So you think that your next prospective employer or business associate won’t notice your Facebook posting of a “funny” picture on a family vacation or an unruly comment after one of your teams lost, or a tweet you sent after a political debate? Think again. A study from chartered psychologist Rob Bailey presented at a British Psychological Society Conference in Chester, U.K. last year found that “65% of respondents said they were likely to look at a potential employee’s online presence prior to interviewing them.” 65%!

Bailey had this advice for potential job candidates: “Lock down your Facebook privacy settings completely! Or if you don’t do this, make sure any level of information you share is appropriate for the social media image that you are trying to create. Twitter is completely public; only share things that support the reputation that you are trying to create. Use LinkedIn like a professional networking event—your profile is your CV and your discussions are places for professional, respectful conversations.”

Like most issues, there is another side to this. In a post on the site socialmediatoday last year titled, How Many Social Media Personalities Do I Need?, Maria Ogneva wrote that one profile is just fine. “Can you really separate?” she asked. “In this transparent social world, it’s getting harder and harder to separate the professional and personal.” She believes that having a passion for what you do is the key barometer today, and your personal life should reflect that passion. “In a channel that values conversation, true passion is obvious, and lack thereof makes you come off disingenuous and uninteresting.”

I agree with her up to a point. My personal film and arts endeavours—leading groups and writing occasional reviews—would support my professional cause in most cases. But I’m a fairly cautious guy who grew up in another time. Is it fair to the Generation Z folks, who know nothing else but to put their every thought and action online, to be judged professionally for it? Ogneva also points to serendipity. “Some of the best connections I’ve made have been because of another interest,” she writes. “It’s this serendipity that allows you to discover mutually beneficial relationships.” That makes sense. I always thought that it was good to put your interests in a resume in hopes that something catches the employer’s eye. Social media is just a much more detailed list of those interests. “Serendipity happens, but you do have to plan it.”

Finally, Ogneva points to the problems of upkeep. “Personally, I don’t have the time or brain capacity to remember to update all these places,” she writes. “The more you fracture your presence, the less meaningful each presence in each account will be, because there’s just not enough time.” I probably disagree here. When it’s something as important as your professional life, it’s worth taking the extra time to keep your accounts straight—if that is what you need to do. She does back down a bit in the end. “If you are trying to build a professional career, you probably should mind your tweets in the first place, no matter what account you are posting to.”

Back to Bailey’s study. He concludes that there may actually be something illegal in employers making decisions over something in your social networking sites (SNS). “If an SNS search is done before an employment offer, without a policy to guide it, it is highly likely to be done in private and not recorded; these are conditions where bias and discrimination are more likely to occur.” But that would be awfully hard to prove.

He offered this advice to companies that choose to go the SNS route: “Prepare a clear company policy based on sound legal advice. This should include such policies as not adding an applicant as a friend in order to investigate their background, as this would risk breaching data protection legislation.”

Excuse me while I tear down my Facebook wall. Be right back.

************************************************

SIPA’s presence in the U.K. will be
very big over the next few months—
starting with the Marketing Directors Roundtable
on Feb. 23 at Avonmouth House in London.

Rachel Maund will be the trainer. She founded Marketability
in 1999 after 18 years in international sales and marketing
roles within academic, STM and professional publishing.
Sign up for this great session with Rachel today!
This is the first of a monthly training series in London.
Many resources are going into making these
exceptional events, so please check them out!

Millions of tablet devices are expected to ship in the coming years. The ownership of digital reading devices has reached 29% for Americans.

More than one in four US consumers own a digital reading device. The time is perfect for digital publishers to enhance their print magazine content by making the digital transformation. After doing so, they have the opportunity to provide a better content experience through the help of rich digital media.

We recently released a new free 42-page report compiling the current information pertaining to the digital publishing industry. We are presenting so digital publishers can better understand and serve the digital magazine publishing market. Download a free digital copy of Digital Magazine Publishing Strategy Basics now.

How many stories have you heard about the major impacts of social media? The interesting aspect is that major impacts can be for better or worse.

