by Caroline Leach | Jun 25, 2018 | Social Media
Jessica Sterling at Dodger Stadium
What do you want more of in your professional life?
Let that guide what you share in social media. It works as its own magnet and its own law of attraction, bringing into your life what you’re focusing on.
That was one of several gems I heard from Los Angeles-based photographer Jessica Sterling. We chatted recently about her social media strategy for her business.
Jessica shoots extraordinary portraits, epic events and awe-inspiring architecture – helping people and businesses share their stories. Here are a few samples of how she draws out the essence of people in her portraits …
She’s photographed many notable people, including Serena Williams, Justin Timberlake and Michelle Branch, to name just a few.
Jessica and I met through work in my DIRECTV days, when she photographed several events for us. (Note: opinions expressed in this blog are my own).
Later, I booked her services personally when it was time for a new headshot. That experience turned into one of my top 10 articles in 12 Ways to a Great LinkedIn Profile Photo.
When I did a study about how people are using social media to build their careers, it surfaced several people who are doing it well. Some of them will be profiled in future posts.
Jessica was a natural to be the first profile. She makes me smile every time her images and videos pop up in my Instagram feed. Here’s what she told me about how social media helps build her business …
Why are you active in social media?
Social media keeps me in touch with my clients – past, present and future. It keeps me connected to people and top of mind. It gives me a fresh presence and a reason why people should care about me and my work.
What platforms are you on?
Instagram is perfect for photographers, so I’m there. Facebook too. And LinkedIn. Once in a while I’ll do a blog post on my website.
What type of content do you share?
Shoots I’ve booked lately, and what I’d like to book more of in the future. Portraits are big. People are passionate about what they do. I love capturing that in images. Events are fantastic. A recent one was at the Mayor’s office – for Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti.
What content gets the most engagement?
Selfies! People love them. They want to connect with your story. You can tell your continuing story through selfies.
How has social media changed photography?
It’s been huge. People are used to seeing beautiful images. People want and demand them. They don’t always know what it takes to create them. That’s what I’m passionate about doing in my work.
What’s your personal brand?
It’s seamless and fun to shoot with me. I strive to make it as pleasant and as comfortable as possible. People tell me I’m quiet when I shoot. I can be inconspicuous at a big event, but I’m there when you need me. The best validation is when someone hires me and loves the experience.
What do’s and don’ts do you observe?
Two don’ts: No political stuff. No social causes. People want to have fun, and that’s where I meet them in social.
Why isn’t your young son on social media very much?
Social media is so powerful. We don’t fully understand its ultimate impact. I want my son to have control of it when he’s old enough to do so.
What’s the next big thing in social media for career building?
Instagram Stories are interesting. There’s a lot to explore here!
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Inspired by Jessica? Here’s how you can connect with her:
IG: @jessicasterlingphoto
FB: facebook.com/jessica.sterling
LI: linkedin.com/in/jessicasterlingphotography
Web: jessicasterling.com
Blog: http://jessicasterlingphoto.tumblr.com
Watch for more profiles coming soon. And if you’d like to be profiled, leave me a comment. I’d love to hear from you!
by Caroline Leach | Jun 17, 2018 | Learning, Social Media
There’s only one you in the world. No one else has traveled your exact professional path, experienced identical situations or learned the same lessons.
Of the more than 560 million LinkedIn users and counting, only you can tell your unique professional story.
That’s the big takeaway from analyzing 49 articles I posted to LinkedIn starting in May 2017. The top articles were largely inspired by my personal experience:
If you aren’t already posting LinkedIn articles, here are some reasons to consider it. And if you’re already writing articles, this may help you up your game.
Just over a year ago, I started an experiment on LinkedIn. I posted to LinkedIn every weekday for a month. Why? To test the data point that it takes 20 LinkedIn posts each month to reach 60% of your audience.
In developing an editorial calendar, one of the easy ways to share content was to repurpose my blog posts at carolineleach.com. This solved another problem – promoting my posts. Repurposing posts as LinkedIn articles reached a broader audience among my LinkedIn network.
