After talking about the Facebook password controversy for about two weeks (which continues to escalate with the recent firing of a teacher because she did not hand over her Facebook password) I decided to lighten up the mood with these hilarious videos featured on Mashable  today.

These videos share what Facebook and Twitter would have looked like if they were created back in the 80′s or 90′s. Not only does it show you what each platform would look like, but in tactful 90′s fashion, a lovely “how-to” video goes through tbe different topics of Facebook and how it works.

The Twitter video is hilarious because it really takes you back to when the internet was at its absolute finest.

So what do you think? Would Facebook and Twitter have been so successful if created in the 80′s or 90′s? Share below!!

Last week I brought up the controversial NY Times article in my blog post, where an employer asked an interviewer for their Facebook log-in.

Facebook got wind of the news pretty quickly and had some nice things to say…

Facebook will fight to stop employers from requesting access to their potential employees’ otherwise private accounts, the company’s chief privacy officer Erin Egan announced in a statement on Friday… “This practice undermines the privacy expectations and the security of both the user and the user’s friends,” Egan wrote on the Facebook Privacy blog. “It also potentially exposes the employer who seeks this access to unanticipated legal liability.”

Among the risks to employers, Egan says, are that they will come across information such as age or sexual orientation that could open them up to claims of discrimination if the applicant doesn’t get the job. Employers may also become responsible for information they uncover while pursuing private profiles, such as that which suggests a crime.

Who knew!? Don’t these specific employers think about this? Don’t they know that even if they don’t want to, an opinion based on status, race, looks, etc will instantly be made as soon as you see someone’s private profile? Especially if they are applying for a job?

Below is a video from Mashable talking more about the issue and some concerns that have been raised. Sound off below with your opinions!

I just read this article on Philly.com about a job seeker who went to an interview. After all of the normal round of questions, the interviewer then turned to their computer to look them up on Facebook, once they noticed that the interviewee’s profile was private, they asked for the password and log-in to their account.

Are you baffled? Because I sure was…

After reading more of the article and some of the reasoning behind the issue. I still don’t agree with it. Whatever happened to the background check? Criminal records usually show up on those, along with any other issues that might prevent an employer from wanting to hire a specific person.

In the article they compared giving your credentials to an employer to giving your house keys to a stranger. I totally agree. As a social media specialist I know a lot about privacy on my own social networks, with that said, I also know that if I don’t want someone to see something… to simply not post it anywhere on the internet.

Here’s a piece of the article that I found very interesting:

Giving out Facebook login information violates the social network’s terms of service. But those terms have no real legal weight, and experts say the legality of asking for such information remains murky.

The Department of Justice regards it as a federal crime to enter a social networking site in violation of the terms of service, but during recent congressional testimony, the agency said such violations would not be prosecuted.

But Lori Andrews, law professor at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law specializing in Internet privacy, is concerned about the pressure placed on applicants, even if they voluntarily provide access to social sites.

“Volunteering is coercion if you need a job,” Andrews said.

Neither Facebook nor Twitter responded to repeated requests for comment.

It’s sad that some of these people feel like they must do these things, otherwise they can’t put dinner on the table for their families. I think this is a super touchy issue that should probably be addressed on a more legal level rather than moral.

What are your thoughts on this article? Would you ask for an applicants social networking passwords? If you are an interviewee… would you give that type of information out? Please share below!!

Startup design community Visual.ly launched a new tool on Monday that aims to generate custom infographics on anything from sports to the economy — in one click.

Visual.ly, which usually allows designers to drop in their infographics will now allow people to customize their own infographic right on their site.

The tool will eventually use APIs from sources including ESPN, the Economist and social media sites to compile and create data visualizations. At its launch, the startup is offering templates that use the Facebook or Twitter API.

What do you think of infographics? Do they convey information in a clear and easy way or do you think they make things more confusing?

Timeline for Facebook pages is finally here! Although they don’t go live until March 30th, you can set it up now and publish it for all to see. Many big brands have gone live with their new looks and I am totally loving it. I think it’s a great way to add that extra level of branding and also make it easier to highlight relevant information. If you still are not familiar with Timeline, it is a new layout for your personal profile that lets you highlight specific moments of your life along with organizing them and sharing them in a neat and organized way with your friends and family. This is what is currently rolling out for pages. And it will be awesome.

Before you get super excited about the new look and all of the possibilities, it is important to really understand the new features. These additions include:

A cover photo (850 pixels by 315 pixels)
No default landing tab
Only 4 visible tabs
The ability to add an image for your tabs
New Admin section (Ability to message and view activity log)
Posts by others mentioning your brand may show up in your Timeline

Some things to note:

Viewers can still see the number of likes, who’s talking about it and who checked in – but if you click on the likes in the view and apps area (the boxes underneath the cover photo, they can now see a lot more. It will show the most popular week, city and core age group, with a lovely graph tracking people talking about and new likes.