For instance, consider all the pieces of content that go viral and propel individuals into a stage of stardom because they were savvy enough to use social media correctly. Now think about the opposite; those who took irrational actions online and paid the consequences. The moral here is that social media can make or break an organization or individual.

For digital publishers unaware of the options that await them within social media tools, we’ve decided to list some functionality that social media practitioners recommend having in the social media tools they use daily.

Social media software functionality requirements

#1 – Analytics: Are you using a tool that embeds analytical data? Keeping track of your tweets should be a major focus for online editors publishing a lot of content on Twitter. Specific data that should be recorded in social media analytics includes how many links are clicked and the amount of clicks they receive, the amount of retweets, favorites and how many times audience members have engaged with your content.

As Social Media Specialist Amanda MacArthur points out, there are two distinct differences that should be measured pertaining to how people mention you. If people are mentioning you but not using the @ symbol, then you need to do more to make your audience members realize the @ exists.

#2 – Hashtag Monitoring: It’s crucial to stay on the beat of your most relevant topics. Setting a column in your social media tool that allows you to track a variety of hashtags allows you to see what competitors are posting and if questions are being asked on the topics you can supply answers to.

#3 – Keyword Monitoring: Like hashtag monitoring, watching how keywords are being used on Twitter can open new conversational directions. Your brand should always be added as a keyword phrase so you can monitor any positive or negative comments made about your company. In addition to handling the social media concerns of your company, you’d be able to keep an eye on any public relations issues that can possibly arise online.

#4 – Scheduling: The aspect of scheduling is hugely important. With this ability you can operate on a specific Twitter publishing schedule and push content even when you’re not available. Without this functionality, companies would have a hard time pushing content during the weekends or holidays when employees aren’t working.

#5 – Efficiency: Having a tool that incorporates all of these functionalities greatly increases social media efficiency. We’ve been using HootSuite for our primary social media tool because it does incorporate all of the functionality we require to efficiently operate through the social media landscape.

Is there other social media functionality that you require in your daily endeavors? What tools do you recommend and what are the reasons? We’d love to read your thoughts in the comments section below.

The education process has come a long way in a short time. Remember the days when going to a class or a library were the most popular ways to learn?

The Internet has changed that. And although school and libraries are still relevant, information seekers have more options.

Webinars, for instance, have developed into valuable tools, especially when they are offered at any time of the day or not. This way, people can receive the information when it best suites their schedule. This is perfect for professionals and entrepreneurs who are operating in limited time frames.

Since we’ve been discussing functionality associated with social media software today, I wanted to remind you all of relevant webinars we offer on-demand in Mequoda Pro. The following webinars offer high-quality, actionable insight on social media:

-Facebook for Publishers

-Twitter for Editors

-Twitter for Publishers

Subscribe to Mequoda PRO now and receive over 60 hours of educational information on-demand, to be viewed as your schedule allows.

If you visit a half dozen reputable websites right now, I’d bet most, if not all, have social media icons on their website.

These sites want you to interact with them in other manners. Brands are attempting to be more personal through their activities on Facebook and Twitter.

Website operators on the WordPress platform can join the rest of social websites out there but using the Social Media Widget. This plug-in supports dozens of social media sites and offers icons at different sizes: 16×16, 32×32, and 64×64.

Additionally, there are multiple icon packages to choose from, which utilize different artist renderings so the icons can be used that fit your site the best. And if animation is desired, they even have options that include: fade, scale, bounce, and combo.

Decide where you want your social media icons to be located on your site and try using the Social Media Widget for WordPress websites; the social media fanatics in your audience will thank you.

One of the hands-on workshops at our upcoming Digital Publishing Workshop is entitled Unlocking the Power of Twitter. It will take place on Wednesday, July 18th at the McGraw-Hill Conference Center in New York City.

Our conversation on Twitter has evolved over the years. We began by suggesting online publishers and content marketers take advantage of the microblogging site so they could find and facilitate conversations that relate to their content. We also suggested that tweeting your articles will lead to more website traffic.

Twitter has certainly caught on with the savviest online users who seek content and crave conversation with like-minded audiences. Now, we’ve gone beyond the basics of Twitter and present clearly defined strategies that are being used to generate more website traffic.

