Internet Brave New World: “Final” Frontier for Business/Careers

Twitter, Twhirl, Flock, Plurk – No, I’m not talking in Klingon. I’m naming a few of the new social media applications available on the web. And if you’re young – say a business major in college – you want to learn about these applications sooner than later. Why? Because this new frontier will be your world.

A great place to start learning is to go to http://www.ustream.tv/channel/blogcatalog and listen to the two free webinars sponsored by BlogCatalog.com featuring social media consultant Erica O’Grady. I listened to these two programs live and learned a tremendous amount of info. (I typed notes while listening.)

The next free webinar with Erica O’Grady is June 30. Get online a few minutes before so you can sign up for a free ustream membership. That way, when you type in your comments during the webinar your username will show up instead of something such as ustream 2789.

Of course, you can visit the new social media sites directly. Yet with Twitter, for example, I needed to learn more about it before I could even begin to get the benefits from sending tweets. (Actually, I usually send updates through Ping.fm on my Facebook account, which updates Twitter and several other of my social media sites.)

A great place to watch short free videos that explain such things as RSS feeds and social bookmarking sites is www.commoncraft.com. And if the free info you find on such sites doesn’t do it for you, check out the special reports section of www.publicityhound.com. Publicity Hound Joan Stewart has short inexpensive reports that make things really clear. I particularly like her special report on Twitter.

As opposed to me – who is trying to become a princess (queen would be expecting too much) of internet marketing in a very short period of time – if you’re young you can take time to learn about all the new online possibilities for business and career success.

Oh, yes, if you join Twitter (free), follow me at http://twitter.com/ZimblerMiller. And you can even send me a direct message by putting @ZimblerMiller in the What are you doing box on the home page.

Technorati Tags:
Twitter, Twhirl, Flock, Plurk, BlogCatalog.com, Commoncraft.com, PublicityHound.com, ustream.tv, Erica O’Grady, Ping.fm, Facebook, Joan Stewart

Social Media Networks and Confidence in Who You Are

I’ve been reading a great deal about social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter. And every article I read leads to another social media network and another and another. Not to mention discovering lots of new people and new blogs.

Monday on the Blogcatalog.com-sponsored ustream.tv teleseminar by social media expert Erica O’Grady – www.ericaogrady.com, social media expert Chris Brogan was mentioned. I have to admit I had never heard of him.

I later went to his blog and read the post titled “The Real Power of Personal Branding” – http://www.chrisbrogan.com/the-real-power-of-personal-branding/ I was very impressed, as were many of the people leaving comments about the post.

One thing Brogan wrote about was the need for confidence. He said: “Confidence (not arrogance) is the secret sauce to everything you do with regards to personal branding.”

And I thought about confidence in connection with the topics that I blog about: college applications, applying for internships and jobs, career strategies. In every one of these scenarios, you’re putting out your personal brand for others to consider. And if you don’t have confidence in your personal brand, who will?

On the other hand, it is important to distinguish between confidence and boasting. Confidence is the ability to say “I’m the best for this job because ….” and then tick off very specific traits that make you the best. (Of course, per my earlier post “Interview Tips: Backing Up Resume Statements with a ‘Compelling’ Story,” you need to be prepared with stories to back up the traits you tick off.) Confidence is NOT boasting how terrific you are without any actual examples of this.

In talking about college applications, a college’s admission goal is usually not for every college applicant to be well-rounded. A college’s admission goal is usually to have a well-rounded class. This means accepting a freshmen class of students with passions in a wide range of areas. And students with passions must have confidence about those passions – they must be willing to publicly say “this is what I love and this is who I am.”

And that passion can become your personal brand in “adult life.” A personal brand built with confidence on something you love can be an extremely powerful personal brand.

Technorati Tags:
college applications, college application, jobs, job, careers, career, internships, internship, intern, employment, Flipping Burgers and Beyond, Erica O’Grady, Chris Brogan