Another great feature of pages is the ability to highlight a post. This then makes the image stretch out on your page so it is more dominant and stands out a whole lot more than regular wall posts.

Pages also get to add milestones to their Timeline. This helps brands to share important stages of the brands past as in opening day, first award, latest win, etc. It also helps to add another visual aspect to your page, which overall makes your page stronger and stand out more.

Only a few companies have access to Facebook Offers currently, but it will be rolled out soon. According to Facebook’s Offer Help section, they “expect to make Offers available more broadly soon.” Facebook Offers are like Facebook Deals on steroids.

The post is sent through the news feeds of your fans, which is much more visible. There are easy ways to share the Offer, both through the post itself and then when the Offer is claimed. Fans get the Offer by clicking the Get Offer link, see the terms and then click the blue Claim Offer button as shown. Because Facebook has everyone’s email address, they are able to individually email your Offer to the person who claimed it. Unfortunately, the page does not have access to those emails through which the Offer was claimed, but at least the word is spread about your Offer.

Facebook Offers could be a huge win for small businesses offering things like a “free webinar” or consultants offering a “free 15-minute consultation.”

And finally Facebook Ads gets an overhaul! The ads will be larger and the product names are the Reach Generator and Premium on Facebook. The Reach Generator is designed to reach more of your existing fans than you currently are reaching through the news feed. Mike Hoefflinger, Facebook’s director of global business marketing, said that currently pages only reach about 16% of their audience each week with posts. With the Reach Generator ads, pages can reach 50% of their fans each week and 75% each month. Beta testing done by brands such as Ben and Jerry’s was able to reach 98% of fans and double engagement.

Excited? You should be! This will be a great way to really get your brand out there and implement Facebook to reach new crowds

Have any questions? Concerns? Opinions? Share below! I’d love to hear them.

I recently had the opportunity to chat with the fine folks over at JIBE and was really excited to learn all about the offerings that they had for employers Below is a little bit about them along with some great bullets about everthing they can offer to your business for recruiting purposes!

JIBE is where friends help friends land jobs. It is a referral-based hiring platform that enables jobseekers to tap into their existing social networks to gain access to the jobs they want through the people they already know. JIBE provides jobseekers with a wide range of career opportunities, insight into how many connections they have at a given company and the ability to contact their connections, ask for referrals, and then attach those referrals to their job application. JIBE works directly with enterprises, many of which are Fortune 1,000 companies.

• JIBE created the first Social Recruitment Platform that opens up the social graph of both employers and job seekers.
• Leverages Facebook and LinkedIn Networks to identify the most trusted & qualified candidates.
• JIBE’s network reaches 140 million diverse professionals in the US.
• Only recruiting solution compatible with all ATS platforms.

They make the applying and getting referred process so simple and seamless and have some really amazing technology that takes your current careers site and makes it super mobile friendly along with making the applying via mobile quick and easy- something that is unheard of right now when it comes to the mobile application process.

Cool right? If you have any question or interested in learning more about how this could fit into your mobile recruiting strategy, ask below!!

We know it’s tough to fill certain positions. We know it’s tough to find the right people, but there are a good set of tools available out there that will allow you to find the right people for whatever position you are trying to fill. One tool that is readily available to all is LinkedIn.

Below are some key tip and advice to really get the best out of your current (or non-existing and newly created) LinkedIn profile!

It is important to note the following:

• There are over 120 million people all over the world on LinkedIn.

Valentine’s Day is the day that people either look forward to or totally dread. Girls are to be wined, dined and on a perpetual sugar high while the guys stress about the perfect gift, the perfect dinner and where in the world to get the perfect bouquet of flowers.

Ever since I was a little girl my parents taught me to love my self on Valentine’s day. Single or not. Go out and buy something for yourself and really look at the things you have accomplished so far in the new year. Are you still keeping up with your new year’s resolutions? Are you doing the things in life that make you happy? All those things deserve a treat.

So be sure today to treat yourself. Buy yourself a piece of candy. Have a cupcake or just kick back, call someone you love (yes even your mother-in-law) and say, “Hey, I love you. You rock. Happy Valentine’s Day”. Below is a great clip from the show Parks and Recreation that sums up what I think everyone should do on Feb. 14th…

What have you accomplished so far this year that is treat worthy? (Note: No accomplishment is too big or too small! Share away!!)

Although men are also using this social platform (20%) Stats last week shared something most of us already knew, 80% of women are using Pinterest  (pin-ter-rest).  If you are a man and you are wondering what all they hype is all about, I will share it with you.

Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes.

Since pretty much the beginning of time women have enjoyed inspiration boards (at least I have). Pinterest lets users “pin” things they like in order to create a digital board of inspiration. Want to start making new dinners this year? There’s a board for that- Planning a country inspired wedding? There’s a board for that- Want ideas on how to re-do the kitchen… You get it. This is why 80% of the women who use it are in complete bliss when scrolling through this site. It makes organizing, planning and creativity so much fun!