In analyzing the data over the past year and reflecting on my experience, here’s what I learned in the form of benefits from regular article writing. By writing an article weekly, as I did, or probably even monthly, you’re likely to:
Create a sustainable writing schedule. When I began writing articles a year ago, there was a healthy backlog of blog posts. It was simply a matter of organizing the topics in a logical flow, making minor content updates to ensure timeliness, posting the articles and sharing them with my network.
Once the backlog was done, though, a weekly article needed to be written. With a busy professional position and an active family with two teens, where was the time going to come from?
Here’s one of the ways having teens can be a blessing. They generally sleep in on the weekends. That’s why early mornings on the weekends became my writing time. And the weekly article was ready to repurpose on LinkedIn during the week when more people visit it.
Committing to a weekly article pushed me to create a sustainable writing schedule every week. If you’re a lark like me, or a night owl like my teens, you can take advantage of early mornings or late nights. Or you could turn part of your lunchtime or your public transport commute into writing times.
There’s an ideal intersection. It’s between areas when you can carve out time and when your brain is operating a high level of efficiency. Look for those times.
Grow your network. My articles that attracted the most engagement have been those where I’ve done experiments and collected and analyzed related data. That made me wonder how my network grew between May 2017 and June 2018.
LinkedIn has a handy feature where you can download all of your connections into an Excel spreadsheet. BTW, this is a good practice to do every 3 to 6 months, so you always have an up-to-date record of your contacts. You never know when you might need it!
While I thought my network had grown over the last year, it was surprising to see connections were up more than 60%! There are many reasons for this, and I believe my weekly articles are a big one. Why? Because people mention them in their connection requests.
While connections went from about 1,900 to 3,160, followers also grew from zero to 440 in the same time period. The combined group is just over 3,600. That data helped me set a stretch goal for this year of 5,000.
Establish yourself as an expert and increase your influence. By sharing your professional expertise and your unique perspective, you can establish yourself as a thought leader in your area of focus.
How can you measure this? The growth in your network connections and followers gives you one indication.
You can also look at the trend of your profile views. How are they increasing over time? What’s the makeup of people looking at your profile? Is it the group you want to reach, whether it’s industry leaders, peers or recruiters?
You can also look at speaking requests. Because of my LinkedIn articles, I’ve been invited to speak to …
A highlight was joining the team of social influencers at the inaugural AT&T Business Summit in 2017. John Starkweather, Michelle Smith and I along with several others shared our experiences in LinkedIn articles. (Note: opinions expressed in this blog are my own.)
What’s next? This spring I did research on how people are using social media to boost their careers. That identified several people who are doing it well. I’ve begun interviewing people who are crushing it in social media and will start sharing profiles of them soon.
The ascendence of AI, artificial intelligence, and AR, augmented reality, are fascinating in how they are influencing social media. These are areas I look forward to researching and conducting experiments.
The best part about reflecting on that last year? Seeing a holistic view that added up to significant progress. Without pausing to reflect, the feeling of moving forward wouldn’t be as strong.
And having a sense of forward momentum is what creates “the best inner work lives,” according to authors Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer. They studied and wrote about the importance of daily action toward meaningful goals in The Progress Principle.
How are you making regular progress in sharing your expertise with the world?
by Caroline Leach | Jun 3, 2018 | Social Media
Data is the new oil, says The Economist. Data scientist is the best job in America, says Glassdoor. Social data can solve business challenges, says Adweek.
Data is everywhere. It’s touted as the panacea to fix every problem. And it certainly has that potential.
Except … when it doesn’t fully solve a problem, as I discovered this spring.
To understand why and how how professionals are using social media to build their careers, I conducted a study.
I went into it incredibly excited about what it could reveal. I vetted and chose a survey platform. I designed the survey questionnaire. I tweaked it until Survey Monkey gave it a “perfect score.” I sent the survey to any and every group and individual in my network. I shared it in all of my social networks. Multiple times.
I was convinced this would result in upwards of 1,000 responses, although I set a more “realistic” goal of 500. I was sure it would uncover new and fascinating insights about why and how people are using social media to boost their careers. I believed it would identify a myriad of new topics and areas to explore in social media in this blog.
Did it do all of those things?