I’ve seen it work; other online publishers have seen it work. Now it’s your turn to get versed in the power of Twitter so you too can receive more traffic and build another list of interested audience members. Register now for the Digital Publishing Bootcamp and prepare yourself for a three-day intensive, providing information on all the aspects necessary for success in digital publishing.

What’s there to say about the digital publishing industry? It’s been booming as of late, when prior, it had been lifeless.

Although digital publishing has been around since the 1990s, it had never reached any desirable level of success. Digital publishers were historically offering some amount of content for download in the form of PDFs…but there wasn’t anything very interesting about them. And there wasn’t a good method for consuming this content. Whereas print magazines were portable and collectable, digital editions had to be printed or accessed on laptops to be portable. The return didn’t justify the investment in time and effort for most consumers.

Then digital reading devices – eReaders and tablets – were developed. The iPad reached the market and changed the world of digital publishing forever.

Now, legacy content publishers are actively learning the best strategies for content development, distribution and operational management. Some have found success; many others are still far behind.

For more information on digital magazine publishing, tips, and expectations for digital publishers going forward, download of new free 42-page report Digital Magazine Publishing Strategy Basics.

“We have got to overcome our hyperactive sense of exceptionalism and embrace the more collective, cooperative and globalized forces shaping the planet.”
–Neil Gabler

There was an incredibly thought-provoking op-ed piece in Sunday’s Washington Post that I would like to connect to today’s Twitter Chat at noon. It was by Neal Gabler, author of Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination. He believes that innovation in the 21st century will come out of crowds, not the “lone-wolf capitalist.” He writes, “…innovation is increasingly coming from groups, not solitary heroes. Capitalism as a communal enterprise—dare we call it collective capitalism?—is the new engine of innovation, in America and beyond…”

The problem, he writes, is that we are still wrapped up in the romanticism of the singular hero. But where Mark Zuckerberg becomes the modern Alexander Graham Bell, Gabler would argue that Facebook is just the platform, and millions of people have provided the engine, or the content to be more specific. I read a comment that said this belies the data we’ve been reading—and that I’ve written about here—that brainstorming inhibits individual ideas. But I would argue differently. I believe Gabler is agreeing with this data. He wants people to come together WITH their ideas. He wants creativity enlightened, not stifled.

This is where I would make the connection with SIPA’s weekly Twitter Chat, taking place today at noon Eastern time. Yesterday, one of the participants asked who the expert will be for today’s talk on webinars. “Well, you will be, and she will be, and he will be, etc.” The idea is that if we can assemble enough “experts” each week, then the flow of information should be wonderful. And everyone taking part will be the beneficiaries. You can ask questions and get immediate answers. Try it.

“Innovation will always need the people Malcolm Gladwell calls ‘tweakers,’ such as Steve Jobs, who connect invention to consumption, and there will never be a dearth of single entrepreneurs who form companies to market inventions,” Gabler writes. “Yet, theories about solitude and creativity notwithstanding, the basic innovative grunt work is now more likely to be done not by a lone wolf but by a wolf pack; there is simply too much information and too much complexity for it to be otherwise. We need a whole lot of brain power because one brain won’t do anymore.”

So where a Sean Oberle might suggest trying a round table format for the webinar, Larry Sterne is able to provide two excellent vendors and Leslie Davidson urges accreditation. Combined, The Next Greatest Webinar may just emerge. Interestingly, Gabler writes that there is a name for this group-think mentality: Reed’s Law, named for David Reed. It states that “the utility of networks increases exponentially with the number of participants (specifically, 2 to the nth power), because any single participant can engage with any number of other participants.” This is a Twitter Chat, and in a larger sense this is SIPA. We can give you timely Memorandums From Counsel, a library of past courses and free webinars, conferences, meetings, a monthly newsletter, a daily article and numerous other sources of information. But most of all, we give you the platforms and venues to reach each other—to share information, which members of this association do as well as anyone.

Gabler gives three examples of successful collaborations: the browser Firefox, the Netflix algorithm and an automobile company called Local Motors which is “manufacturing a car based on the ideas of designers and engineers from around the world who were brought together by a contest soliciting novel approaches to old problems. It boasts on its Web site: “Now, the crowd drives automotive innovation.” (These “contests” are a theme for another day in this space.)