Recently a Mashable article shared that Pinterest is driving more traffic than it’s older friends over at Google+, Reddit, LinkedIn and even You Tube. That is huge.

Pinterest accounted for 3.6% of referral traffic, while Twitter just barely edged ahead of the newcomer, accounting for 3.61% of referral traffic. In July 2011, Pinterest accounted for just 0.17% of referral traffic, proving the site’s blockbuster growth.

Pretty cool stuff right? I personally love the site and think it will get me in trouble with my credit card company and waistline. All it ever inspires me to do is shop and bake… but hey, it’s still pretty amazing. And for the guys who may feel left out I actually have a few male friends that are using Pinterest to share photos of amazing muscle cars, destinations they’d like to visit one day and art that inspires them. All very great boards.

Another great thing about Pinterest is that you can promote your brand. Be sure to read the article here to see how brands are using Pinterest to promote their brand, run contests and further increase interest in the brand and engagement!

Pinterest is still invite only, so if you are not on the site yet ask one of your many friends who already is on the site for an invite, or just drop your email below in the comments and I’ll be happy to end your productivity for the rest of the day. (The site is addictive. I promise)

“During Twitter‘s official 2012 Hack Week, one project was to make the “best/worst recruiting video of all time.” Consider that challenge successfully completed.”

Hack Week is an event at Twitter where Twitter employees create teams of their own and come up with creative ideas for the company minus the input of upper management. After Hack Week is finished they send their ideas off. The ideas are either immediately implemented, or put on the back burner for later.  This is a great idea to get employees excited to come up with new programs, software, communication tools and more. The opportunity is endless.

The video has since gone viral with over 450,000 views on You Tube since it was posted on Friday. The phrase, “It’s so bad that it’s good.” definitely fits this video well. See for yourself below…

This is their real recruitment video and if you are actually interested in a job with Twitter feel free to check them out online or visit @jointhflock

What are your thoughts on the video? Would a recruitment strategy like this work for other companies just as well?

So many things happen throughout the day. Emails get lost, servers go down, printers break, phones ring off the hook… sometimes we are left in a head-spin and it’s really tough to stay positive.

I came across this video today (word on the street is that it has gone viral) about this awesome guy. He is blowing minds while playing his violin when a rude audience members ringtone destroys the classical mood with the common Nokia ringtone.

Doe the violinist flip out? Curse at everywhere? Break his instrument and walks off stage? Let’s take a look.

Well played. Well played.

How do you keep your cool in tough situations?

Move over Jersey Shore. See ya later Mob Wives… If the girls from Tiara and Toddlers see this we might have a temper tantrum. Say hello to a recruiters dream (or nightmare). Are you a top recruiter? If so, check out the teaser trailer below for one of the newest reality TV show…

“This upscale/sophisticated Reality Show will take place in the Miami Beach. This show’s mission is to take the American dream from regressive to progressive. We have selected this nations best of the best recruiters to educate America!

Top Recruiter, The Competition, is a reality show that will feature 5 of the best Human Resources, Talent Acquisition, RPO, Recruitment & Staffing Professionals in America. These personalities will be chosen to live in a house together and engage in many tasks which showcase their approach, expertise, and raw talent as a recruitment expert. We have many surprises for our stars and you can expect to be blown away with what we have in store for them. We are most excited about who America will choose to be the Next Top Recruiter.”

The show was inspired by another reality tv show, when creator, Chris Lavoie decided to uncover the gray area that recruiters can’t seem to get away from.

What are your thoughts on recruitment gone reality TV?

Although I still have some mixed feelings about Google+, Google’s social component, I think I may just be starting to like it.

They just announced a function that allows you to see “personal results” and “profiles in search”. This allows you to search the way you normally do with the ability to find and view relevant Google+ posts that are related to trips away, events or major news stories that have brought people together.

“With Google’s new features, users will now be able to start typing a friend’s name and the form will auto-populate the field. This will then bring up the profile, delivering information delivered on their Google+ account and web results that are connected to them.”

So… what do you think? I’m pretty excited to see Google+ growing into it’s own.

I am what some may call an “over-sharer”. I even have the Foursquare badge to prove it.

So when an application that allows you to share images, along with applying fun filters, with tagging and sharing capabilities comes along. It’s mine… especially if it’s free.

If you’ve been hearing a lot about Instagram you are not alone. It has become a huge marketing tool for companies from all different types of industries.

“According to some research, it seems that the short list is National Geographic, NPR, NBC News, Playboy, Pepsi, CNN, Starbucks, Grammys, and David Blaine. After a series of posts on TechCrunch, Mashable, et al, that list will surely grow. It seems like a natural for any business or media organization that can tell their stories through pictures.”

A recent Mashable article announced that President Obama recently opened his own Instagram account- “In less than a day, and with just two uploads, the U.S. President has already amassed more than 15,000 followers. Obama’s campaign staff, who runs the account, are inviting Instagram users to tag their own campaign shots with the hashtag #Obama2012.”

