See the link to the article I read here –> http://ow.ly/DmKTv

I worked in advertising for a few years and have always loved clever ads.  The Breast Cancer Foundation revamped the logos for Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, to resemble breasts.  The tag line that goes along with the photos is “If only you checked your breasts as often.”  This is a great example of how a group is attempting to spread information and awareness by using social media.  Not only did they create very similar looking logos, that you have to look closely at to see the difference, but they also include a link to a petition meant to encourage each of these social media networks to use the modified logo during Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

After the tremendous success of the ALS “ice bucket” challenge this summer, perhaps we will see more and more of these kinds of campaigns linked to social media networks.   I am going to sign this petition.  I can get behind some good coming from sites that are generally very “me focused.”  Let’s start using our networks to save lives.  The trick is finding something that catches on.  I hope this one does.

Last Thursday, I signed into Klout.com.  I wanted to search a few people for an assignment and decided to give it a go myself.  I linked only my Facebook page to it.  My score came back as 10. The score is between 1-100, letting you know how much influence you have on social media.

I was far from surprised at my pathetic score.  I rarely post on my Facebook, so I was happy with my score of 10, which I suspect, in Kloutland, means,  “Hey, you put up a picture once and 4 people liked it. Hooray.  Non-social media chick, enjoy your score of 10.”

This Tuesday, 5 days later, I again visited Klout to search for someone for an assignment.  This time when I opened it, my score had jumped to 50.  I went back into my Facebook to see if I had posted something that would have boosted my score.  The last time I posted on my Facebook page was September 30th, and Tuesday was October 14th.  This made me wonder what had happened, and why had it changed.  I could understand if I had linked other social networks, but I hadn’t.  So, I decided to link one other site, and added my LinkedIn.  Nothing has changed so far, but i feel that perhaps 5 days of not doing anything may make a difference, since it did the last time.

This experiment is two fold.  First I’m testing my own and 2nd I’ve got a few others signing up to see what they get.  First, my sister (Kerry) who owns her own business and is twitter crazy with tons of followers.  Second, my friend Scott, who is a fairly famous voice actor that has some serious fans interacting on his Facebook.  Third, my friend Jane who is a local actress in Vancouver.

Initial results:

Ginny (limited user):                        50                 (Facebook & Linkedin added)

Kerry (heavy user):                             44                 (Facebook only)

Scott (1000’s of fans):                      14                 (Facebook only)

Jane (actress):                                   48                 (Facebook only)

To be continued……

Here I am, 37 years old and just finishing up my undergraduate degree in Commerce.  I find myself staring into a virtual sea of hashtags, links, social media networks and wondering, what am I doing trying to figure all of this out?  Well today, I think I found my answer.  The whole point of going to university again was not only to learn something new and expand my understanding of the world, but also to get a job that doesn’t require me to work until 2:00 in the morning kicking out drunken bums.  So, I am going to accept “TwinkedIn Challenge“, that’s what I’ve decided to call it.

The article I read today, Rethink Your LinkedIn Strategy: 6 Benefits of Treating It More Like Twitter, had some insightful ways to get your personal branding beefed up on LinkedIn.   I plan on revisiting my LinkedIn Profile and really getting that social media on a mission to find me a job. The main idea of this article is that limiting your connections to only people you know, isn’t going to help you in the long run.   If you treat LinkedIn more like Twitter, and try to increase your connections, you will get more out of it.

Here are their suggestions in brief, please be aware that these are not my own ideas, just paraphrased from their page.

1.  People will want to meet you and hire you if you are a “most-viewed connection”.

2. Networking is about visibility.  Get more views, more often.

3. Increase your personal endorsements.

4. The more people you know, the more people want to know you.

5. Increase traffic to your website. (This one doesn’t really apply to me, as I don’t have a company.  I’ll keep it in mind for the future).

6. Increase your content exposure and get featured in LinkedIn Pulse, increasing your exposure even more.

There you have it. Some ideas from the day of reading. Now, if I can find the time to tear myself away from reading books on international biz and writing blog posts, I plan on starting to really use LinkedIn in a way that will increase my professional network.

I don’t make a secret about how much I like Netflix, and they keep coming up with interesting jobs.

Currently Netflix is looking for “Official Instagrammers”  to head out across America taking photos for Netflix Instagram channels.  They refer to these Instagrammers as Grammasters. All the travel arrangements are paid for and you’ll find an extra 2000 bucks in your pocket each week.  Remember when people started finding fame through Youtube? Justin Bieber, for example.  Perhaps Instagram is the next place to find fame, using photography rather than video.

Earlier this year, Netflix hired a professional tagger, who essentially got paid to watch Netflix TV shows and movies all day.  Greatest job in the world? Possibly. This person had to describe what they saw using “objective tags” in order to better customize the Netflix customer viewer experience.  I think this relates back to customer segmentation and really understanding who your clients are.  I like the innovative ways that Netflix has grown over the last few years.

Check out these articles if you want to learn more about jobs with Netflix.

Netflix Pays for Instagram Play

Get Paid To Watch Netflix All Day (Unfortunately, this job is only available in the UK.  Fingers crossed Netflix Canada jumps on the bandwagon)