Well, I humbly report that it ranged broadly from “yes” on some to “no” on others. I shared the survey results in a series of posts called Boost Your Career through Social Media, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5. (Note: opinions expressed in this blog are my own).
The main goal of the survey was to learn how fellow professionals are using social media to build their careers. Specifically, it addressed:
- What social media people use professionally and personally
- Why they are active on social media professionally
- How their social media activity has helped their career, others’ careers and their employer.
As I reflected on the experience, here’s are 5 things I learned.
It’s hard to get people to respond to surveys. Intellectually, I know this. But of course, I believed my survey would defy this rule. Why? Because (1) I thought the topic was interesting, (2) I cast a wide net in reaching out to diverse groups of people, and (3) I repeated the call to respond to the survey through multiple channels.
Yet at the end of the fielding in March 2018, I was happy to have 100 responses, a tenth of my original goal.
This may point to the need to up my promotional game. Maybe a play on a BuzzFeed-like headline is in order, such as “What’s your social media type? Take this quiz to see which ‘Game of Thrones’ character are you in social … ”
What I’ll do differently in the future is make my surveys shorter — under 10 minutes to complete, rather than 15. Maybe there will be an annual survey each spring to view trends over time. It could attempt to relate social media behavior with career outcomes such as finding a mentor, landing a new job or scoring a promotion.
On a quarterly basis maybe there will be a shorter, topical survey. Or perhaps a simple question in an LinkedIn post. Because experimentation applies to social media (see below), it makes sense to experiment with survey design, length and frequency.
Social media for career building is in its early days, which creates opportunity. Although 98% of respondents are on LinkedIn and 47% are on Twitter for professional use, some of the comments told a different story:
- “I use social medial personally, not professionally”
- “I don’t really use social media to build my career. I see social media as just that, social.”
- “I rarely use social media”
- “I don’t post on LinkedIn”
My conclusion? These are the nascent days for social media and careers. At first, this disappointed me. But the flip side is the big opportunity for all of us. This is especially true for people navigating transitions to new jobs. According to a 2017 CareerBuilder study:
- 70% of employers use social media to screen candidates
- 57% of employers are less likely to interview a candidate they can’t find online
- 44% have found social media content that caused them to hire a candidate.
People follow thought leaders in social media to learn, which creates opportunity. Among the top reasons for being active in social media professionally, learning continually was cited by 77% of respondents. In comments, people said they followed thought leaders as part of their learning agenda.
Why not parlay your expertise and experience into becoming a thought leader in social media? Whether you realize it or not, you have a unique and valuable perspective on your profession and your industry. By sharing that in social media, one post at a time, you can establish yourself as a thought leader.
Dorie Clark talks about the importance of content creation in her Harvard Business Review article, What You Need to Stand Out in a Noisy World. “The fact that you’re the one creating content, rather than simply quoting others,” she says,”makes you an expert in many people’s eyes.”
Of course, the caveat is that you should never share confidential or proprietary information about your employer. When in doubt, ask the advice of your supervisor and/or err on the side of caution and don’t share.
Actor and former NFL player Terry Crews reminds us about the power of your unique voice. In his interview with author Tim Ferriss for the book Tribe of Mentors, Terry says, “When you’re creative, you render the competition obsolete, because there is only one you, and no one can do things exactly the way you do.”
No one has had your unique experience, and no one can write about it the way you can. If that sounds daunting, you can start with small steps. I call them experiments. Try sharing your perspective in a LinkedIn post or in an article. See what resonates with your audience, and tweak your approach as appropriate.
Keep at it long enough to gain some traction. Here I’m inspired by Tim Ferriss and the dozens of book rejections he’s received as an author. Thank goodness he persisted. We get the benefit of his learning as a result.
Observing others and experimenting are the ways to learn and improve. This survey was a form of observing others and seeing what works for them. Same thing with engaging with my social feeds in LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
Keeping an eye on what content is getting high engagement and what people are sharing are sources of inspiration. Sometimes my observations become blog posts, as in the case of How to Seize the Moment in Social Media.