Another notable achievement for the application, App of the year. Instagram was selected as a favorite from the people over at Apple in their recent iTunes Rewind 2011. The application itself may be new and interesting to some, but it really takes what we’ve always done and makes it easier. Taking pictures and sharing them, whether that be printing them out and sending to grandma or snapping them on your phone and sharing it with the world.

So although Instagram won’t be taking over the world anytime soon, they are enabling people to share and connect with people all over the world, with a simple photo.

You can find us on Instagram- Simply search “Alstin” on the app. Be warned, we take a lot of photos of candies and pastries, we are not responsible for the junk food cravings that will follow!

SHARE: What are some of you favorite mobile apps?

Mashable recently posted a video created by the fine folks over at You Tube with the top 10 most viewed videos if 2011. I think it’s awesome to see the things that people really love, or hate so much they can’t stop watching.  I took the time to actually list each video below in-case you may have missed them, but be sure to watch the round-up below!

10. Cat mom hugs baby kitten: 37,799,824 views
9. The Force: Volkswagen Commercial: 45,248,798 views
8. Maria Aragon – Born This Way (Cover) by Lady Gaga: 45,108,486 views
7. The Creep (feat. Nicki Minaj & John Waters): 48,562,705 views
6. Look At Me Now – Chris Brown ft. Lil Wayne, Busta Rhymes (Cover by @KarminMusic): 49,603,838 views
5. Nyan Cat [original]: 53,839,094 views
4. Talking Twin Babies – PART 2 – OFFICIAL VIDEO: 56,354,483 views
3. Jack Sparrow (feat. Michael Bolton) 60,495,847 views
2. Ultimate Dog Tease:: 74,327,452 views
1. Rebecca Black – Friday – Official Music Video : 12,534,147 views

You Tube surpassed 1 trillion views in 2011 and that is a massive and impressive number! My personal favorites are The Ultimate Dog Tease and the Look at me now cover by Karmin.

Which one did you like the most? Did your fave not make the list? Share below!

Do you find it difficult to pick out applications to add to your phone? Don’t know which game would be better to make your commute to work fly by? You are not alone.

A brick and mortar app store, Open Space, has opened it doors on Colorado and allows people to walk into their store and get advice on which apps are better for them depending on their likes and interests.

Like the idea of shopping in your PJ’s? Perfect, they also created a website where you can visit online and still receive app advice along with being able to search niche categories which ensure you don’t let one download go astray. Categories include, “things 10 year old girls like” and “zombies”. Click here to check out the video below from the fine people of Mashable telling us more about what Open Space has to offer!

Do you think this will last? Or fail?

Here we are again. Another holiday season of shopping, eating and spending time with the people you love. We are always so caught up in holiday cheer, listening to the nostalgic tunes on the radio and marking off countless Christmas lists.  It’s fun, exciting and always makes for great memories.

It’s also during the holiday’s where some families struggle the most and with the economy still unsteady and jobs hard to find, it’s usually the holiday season where some people are the most sad. I didn’t post this to give everyone a trip down guilt lane, but instead some really easy ways to help this holiday season.

TOMS SHOES

In 2006, American traveler Blake Mycoskie befriended children in Argentina and found they had no shoes to protect their feet. Wanting to help, he created TOMS Shoes, a company that would match every pair of shoes purchased with a pair of new shoes given to a child in need. One for One. Blake returned to Argentina with a group of family, friends and staff later that year with 10,000 pairs of shoes made possible by TOMS customers.

WARBY PARKER

With the same idea in mind Warby Parker allows you to buy a pair of stylish and inexpensive frames and in turn they will donate a pair to someone in need.

What I like about the above sites is how it takes something that you already probably need or want to give to someone else and makes it easy for someone like you and I to make an impact and help people around the world. I’ll turn this into a social media piece by sharing with you another company that takes our social nature and creates a space where people can come to and ask for help, a granted wish. People who are looking for a hero.

WISH UPON A HERO

Wish Upon A Hero was first conceived by founder Dave Girgenti shortly after the September 11th attacks on New York City. From his home in NJ, Girgenti watched as thousands of people posted pictures of missing loved ones throughout the city. He thought there had to be a faster, more organized way to connect people in need. That was the moment in which the idea was born.

This is a site where you should probably have a pack of tissues at hand. Some wishes are very saddening to read and make you wish you could offer more help. But others are very much so within our reach. So if you can’t help a family with their electric bill or hospital bills, you might be able to help someone by sending a pack of Christmas cards or even some words of love or encouragement.

So there you have some very easy ways to make your holiday season even brighter!

How do you help during the holidays (or all year round).

I had the wonderful opportunity to go to the SM Plus Conference this year over at the Philadelphia Convention Center and hear some really informative and helpful presentations.

