause controversy or offend your fans, so religion and political matters are best kept off the table.

Inspire with your content

Images create some of the higher levels of interaction on social media, so you’ll find more comments and shares when you opt to throw in some quality pictures. With the popularity of platforms such as Pinterest and Instagram, it’s obvious that attention is being shifted to video and imagery. The ideal content is a healthy mix of text and appealing photos, with less text-heavy content. 

Many social media followers will browse their news feed throughout the day during their working tasks, including during their commute. This is the perfect time to captivate their attention and visually inspire them to picture themselves spending time at your property. Take advantage of your hotel’s beautiful amenities, scenic location or seasonal pictures to show why your hotel is ideal for a vacation.

A great example of this comes courtesy of Holiday Inn Vanuatu, which often includes social media posts of activities that guests can participate in off-property. Diversity in posts is the key ingredient in keeping your fans interested and asking for more.

Involve your guests!

Encourage your followers and guests to interact by making sure that your call-to-action is clear. If your company is the only one publishing any content on your page, it will not be enticing to new followers. Ask your previous guests to share their images on your page, share images with their friends and invite their friends to like your page. You can also invite your guests to share images from their trips and assign a hashtag, which puts the task of choosing the best images for your social media channels in your own hands.

User-generated content is the biggest social media trend of 2014 and it should be used to its full potential. With the advancement of smartphones and apps, people are always looking for new ways to share their memories. To succeed and grow your following on Facebook, make sure that your marketing efforts are engaging to your users and able to keep up with the shifting trends. Striving to cultivate quality content is what is going to keep you moving forward as a brand, and ultimately what will make or break your brand image.

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7 Surefire Social Media Strategies for Your Business

Over the past decade social media have irrevocably changed the way we live and perceive life – today an average person will hardly do anything without tweeting about it on Twitter, sharing the experience via Facebook or posting a selfie on Instagram. And as a business owner, you should make use of it – what once was just a pastime turned into a powerful marketing instrument you cannot afford to ignore.

Here are 7 simple strategies that will help you out:

1.     Follow a Plan

The most important thing to understand before you start working on your social media marketing is that it is as serious as any other part of your business strategy. You cannot just let matters take their course – in order to establish your presence in social networks you have to create a long-term plan and stick to it, making corrections along the way if needed. For example, set a minimum of how many posts and tweets you make every day and stick to it no matter what.

2.     Walk the Extra Mile

Whenever you client contacts customer support you have to go out of your way to help them. If you do more than the client expects (make a gift compensating for an inconvenience, provide additional service and so on), he or she is much more likely to share this experience. Read Peter Shankman’s story about Morton’s Steakhouse – it is a very good illustration of how much free publicity one may get out a single steak.

3.     Follow the Statistics

Ok, we understand that it is boring, but without careful and consistent study of your site’s metrics it is impossible to evaluate the effectiveness of your strategy. Set a time to review them and do it on a monthly basis – this will not only show you how well you are doing in general, but also give you an impression of what works well and what has to be edited out.

4.     Content Marketing

Attract people to your site by offering them interesting, top-notch content about your topic. For example, start a company blog that will have something more to offer than generic news about your business, and publish links to them in appropriate social media. For example, such strategy is demonstrated by this treatment center – and it seems to works like a charm.

5.     Different Media, Different Approaches

Although there is some news about your company that you would want to communicate across all social media, you should take into account the nature of each particular channel. For example, LinkedIn is positioned as a business-oriented network, and its visitors expect serious, down-to-earth content, while Facebook is much less formal. Adapt content to different networks and it will pay off.

6.     Own Up to Your Mistakes

To err is human; to err in our hectic age when you rarely have time to recheck what you are doing is doubly so. Mistakes are unavoidable, and they range from trifles to troubles. But no matter what, don’t try to cover them up – by deleting an embarrassing post you will attract unwanted attention to what would have otherwise been overlooked.

7.     Don’t Ignore Google+

Google+ is often perceived as a kind of misguided attempt of imitating Facebook, but you shouldn’t overlook it – in fact, statistics say that since its establishment in 2011 it is growing more and more important for businesses worldwide.

Social media are an integral part of today’s life, and like it or not, as a business owner you shouldn’t overlook the possibilities they provide. After all, keeping up with the progress is the key to success in the rapidly changing world.

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Get Social in Promoting Your SEO Talents

If you are an SEO consultant, whether running your own company or one of a number on a team, your services can be of great interest to many overseeing businesses.