Experiments are also big for me. This survey is one example. Asking “what would happen if … ?” helps me identify what to do next. One time I blogged every day for a month to see what I’d learn. Another time I posted to LinkedIn every weekday for a month, to test the data point that doing so was necessary in order to reach 60% of your network.
It’s hard to reliably predict what will resonate with people. In our data-driven world, I was sure this series of posts of my research would be highly engaging. Perhaps I didn’t promote it well enough. In looking at which articles over the last year have gotten the most engagement, this series didn’t crack the top 10.
What were the top articles? The ones that shared the results from my experiments, like posting to LinkedIn every weekday for a month. Or they covered lists and how-to’s, like 7 Things Not to Do in LinkedIn, How to Kill It in Social Media and 12 Ways to Get a Great LinkedIn Profile Photo.
This post is the 49th article I will have posted to LinkedIn since May 2017. In contemplating my 50th article, I’ll share what I learned from posting an article to LinkedIn nearly every week for a year.
by Caroline Leach | May 27, 2018 | Learning, Social Media
My research about how people are using social media to boost their careers asked about do’s and don’ts.
Here are 10 do’s and 5 don’ts. While some of the don’ts are the flip side of the do’s, the don’ts add more perspective and context.
One of the best survey comments was this: “A twist on the Golden Rule, if you will: I try not to share something that I wouldn’t want to read from someone else.”
That sums it up in a nutshell. Read on for how to put that take on the Golden Rule into practice. And thanks to the people who generously shared their thoughts that inform this list.
DO
Share good stuff. Share content that will help people in your networks be better in their work and their life. Good content can come from anywhere – your experiences, your reading, your network, your employee advocacy program, and so much more. Good content is good content, regardless of where it’s from, as I shared in Part 4 of this series.
Be positive. Keep it upbeat and friendly. Somewhat surprisingly, positive stories get shared more often than negative ones.
Be authentic. Be yourself. Share your experience. After all, no one is exactly like you. That is your strength and your opportunity.
Be reciprocal. Engage with content you like that’s aligned with your areas of focus. Ask questions. Post comments. Share relevant content with your networks.
Be social. Have conversations with people, just as you would in real life. Engage in dialogue, rather than making statements.
Be kind. Everyone is struggling with some kind of burden, whether you can see it on the outside our not. Act with kindness and compassion.
Post content that reflects well on you and your employer. What do you want your carefully curated network to see? What do you want your current or future boss and colleagues to see? What do you want your customers to see?
Consider these questions every time you share content. Ensure it will reflect well on you as well as your employer. You are a brand ambassador of your organization. Take that responsibility seriously. (Note: opinions shared in this blog are my own.)
Keep your social profiles updated. Spend a few minutes each month refreshing your profiles, especially LinkedIn. Did you complete an important project? Win an award? Get quoted in an article? Give a speech? Add it to your profile and include media and links.
Try new things. Keep experimenting. Observe how others are innovating. Try posting at different times than you normally do. Experiment with new forms of content, especially video. See what a new app can do for you.
Provide context for your reason for connecting with people. This will help people quickly understand why you want to connect. It’s why you should always personalize your LinkedIn invitations. You’ll stand out among the sea of unpersonalized invites. And you’ll forge a stronger relationship right from the beginning.
DON’T
Post too frequently. What is too frequently? Anything that makes the reader wonder how the poster has time to do their job. In general, one post a day in each of your social platforms is fine. Are there exceptions? Sure, a few examples are if it’s a big news day in your world or if you’re live tweeting an event.
Be too personal. What’s too personal? Pictures from a medical procedure. Posts about personal conversations with your significant other. Saying you don’t plan to be with your employer at your next service anniversary. Yes, I’ve seen people post all of these things.
Post political statements. There is no upside here, and there’s plenty of downside. Wharton professor Adam Grant recently shared that “when solving a problem with money on the line, people ignored the advice of experts with different political views, even though the task had nothing to do with politics.” Sharing your political views limits your audience and your influence. It’s best to keep political discussions among your family and friends.
Post anything that reflects poorly on you or your employer. This includes not sharing any confidential or proprietary information of your employer. Be sure to read all links you share, essentially looking before you link. Don’t share if there’s anything in the least bit disparaging about your employer or your industry.