This was a two day event where a bunch of different speakers came to talk about their specific experience with social media and how it affects their particular industry. There are different “tracks” you could go on like Marketing, HR, PR, General Social Media and some others. I mixed up my day between HR, Marketing and General Social Media and got a great variety of information from some really amazing people.

I wanted to highlight some of my favorite key points from the presentations I attended.

Social Media Recruiting isn’t about Recruiting: @susanstrayer

Mistakes 101:

• Don’t take on social media just because everyone is doing it or because you just want to test it out and see what happens. Have a plan and a goal.
• Do not simply push content. Have a plan behind everything you do.
• Just because someone you work with uses Facebook or Twitter all the time does not mean they are ready to take on social media efforts for your company.
• Just because setting up accounts on Social Media platforms are free doesn’t mean you should just set it up and leave it alone.

Another great presentation came from the fine folks over at Under Armour. Dan Mecchi did a wonderful job going over how the “The Ultimate Intern” program was so successful through the use of social media. Emphasized throughout this entire presentation is making sure that the audience you are trying to reach FEELS the following things.

• This is about ME
• This brand is making ME feel apart of what they are doing, apart of the brand.
• This brand is inspiring me. Motivating me to take action.
• This brand is giving me content.
• This brand is getting me involved.

Ready to work out?

Next week I’ll recap the other half of the presentations. Let me know if you have any questions as to how to take the above and transfer it to your brand in order to make social media work for you.

Writer’s Block.

Answering questions can be really helpful when you hit writer’s block. It can help unlock different ideas and inspire your next literary masterpiece. In my case, I just need to find something interesting to say today so I go to Tony, master blogger, and ask for some inspiration.

A while back Tony did the 10 questions from Inside the Actor’s Studio. Deep, thoughtful and provoking are great words to describe these questions and Tony answered them all. He suggested I give it a whirl, so hopefully today, you get to know a little more about me through this list of questions! Enjoy!

1.) What is your favorite word?

Illumination.

2.) What is your least favorite word?

Sag.

3.) What turns you on?

Mozart.

4.) What turns you off?

Negativity.

5.) What sound or noise do you love?

Old music boxes.

6.) What sound or noise do you hate?

The sound of people complaining.

7.) What is your favorite curse word?

F.M.L

8.) What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

Classical Dancer. As in Ballerina. Don’t laugh at me.

9.) What profession would you not like to do?

The other kind of dancer.

10.) If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?

Nothing. I’d expect the most EPIC high five/chest bump ever.

What do you do when writer’s block strikes? 

Google announced yesterday the release of Google+ brand pages.

“So far Google+ has focused on connecting people with other people,” Google SVP of Social Vic Gundotra said in a blog post. “But we want to make sure you can build relationships with all the things you care about—from local businesses to global brands—so today we’re rolling out Google+ Pages worldwide.”

I have been pretty skeptical with Google+ and have hardly used it at all personally. I check it out once in a blue moon to see only 2 people of my 100 some connections updating religiously. I don’t know if this will work, if brands like Ford, Macy’s and Angry Birds are just jumping on to hold the coveted “first!” medal. But I think it’s still cool to try out something fresh and new.

I created an Alstin page today, and if unlike me you actually put your G+ account to good use, be sure to follow us and I promise that I’ll provide you all with interesting content and fun agency news!

Follow us here: Alstin Communications

Other than Alstin Communications, what other brands do you love and follow on Google+?

And we are about done with the Facebook Summit (#sadness) and I have more information than I know what to do with. It’s really exciting getting to learn how big companies use Facebook and how they implement so much of what Facebook has to offer to benefit their fans. This past week the presentations ranged from “How big consumer brands are using Facebook”, to “How to successfully measure Facebook marketing campaigns” to my favorite so far, “How to enchant your Facebook customers and prospects”.

The presentation that I decided to delve into this week is Guy Kawasaki’s, How to use Facebook to enchant your customers and prospects. I thought this was such a great presentation, 1^st because I love Guy Kawasaki. His attitude towards life is super positive and that alone helps you connect with him along with want to learn more about him. This is probably one of the best take away from his presentation. If your company, its people and your product are likeable, people will in turn…like you.

Another idea that Guy went over was product. What type of product do you have? Now I know everyone thinks they have the best product, but the perfect product or service should have a few components. Guy went over them with a nifty acronym that will help you evaluate (or re-evaluate) your brand/service/product. The acronym is DICEE.

• Deep: How deep is your product or service? Does it have a lot of features, functionality, and intelligence?
• Intelligent: Does this product or service work with or cater to your lifestyle?
• Complete: Does this product or service add on to your life or does it complete? Think iPhone…
• Empowering: This product/service empowers you. It makes you feel more creative, productive… A great product/service makes you a better person.
• Elegance: They make you feel happy and cool. A great user experience…

Back for more? Good! Tons of useful information came from week 2 of the summit. Topics that were touched on this week were: F-Commerce, Managing a thriving FB community, Leveraging the power of Facebook on your website, Integration of Facebook and Email and great examples of 2 major B2B brands are using FB right!

