Tag: Social Media

Think of your online profiles, posts, and tweets as a dynamic résumé—an online presentation of your personal brand. They reveal your interests, personality, and expertise. A space like Facebook or Twitter may seem more personal, while LinkedIn is clearly a venue for professional networking and job searching.

However, there are still useful ways to leverage these ‘more personal’ channels to grow your professional network.

“Like” or follow companies

Search for pages of your target companies, and “Like” them. Interact on the page’s wall to highlight your interest in the products and services. Similarly, be sure to follow official company accounts on Twitter—it is a good way to stay up to date on industry and company trends.

Share relevant links, info, and stories

Post links to your profile that will position you as an expert in a field and may attract the attention of recruiters and hiring managers. Remember to stay away from controversial topics and inappropriate content or photographs.

“Like” articles on the web

Don’t be afraid to hit the “Like” on blogs, online news articles, websites, etc. When you “Like” interesting stuff, others may want to connect back with you as a resource, and it begins another connection.

Many people use Twitter to keep up on the latest buzz, including job opportunities. It’s also an efficient networking tool, and 140-character tweets force you to keep your message or question concise. When you make new contacts in your field of interest, ask whether they have a Twitter handle to follow. At conferences and social events, include your Twitter handle on your name badge.

Use Twitter as you would a business card—a point of entry for follow-up conversation.

As you build your network of colleagues and professionals, reach out to ask questions. And reciprocate by quickly answering questions directed to you.

How to tend to your network—using social media

Networking online doesn’t need to be time consuming. You can develop your professional reputation and help others in the process through simple etiquette practices that require only a few minutes each day:

1. Be the first to have a point of view. Share relevant news articles, and add value by including any observations.
2. Let them know they’ve been heard. Listen to what your network has to say, and make an informed suggestion or relevant introduction.
3. Establish yourself as the go-to-person. Consider connecting your LinkedIn and Twitter accounts to establish more visibility.
4. Try to add at least one new person to your network a week. Growing networks are far more effective than stagnant ones.

Protect your reputation online

Even with the strictest privacy settings, no social space is truly private, so heed our suggestions to protect your online reputation. On the other hand, don’t be afraid to be yourself; you’ll make your best impression if there’s a real human behind your online identity.

Don’t let social networking jeopardize your career opportunities. Protect your image by following these simple tips:

Keep it professional
Don’t post anything that you wouldn’t want a prospective employer to see. Derogatory comments, revealing or risqué photos, foul language, and lewd jokes all will be viewed as a reflection of your character. Carefully select your privacy settings. And since you can’t control what others post, you may want to block or hide comments from friends who don’t practice the same level of discretion.

Be prepared
Check your profile regularly to see what comments have been posted. Remember that other people can tag you, so check regularly, and if a post is not appropriate, untag yourself. Use a search engine to look for online records of yourself to see what is out there about you. If you find information you feel could be detrimental to your candidacy or career, remove it—and make sure you have an answer ready to counter or explain “digital dirt.”

Respect the wall
If you wouldn’t want to read it on a billboard, don’t post it to your Facebook wall—or anyone else’s. This holds true even if you use Facebook only to socialize. Remember, anyone you “friend” can see your comments, photos, and YouTube video links. Email or use Facebook’s messaging feature instead.

Cybersecurity, social media, and big data will be the focus of a panel discussion at 8 a.m. Tuesday, Oct. 29 in Brauer Hall. Featuring professors from the schools of business, engineering, and law, the panel will provide a 360-degree examination of the state of privacy and information security in today’s wi-fi world of communication.

Speakers on the panel include:

• Todd Milbourn, Senior Associate Dean of Faculty & Research, Hubert C. Dorothy R. Moog Professor of Finance, Olin Business School
• Antonio Sardella, Antonio Sardella, Adjunct Professorof Business, Olin Business School
• Patrick Crowley,Assoc. Professor of Computer Science & Engineering, School of Engineering & Applied Science
• Neil M. Richards, Professor of Law, Washington University School of Law

The panel discussion will be held in Room 12 in Brauer Hall on the Danforth Campus from 8-9 a.m., preceded by a networking breakfast at 7:30 a.m.

The event is sponsored by the Sever Institute which launched a new masters degree program in cybersecurity this fall in conjunction with Olin and the School of Engineer & Applied Science.

To reserve a seat at this free event, contact The Sever Institute:
sever.wustl.edu
email sever@wustl.edu,
or call: [314] 935.5484

Photo credit: from Michael Radford’s 1984 film adaptation of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Tweet and follow Commencement festivities with the Wash U hashtag for graduation day May 17. Post your pics to Flickr and Facebook with the hashtag, too, so everyone can share the memories. There’s also live streaming of the ceremonies and a new online WUSTL trivia quiz in case you’re bored standing in line to get your diploma!