Immediately spam new connections. Don’t. Do. This. Ever. Establish a relationship first over time, before you even think about pitching new business or asking for a meeting in someone’s busy schedule. Instead, take the time to understand what’s important to your new contact, and how you may be able to help.
Thanks to Tim Ferriss and Maria Popova, I no longer feel compelled to respond to every message. “Sometimes, the best ‘no’ is no reply,” Tim subtitled a section in his book, Tools of Titans. It’s about the “tactics, routines and habits of billionaires, icons, and world-class performers.”
In interviewing BrainPickings.org founder Maria Popova, Tim shared these words of wisdom: “Why put in the effort to explain why it isn’t a fit, if they haven’t done the homework to determine if it is a fit?” she asks.
“Maria could spend all day replying to bad pitches with polite declines,” Tim notes. “I think of her policy often. Did the person take 10 minute to do their homework? Are they minding the details? If not, don’t encourage more incompetence by rewarding it.”
Indeed. Hear, hear!
What would you add to this list?
by Caroline Leach | May 14, 2018 | Social Media
Do you want to share great content in your social media to boost you career, but don’t know how to get started?
See if your employer offers an employee advocacy program.
Forty percent of respondents to my social media research in March 2018 said their employer offered one.
Part 4 in this series of posts on the research covers employee advocacy programs.
One of the big PR trends for this year is the growth in employee advocacy.
Through them, companies empower their employees to be brand ambassadors. Employees can share official news and information about the company and its brand through their personal social media channels.
In my survey, here’s the percentage of respondents who shared employee advocacy program content once a month or more:
- LinkedIn: 38%
- Twitter: 29%
- Facebook: 25%
- Instagram: 6%
- YouTube: 6%
It wasn’t surprising to me that LinkedIn and Twitter took the top 2 spots. It was surprising to see Instagram as low as it was.
For comparison’s sake, how does this stack up to the results in the in the 2017 State of Employee Advocacy study by JEM Consulting? This is an annual study that comes out each August, according to the company’s CEO Jen McClure.
In this study, companies said their employee advocates used these channels for advocacy in personal social media in these percentages:
- Facebook: 76%
- Instagram: 62% (up from 15% the year prior)
- Twitter: 56%
- LinkedIn: 44% (down from 100% the year prior)
- YouTube: 43% (up from 8% the year prior)
Some of the year-over-year changes in popularity point to the fast-changing nature of social media.
And even though my survey respondents aren’t using Instagram a lot via employee advocacy programs, the percentages from the State of Employee Advocacy confirm my belief that Instagram is on the rise for career building.
Finally, I asked how content from an employee advocacy program performs from an engagement perspective, relative to the respondents’ other content.
For all social media, most respondents said the content performs the same. So from an engagement perspective, using content from an employee advocacy program neither drives nor diminishes engagement.
Good content is good content, regardless of where it’s from. It has to be true to your authentic voice, and the types of topics you share in social media.
This came through in a respondent’s comment about why they didn’t use employee advocacy programs: “The content they produce is not ‘shareworthy.’ It’s spun too much from a PR perspective.”
I’m ever impressed that this is not the case for the employee advocacy program at my employer. (Note: opinions expressed in this blog are my own.)
My colleagues Nolan Carleton and Claire Mitzner do an outstanding job curating content for a variety of employee interests. From tech and innovation to career and social hacks to business and consumer news, there’s something for everyone.
What this means is that tapping into an employee advocacy program, if it’s a good one, will make your social media life simpler. You’ll have a whole menu of content options that you can easily customize for your voice and share with your networks.
The conclusion that good content is good content regardless of its origins aligns with Part 3 of this series. It focused on what types of content gets the most engagement, as defined by likes, comments and shares. It also looked at strategies to increase engagement.
Part 2 of this series looked at reasons why people are active in social media to boost their careers.
Part 1 of this series kicked it off with the survey goals, methodology, respondents, and professional and personal social media use.
What’s up next in Part 5? It will cover do’s and don’ts in using social media to boost your career.
What are your do’s and don’ts?
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