Whew, I’m exhausted just writing that out! I’ll be going over commenting policy below, but if you have any questions just leave a comment below and I’ll answer them all.

One question (and fear) we always get from clients is what to do when a customer leaves a negative comment about their brand, product or service on their Facebook page. Andrea Vahl did a great job at talking about this issue during her “How to Build and Manage a Thriving Facebook Community” presentation.  So what should you do when someone criticizes you on Facebook? Here are some steps:

• Help them, don’t delete. It is important to see what the customer is reaching out to you about. Try to offer as much assistance as you can (Customer Service 101) to help make them feel better.
• Set a profanity filter. Facebook allows admins to set a filter so people can’t say certain words on your page (settings range from none, medium, strong).
• After you have responded, take the messaging offline. It is important to continue to reach out to these people and make sure that at the end of the day you did everything you could to help. Either by sending a direct message or leaving your email address within the thread of the comment.
• Ban if necessary. If a customer gets disrespectful or crosses the line with their use of language you can ban them and delete their comment. Only use this if it is absolutely necessary.

2 weeks ago I started the Facebook Success Summit and I wanted to use this space to highlight some of my favorite parts. So far I’ve been learning a lot and loving the questions and conversations that happen after the actual presentations are done. It’s great to hear what other people are having successes and difficulties with. Below I’ll recap some of my favorite presentations so far and why I thought they were so helpful. I’ll re-cap week one first!

Wednesday October 5^th 2011: With the passing of Steve Jobs, Guy Kawasaki scratches his scheduled presentation to take some time and look back on the impact both Steve Jobs and working for Apple had made on his life. It was a very touching and intimate look into Kawasaki’s knowledge, respect and admiration for such an innovative person. To hear the whole thing along with questions from listeners, click here.

Thursday October 6^th 2011: Five steps to a successful Facebook Marketing Strategy, by Mari Smith.

• Clarity
• Content
• Connection
• Campaign
• Conversion
• Culture

Are paper resumes dead?

Paper resumes still have their place, however, it is becoming more and more clear that candidates want to stand out and paper is no longer the only way.

I’ve been hearing, seeing and reading about a bunch of different people who are going after the companies that they want to work for. These candidates are making videos, creating blog spaces and creating entire social campaigns just to get their dream company’s attention.

I remember when I was in college (Art Institute of Philadelphia) we had a mini portfolio class where we had to share our resumes. I created one with a splash of color, totally different than anything I’ve ever seen or done before. I got a C- for that week because I did not create a realistic resume. Literally all I did was create a logo for myself and add primary colors here and there. It was too much back in 2006.

I am oh so happy to know that my efforts then would now be considered sub-par. Even in the past 2 weeks, I’ve come across 2 applications that take your LinkedIn profile and will aggregate all of your information to come up with a lovely and simple infographic. Vizualize only aggregates information from your LinkedIn profile. And last week our very own Jen Hitchens talked about the Brazen Careesist latest Facebook application that allows you to pull together information from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. (Check out that post here) It’s a really great idea and I’m excited to see if it catches on!

Below I have added some of my favorite resumes, campaigns and HIREME videos.

Bianca created a blog to showcase all the reasons why Chipolte should hire her for a social media /PR position. She included links to all of her specialties like social media, PR, and writing and also included her resume with a great “about me” section. Along with those efforts, Bianca created a Twitter account (@HireMeChipolte) to help her campaign go viral. All of her followers are eagerly waiting to see if Chipolte gets back to her. Do you think they will? If you were Chipolte would you consider this applicant?

This takes me to my next favorite campaign. This comes from Matthew Epstien. After leaving his last job, Matthew created a video that was posted on You Tube. His site (GooglePleaseHireMe) was where he posted the video, talked about the position he wanted and gave employers his contact information. The viral video made for great entertainment and after everything was said and done Matthew did end up with a job.

However, it was not at Google. His initial goal was to land at least a telephone interview (which he did get) but later he found out he did not get the job. Matthew was offered a position with an up and coming startup (SigFig), which he is very excited to be working with.

The most impressive thing about this campaign are the metrics:

And finally…

QR CODE – Content-rich Resume from Victor petit on Vimeo.

This video is great, because it takes a pretty normal looking CV and transforms it into something different, something that stands out.

Did I miss any good ones? What are some of your favorite non-conventional resumes?

OR

If you ever received a resume like this would you be impressed? Or would you ignore it?

Social media has made it’s way to some of our favorite companies who have the power to reach many people. Those same companies have found a way to make us laugh with some really great campaigns. On this fine Wednesday, I decided to share some of my favorite social media campaigns with all of you!

You also had a chance to follow Barbie on Twitter & Facebook to see how she was feeling about all of this newly found love. To read more in-depth information about the campaign on all of its efforts, click here.