Here are some of the ways you can connect with the ceremonies, graduates, friends and family:

• Live streaming schedule for ceremonies

8:30 a.m. All-University Ceremony in Brookings Quad

11:30 a.m. Olin Undergraduate Ceremony in Athletic Complex 

3:00 p.m. Olin Graduate Ceremony in Athletic Complex 

• Twitter:  use the hashtag  #WUSTL2013 to tweet and follow Commencement
• Flickr: see all the photos from the day
• Electronic greetings: send personal messages to grads, friends and family
• Take the WUSTL Trivia Challenge
• WUSTL website with all the links above and more about Commencement

The rise in popularity of social media (i.e. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter) within the workplace has created a new set of “rules of engagement” for how to conduct oneself in a professional manner.  Specifically, how to present yourself professionally using digital tools.

Avoiding common mistakes is vital to building trust and useful connections within the social media platform.  For example:

1.  Emails – be crystal clear when writing an email and be sure not to criticize of deliver bad news in such an impersonal manner.  Pick up the phone or meet face-to-face, it makes a better impression.  Don’t copy others unless they really need to read it. And more importantly, be sure to respond in a timely manner, let’s say 24 hours.

2.  Mobile Devices – turn your smartphone off during meetings and stow the phone out of sight during meetings. Constantly checking and texting tells others you are focused somewhere else and not on the meeting or presentation.  It is also very distracting to others in the meeting, too.

3.  Video Conference or Skype – be sure to test all connections and know your technology prior to scheduling a conference call or Skype conversation.  A practice run allows you to troubleshoot issues without wasting others’ time.  Remember to be considerate of the other person when scheduling an international call, keep their local time in mind.

4. Twitter – it’s a good idea to listen and learn about people you are following and how tweets are used in your business setting.  You can become a valued Twitter contributor when you add value to a conversation.  Tweet out information your followers can use, not irrelevant facts.  This is your chance to become an “online expert”.

Social media and technology have changed the way we communicate and in the workplace, you can eliminate controversy by learning from your own missteps.  Best advice is to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and consider how you are being viewed based on your email response, phone or Skype call, or mobile phone use.

It’s called Sketch-a-Song. It’s free and it’s designed to make music creation accessible to everyone—even people without formal musical training.

Jacob Zax, BSBA’13, and classmate Adam Segal are members of the team of seven high school friends who devoted last summer to creating the app.

The co-creators of the Sketch-A-Song app have been friends since they were classmates at Denver East High School.

The guys all attended Denver East High School in Colorado and are pursuing degrees ranging from computer science to English at different universities. Jacob answered questions about Sketch-A-Song via email, three days after their app’s soft launch.

Q: Can you tell me a bit more about your friends and co-creators?

A:  The group of co-creators are best friends from high school. We were very close in high school and have stayed best friends throughout college. Towards the end of last year we decided to forgo internships to spend one last summer together working on a project.

Q: How long have you been working on this app?
A: A total of nine months. We worked full time for two months during the summer and almost released when we returned to school. We weren’t quite ready though, and after a lot of deliberation decided to make the finishing touches to the app over winter break (making progress during the semester was unrealistic due to our other commitments). Those improvements ended up taking us into the start of this semester but they’ve made a big difference in the app’s quality.

Logo for parent company of Sketch-a-Song.

Q: What was inspiration for Sketch-A-Song?
A: Adam and I took a class called the Hatchery (B53 MGT 424 01S Business Planning for New Enterprises) in the Washington University Business School in the spring of 2012, which was designed to nurture student’s entrepreneurial ideas and ambitions. While our project for that class was quite different from Sketch-a-Song, the experience helped inspire us to commit our summer to our own venture and convince our friends to join us in starting a business. As a group, we had a passionate collective belief that we could learn a ton from working with one another towards a common goal. Also, my friends are just inspiring people—and the thought of sharing a summer with them in such a meaningful way was exhilarating from day one.

Screenshot of the app.

As for the concept of music creation, all credit goes to our co-creator Zack Sulsky who is a great musician and music theorist. He was the one who convinced us that we should aspire to creating a product that would allow anyone to make pleasing music.

Q: Do you plan to make money with the app?
A: We made the app because we wanted to give people a way to express themselves musically that was fun, intuitive, and accessible. We explicitly chose not to include advertisements because we didn’t want to detract from the simplicity of the creation process or the app’s overall aesthetic.

However, we do have in-app-purchases as a way to unlock additional content and while our NoteNotes (that’s our name for the in-game currency) are moderately priced, and can also be earned by making songs, we do expect to make some money as people become familiar with the game and want to explore additional instruments and sketchpads.

Q: What are you guys going to do THIS summer?
A: As graduating seniors we have a variety of plans, jobs, and traveling to look forward to. I will personally be taking the lead on promoting Sketch-a-Song before exploring other career opportunities. Adam will be training to become a teacher with Teach For America. While the team is headed in many different professional directions our commitment to Sketch-a-Song will continue to unite us. We have also talked about exploring a webz concept sometime in the future but I can’t say too much about that.

Check out Sketch-A-Song’s website  and download the app for iOS or Android  devices.