For too many companies, SEO (search engine optimization) is put on the back burner while other tasks come to the forefront.

As a result, businesses lose out on having added traffic come to their websites, something that is made worse by the fact that more and more consumers are going online these days for their browsing and shopping needs.

As all too many SEO consultants can tell you, a sizable number of companies fail to fully understand the power of search engine optimization and how it can raise a company’s online profile on Google and other search engines.

With some companies turning a questionable eye to SEO needs due to budgets and more, SEO providers need to show those exact same folks why search engine optimization and social media can work hand-in-hand together to improve a company’s online profile.

Why Do I Need Social Media Partnered with SEO?

While many SEO consultants already know the power of being social in today’s world, a fair number of business owners likely don’t, especially when it comes to picking the right provider, be it SEOAgency.com or one of many others out there.

With that in mind, here are several reasons why SEO and social media can work so well together:

Online presence – Just having a website is not enough in 2014. If you’re not going to update it with relevant content, answers to consumer questions and more, what’s the sense of having it in the first place? The online presence goes beyond the website, that is being notable and recognized on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and more;
Google indexing – When consumers do an online search, having your social media pages included in the results is important. With this goal in mind, be sure your Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest and other social pages provide updated info that consumers can connect with;
Share the wealth – Make it easier for visitors to your site to share your content on different social media outlets. If you have a blog post either written in-house or by a relevant guest blogger or infographic, make it as simple as click on a Facebook, Twitter, Google+ etc. icon so that the piece can be shared. By doing so, your site gets in front of more eyes;
The key in keywords – Lastly, make sure you hone in on the keywords used in your social posts. Use relevant keywords, not just those that will come across as spam, perhaps even drawing the ire of some. It is important that your SEO rep does the necessary research and analysis, finding out how consumers go about looking for your products and/or services online. The rule at the end of the day is always quality topping quantity.

SEO and social media can work well together if used correctly.

If you’re that business owner still learning the ways of SEO, keep in mind that already having a solid social media presence will make it easier for your SEO provider to connect you with the outside world.

Photo credit: Image courtesy of KROMKRATHOG at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Are You Social Enough For a Successful Career?

 

More and more companies are actively engaging in social media to grow their business, scope out their competitors and hire new people to bring on board.

According to popular professional social media platform LinkedIn, 81 percent of small and medium-sized businesses are currently using social media, and this number is only rising.

Social media comes in very handy when it comes to searching for a job.

Whether you’re in the market for an engineering job, a sales job or a customer-service based job, social media can help. And if you’re really good at social media, you may be able to turn your love of it into a job itself.

5 Ways social media can help you find a job

Keep your social media pages professional – First off, if you plan on using social media to land a job, keep all of your social media pages work appropriate. Drunken photos from college are a no-no, since employers can (and do!) look at your history to see if you’d be a good candidate for the position.


Engage with companies you would like to work for – Find your dream companies’ social media pages and connect with them. It doesn’t have to be just LinkedIn, but engage them on the more ‘fun’ social media pages like Facebook and Twitter, too. ‘Like’ their posts, give them shout-outs, respond to questions they may ask and see if you can get send your resume to someone in your department.


Promote yourself – Let companies know that you’re looking for work, advertise your best qualities and what would make you the right fit for the job, promote yourself and get your resume out there. It’s easy to sit behind a computer screen and hope for the best, but only those that truly work at getting their dream job actually land it.


Get in touch with the HR department – Research your favorite companies’ HR departments and see if you can find out who specifically is in charge of hiring. Friend them on Facebook, follow them on Twitter and connect with them on LinkedIn. Don’t be afraid to start up a conversation with them and send out your resume. HR managers enjoy hiring people that are proactive about their job search and show a passion for the job from the get-go.


View yourself as a small business – Small businesses advertise what they do, highlight their strengths, are easy to get in touch with and are continually looking to improve and grow their business. While job hunting via social media, view yourself as a small business. Fine-tune your social media skills and become an expert at promoting yourself. By doing this, you’ll appear incredibly valuable to companies and you’ll be an asset they won’t be able to pass up.

Perhaps all these new social media skills you learn will turn into a career in social media itself.

The article “How mastering social media can turn into a career move” discusses three careers that are perfect for the social media guru like you.

These careers include social media managers, copywriters and online community managers.

Who knew advancing your social media skills to land a job could actually get you a job in social media all in its own?

Photo credit: Image courtesy of stockimages at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

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