Below is a cute video that sums up the entire campaign, and of course, if Barbie and Ken ever re-united.

2. The Old Spice Guy:

This social campaign was one of the most awesome things to ever happen to both Old Spice and social media. Isaiah Mustafa has manliness, confidence and a memorable baritone that can make anything sound cool and sexy.

This campaign was a lot of fun to watch unfold. The Old Spice Man would solicit questions from fans on Twitter, Yahoo Answers and other websites. He then answered them in short, humorous YouTube videos, which were viewed a total of 135 million times. The campaign even started some flirty exchanges from Alyssa Milano

It worked because it was fun, intriguing and hilarious. Recently the second round has rolled out with well known romance novel cover star, Fabio. The campaign is called Mano a Mano, click here to see it all go down.

And now for my favorite social campaign…

1. New Era Rivalry:

I am a Yankee fan. I have been my whole life. As a Yankee fan, I was taught many things when I was little: The Yankees are the best team on the face of the planet, and the Red Sox’s will always be below us. I’m not an in your face kind of fan, nor do I hate other baseball teams (I love baseball in general), but when I saw what New Era did with their latest social campaign, I was floored.

Here’s a little snippet about this rivalry, according to USA Today, “There’s no rivalry in sports that comes close. The hostility and tensions explode onto TV screens all across America and on the baseball field whenever these two teams collide. It’s an embedded part of our culture.”

The fact that New Era captured this so greatly with Alec Baldwin (The Yankee Fan) and John Krasinski (The Boston Fan) is amazing. They are gaining some major buzz and have created a great tab to let fans select the team they support (Yanks are winning!) Check out the Facebook page here!

With the Yankees and Red Sox battling it out this week for 1st place, it will be fun to see what the new video will have to offer. Below is the most recent video, where I laughed a lot.

The beauty of all these campaigns is how viral and well targeted they are. These specific companies found the things that people enjoy the most about a childhood memory (Barbie and Ken, the dream couple), a fun and witty guy (Old Spice) and an old school sports rivalry (New Era). Their social, fun and I can’t wait to see more.

What are some of your favorite past or present social campaigns?

Heello is Twitpic’s founder, Noah Everrett’s reply to Twitter. Actually it’s exactly like Twitter. The look, the feel and the simplicity match it all. I guess this is his form of sweet revenge, considering Twitter recently rolled out a photo-sharing service that pretty much made TwitPic useless.

I tried to sign-up but the server was down… #failwhale? Anyway it looks cool with its clean and simple design.  However, it echos every feature that Twitter has to offer.

Pings = Tweets

Echo = Retweeting

Listening to friends = Following friends

The only difference is that pings are real time, so don’t take too long reading one because by the time you click it, it may have already changed. Everett told VentureBeat that his new platform will later support videos, check-ins, SMS, mobile applications and much more.

Heello already offers Facebook and Twitter integration (ouch!) so that your Heello posts can still post to your other social networks.

I’m over being skeptical of the new guy in the neighborhood, but we’ll see how this pans out. Until then I patiently await for the server to work again so I can get my Ping on.

What do you think of Heello? Will you be ditching Twitter anytime soon? What do you predict some of the benefits will be over Twitter?

In 1986 the average cost for a brand new home was $89,430.00, you could top off your gas tank for 89 cents per gallon and for a mere $300.00 you could purchase a Casio portable COLOR television. What other super cool things happened in 1986? Internet mail access protocol was defined for e-mail transfer, Intel released the 386 microprocessor and IBM unveiled the first laptop computer (that would be the sexy beast pictured below.)

You’re probably wondering, “Why is she reminding me of all of this antiquated and saddening news?” (Yes, I’m also sad that gas isn’t that cheap anymore.)

Today is my 25^th birthday, so when the time came to come up with an idea for a blog post, I thought it’d be perfect to celebrate the strides that have been made with social media, technology and communications. Also I wanted to use this space to let everyone know that I love ice cream cake, sunflowers and gummy bears. *wink*

So from the 1^st paragraph you can see how much things have changed, look at the sleek desktops offices now have, Apple’s reinvention of the laptop/notebook, and of course the iPad. Look at your cell phone, it’s smaller, prettier, customized… and it’s in COLOR! (Compared to the cell phones featured in the video below) Interesting enough is the fact that phone calls aren’t the only thing we do on our cell. We now use them to text, tweet, up-date our status, check-in, get us around Times Square without getting pathetically lost. All while allowing us to kill time on the train and play Angry Birds,holiday edition.

Can you imagine, going back in time and walking up to one of the most tech savvy person you could find and asking them to define “social media”? What would they say? Could you imagine trying to explain why Facebook is so popular? Why there are 155,000,000 tweets a day? Why people love hashtags? It’s hard to believe that people lived their everyday lives without the constant influx of messages, beeps, ring tones and vibrations from their back-pocket but alas, it is true.