So when it comes to embracing the more collective, cooperative and globalized forces, you’ve come to the right place. Now walk on in.

******************************************

And tune in shortly for
SIPA’s Weekly Twitter Chat
Today’s subject: Webinars
Learn new ideas and get your questions answered
Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2012, 12 p.m. EST
using the hashtag #NicheInfo.

If you don’t already have a Twitter chat client,
we recommend TweetChat.com.
Once you are on their site,
simply log in through your Twitter account,
type in the hashtag #NicheInfo, and you’re set!
See you soon on Twitter!

January 2012 has been a record setting month for Mequoda Daily.

As a small B2B company, it can be hard to reach specific milestones since most are resourced at a smaller level. However, this past month has yielded more significant results than usual, and it is due to some slight changes that many can implement easily.

Today, instead of talking about my normal email beat, I’m going to discuss the highlights of our recent endeavors and describe the process that has led to an increase in website traffic.

As digital publishing consultants who provide audience development training and services to successful publishers, we see ourselves operating in a fishbowl. Every time we acknowledge tangible results based on specific strategies and backed by data, we feel the need to share with the Mequoda community. So instead of simply sharing the news in-house through an internal press release, here is how we’ve significantly increased website traffic.

Three tips for boosting website traffic

Tip #1 for boosting website traffic: Attention to website architecture. Optimized content and a free report marketplace are main reasons we consistently build our email marketing list. We’ve analyzed the data and targeted specific terms that are unique to our business niche. The help of OFIEs, OFINs, and floaters have assisted in this process.

Targeting different terms and allotting time and space to the topics we considered integral to our consulting services have helped define and focus our content and associated promotional activities. These types of changes have been backed by data from our Google Visibility Report (GVR).

Tip #2 for boosting website traffic: Email best practices. We’ve seen a steady increase in website traffic from our email newsletters since we changed the formatting back in October. Before the change, we were emailing one feature email article each day. Now, we are emailing a thematic email newsletter that consists of six related snippets. Four of these snippets link back to articles while two link to existing landing pages – one being the sales letter landing page of a webinar while the other is a rapid conversion landing page for a free report download. More content has certainly led to more traffic going to our website.

Tip #3 for boosting website traffic: Updated Twitter Publishing Strategy. Last month we started implementing a new Twitter publishing strategy perfect for online editors. Since we have audience members on a global scale, we started to tweet all six of our snippets in different time zones, focusing on popular times for each. Next, we’ve created an additional unique tweet for snippet. This has increased our Twitter publishing significantly without sending the same tweets over and over.

We also started publishing tweets on the weekend, which we hadn’t been doing as a B2B company. We decided to do this, as many of our audience members are entrepreneurs who are likely working on weekends. We’ve referred to some of these tweets are content “from the archive” and have been tweeting links to some of our most popular articles from the past.

My goal for February is to keep this momentum going with the release of our new free report Digital Magazine Publishing Strategy Basics. If you’ve yet to download this 42-page report, do so now, and please share the link with to the free report with anyone who is actively working in the digital publishing industry. We believe the information will be helpful to them.

Have you recently increased website traffic? What techniques did you use to do so? We’d love to read your tips in the comments below.

We’ve been sharing the good word of Twitter and Facebook for years now.

Our Social Media Specialist Amanda MacArthur is a big reason for this, since she stays up-to-date on the latest tips and strategies for using social media to increase website traffic.

And according to some of her recent calculations, 18 hours per week is the recommended allotment of time that should be dedicated to Twitter.

Are you spending 18 hours per week on Twitter? Have you instructed your staff to spend 18 hours per week on Twitter? Do you even know what to do effectively on Twitter for 18 hours per week? I’m sure many professionals haven’t a clue. And I don’t mean that offensive; Twitter is a newer medium that is unfamiliar to a lot of people.

Thankfully there are successful social media practitioners who can help those in need. If you haven’t a clue what to be doing with social media, contact Kim Mateus via email or by phone at 401-293-0401 to schedule one-on-one social media sessions. You will not regret it once you see an increase in website traffic from your endeavors.