Did you know that Mark Zuckerberg is only 2 years older than me? The creators of Google, and Twitter are not even 40 and yet these companies run the way we live our lives, the way we communicate and even the way we apply for jobs. Gone are the days that you mail, (as in, use postage) your resume, now with a few clicks, your resume can be emailed to your dream job opening in no time. The best part is, now things are getting creative, companies expect resumes to pop and stand out, they don’t want bells and whistles, but they want to know you want the job and that you are right for it. Who would have thought that a resume made to mimic the profile page of a popular social networking site would help me land countless interviews and land not one, but two jobs? (Trust me I was surprised too!)

Look at how LinkedIn has revolutionized the way we apply for jobs and connect with other companies. It has also made searching and applying for a job slightly less daunting, along with allowing one to connect with like-minded people in similar industries. My favorite thing about LinkedIn is that when I would apply for a job, it would attach my LinkedIn profile, (that I always kept updated) which had recommendations from previous jobs and saved any information from previous cover letters that I had attached. The fact that I can go online today and search for tips on how to improve my resume, what the culture is like at any given company and even do some listening to see what other people think about working at that company is amazing.

I think a thank you is in order…

Thank you ghastly laptops and monstrous cell phones of the 80’s, for growing up. Twenty-five years have gone by and your ancient ways have paved a new ground for all of the sleek technology that we so religiously use and love. There are some days that we’d like to turn you off and shut out the noise of the digital world you make so easily accessible, but that’s what vacations are for. You have helped me to become a more informed, tech-savvy person.  You’ve given me an outlet to share my creative joys with the world (photography, cooking and writing). You have even helped me to narrow down my ideal career. You have given me the ability to video-chat with my grandmother in Puerto Rico as if she were sitting right next to me.

You have single-handedly changed the way I live my life. The way I learn. The way I share…

So today, dearest technology, we can both celebrate. It’s been a good 25 years and I can’t wait to see what else you have up your sleeve!

Ok, we all love the shiny new toy over the worn stuffed animal- But that shiny new toy may have a lot of sharp edges, faulty wiring and even just fall apart after a few uses.

Google+ is definitely the shiny new toy today. Only a few (as in about 10 million users) have started using it and the hype around it is intriguing, consider all the other Google social successes (sarcasm)-

Our very own Jennifer Hitchens asked last week what were our thoughts on Google+: After playing around with G+ myself, I came to the conclusion that I like it. You probably have read countless articles on what G+ is, how to use it, why it’s the next Facebook, etc. So I’ll just offer my review of G+ instead of an overview of each of its offerings

Circles was great- It let me easily separate my friends, family, co-workers and so-on into neat little groups. Facebook has this feature as well, I can categorize my friends and family and so on and when I make a status update I can specify who sees it and who doesn’t. They also have Groups, which I love (but don’t use enough). However, with over 400 friends, I don’t feel like sitting and categorizing all my friends- With G+, it’s like a fresh start, so as my friends start to add me, I can easily categorize them as I see fit.

Hangouts. Umm have you heard about Facebook & Skype? The only difference is that it can be done with a group of people instead of just a one-on-one. Who does this though? (Please comment below and let me know if you think this is an awesome feature) I usually use an event or message on Facebook to gather my friends and figure out what works best for everyone. I don’t know any group of people who have the time to video chat at the same time much less to figure out what time to go to a movie. I do, however, think it’s great for companies because it’s still tough to find a good conference call system. If this works the way it’s supposed to… it’d be perfect.

Huddle = Facebook groups- A great feature to have for sure.

Sparks is also pretty cool, however, I worry about how much spam might get into my feed once I start adding more and more interests. I like StumbleUpon a lot and probably wouldn’t even use this feature. But if spam is not an issue, I see a lot of people loving this.

Backing up data- this is my favorite. I’m really bad at backing photos up or anything else for that matter. Google Takeout will allow me to download all my data so if G+ ever crashes or disappears, I won’t have to worry about losing all my uploads. As far as my over 2000 photos on Facebook, I will probably lose them forever if anything ever happens *cries*

Mobile. Mobile apps are great, easy to use on the go and great for checking in. However, the photo sharing policy worries my heart. Apparently G+ wants to making-photo sharing as easy as possible, so images and videos taken on you phone will upload themselves automatically to your Google+.

Seriously? Automatically? Privacy issues anyone? I mean it automatically uploads to a private album and you get to share it with whomever you’d like after you assign the image, but what is the point of that?

For businesses- G+ has already told businesses to hold off on creating an account. They have some super secret cool things for businesses, so I am interested to find out what those are. You can file an application to be one of the 1st to try a business page here!

As for G+ being the next Facebook, I don’t think so- I’m not one to make predictions, but there are some huge companies with huge followings, why would they jeopardize that to try something so new? (Especially with Google’s past social failures) I say give it time before jumping on this wagon.

I don’t know, call me a skeptic-but I prefer the worn out stuffed animal over a shiny and new toy any day.