Tag Archives: social media

#SocialCV

A little over a month ago, I saw a tweet from @ValaAfshar saying that his company, Enterasys was going to be hiring a senior social media strategist.

And? So? Big deal. A lot of companies are realizing that they need to get into the social media game and are doing the same.

Except there was a difference with this position. Enterasys planned to do their recruiting through social media, using each candidate’s social CV. Interesting!

At that point, I wasn’t sure what Enterasys did. Vala and I have been following each other on twitter for a while now. I remember connecting with him for the first time about the NBA Draft. Vala was going to the Draft as a guest of the Celtics. Color me green and not because that’s the Celtic’s color!

When I saw him eating cheeseburgers on the Patriot’s team plane, I remained a little green. Cheeseburgers are my favorite food! Oh, and I love football. 🙂

So, when I saw Vala’s tweet about the job with his company, it caught my eye. When I saw how the process would be conducted, I was even more intrigued and knew I wanted to be part of this first (that I know of) social media job hiring process.

I’ve really been trying to find my place since I gave up directing the pageant. Trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. 🙂 I know I want to work in Social Media. I feel like I was born just waiting for social media to happen. I’ve been approached by some really cool people with some really great opportunities but nothing has felt just right. Yet.

So I talked to David about this possibility. Since he is mostly coming and going and just needs to be by an airport, moving to the Boston area would work just fine. Added bonus, one of my best friends, Debbie, lives right in North Andover about 10 minutes away from Enterasys. Cherry on top.

I decided to go for it!

My first concern was that, by choice, I have no klout score and a klout score of 60 is required. As you know if you read this blog (or listen to me much) I deleted my klout profile a couple of algorithms ago because it seemed to me that klout was going to try and turn me into a mean girl and penalize me for talking to folks they deemed “less influential” than I. Well, I am gifted by my relationships with EVERYONE I interact with. Liz Strauss, one of my connections on twitter, wrote a great blog post that describes pretty much the same thought process I had when I was considering deleting my klout profile. But,simply said, I’m no one’s mean girl.

I considered reactivating my klout profile but I quickly discarded that idea. It didn’t feel right to me to change who I was and what I believe in for a job. I mean, hopefully I’m going to be at this job for a while and they will see the real me so why fake it?

You know how I am about being R.E.A.L! 🙂

I commented on the blog that I didn’t have a klout score but Vala told me it was okay, I have clout and that would be considered.

I do have provable clout. The coolest example of that was my trip to Washington D.C. as a superfan guest of Eight O’Clock Coffee. The two story suite I was given by Doubletree is my second favorite.

Kred score. Until around a month before I heard about the Enterasys job, I think I had been to Kred once. Just to check it out when people were talking about it as a klout replacement. I sort of dismissed it because that’s exactly what it looked like to me, More of the klout same. But towards the end of January, Kred started awarding badges to their top 1% Kredsters. I went to look and see what the fuss was all about and my score was pretty high. Then I wondered why I didn’t get a badge. And then I did. 😉

A candidate’s Kred score must be 725 with an outreach of 8 in order to qualify for this position. Mine was 845 with an outreach of nine. I just checked, though, and my score is now 859. So, not sure if Kred will ultimately ever be important to me other than for this purpose but it was kind of cool to see it rise 15 points in a month. Of course that got me wondering what it takes to move the outreach score up but I’m just not going to get all caught up in that. 😉

1,000 twitter followers was required. I had more than that and in the past month I’ve gained a lot more. Some of them, I know, are related to the #SocialCV but I do hope they’ll stick around even if they don’t pick me for the position. I like them!

Next on the list:

Consideration will be made to those applicants who have published works

regarding social media, peer influence, digital marketing, and related thought leadership.

Well alrighty then! I finished my first book Pageant Savvy, Social media for the savvy pageant gal in February. They were delivered into my hot little hand on February 19th, the day after this recruitment period started. Talk about your good timing! Not only is my little book pretty (so pretty!), it adds to my #SocialCV and my qualifications for this job.

An IT background would be preferred, and I don’t have that, but it’s not required. Working alongside David in the telecommunications field for all of these years, I do have more of an understanding of IT than I otherwise might have. [Insert paragraph break here. WordPress won’t do it. ;-)]

And there it is. The last day of the recruitment process was yesterday and it looks like there are some great candidates. I’m excited to be one of them.

In the past month, I’ve not only learned a lot about Enterasys but I’ve learned more about social media and about myself. I wish all of the candidates the best and wish Enterasys the best in choosing the right candidate for the position. While I hope I’m the one, if I’m not, the world is my oyster and the social media realm is large and growing. How exciting! 🙂

And then I wrote a book

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I was so excited when I woke up yesterday because I knew that the UPS man would be delivering my books. And I waited.

Doesn’t UPS deliver early here?

We have only gotten something from UPS once in the month we’ve been here so I wasn’t sure but I seem to remember it being early. And I waited.

Around 5:00 it wasn’t early anymore. I checked the email to see if my package was still on the truck and I found this:

What? When? I was here ALL day!

I called UPS while also getting connected with them on the chat. Both people arranged that I’d be able to pick my package up and I would receive a phone call within the hour letting me know it was okay. That didn’t happen. But I went down to UPS anyway. It’s 2 blocks away. 🙂

I got my package!

Swoon!

It’s SO pretty! 🙂

I got kind of choked up over the whole thing. David said, “Are you okay over there?” Oh, yes. Just trying to get a grip. I’ve never written a book before. 😉

I started writing this book back in the summer when we lived in Amarillo. I was nearly finished when my computer melted down. The great guys at Westgate Computers were able to save all of my data, thank goodness!

But then I was kind of stuck. I didn’t have any motivation to finish the book even though my ~~annoying~~ loving friends kept ~~bothering~~ asking me about it.

After we moved here last month, I decided I really should finish the book. One of my big goals as an adult has been to finish what I started and this was kinda of big.

I made up my mind to do it and gave myself a deadline of two weeks out. I knew I was close to being finished. When I finally put my mind to it, it was sort of embarrassing how quickly I finished it. Try two days not two weeks!

Then it was such a nerve wracking experience getting the ISBN number and placing the order for the book itself. Both websites are loaded with DANGER DANGER Warnings.

If you make a mistake this will cost you a whole lot more of your hard earned dollars!

Tilt!

Ha ha. Not really. But that’s how it looked to me. 🙂

I finally got that business all taken care of and I waited. Until yesterday when it was finally there at the UPS counter for me to pick up.

So…I love it. Did I mention how pretty it is? 🙂

I have lots of people to thank. My beautiful and wonderful friends Chickee and Suzy. If not for you two, I might not have finished. Thank you for your loving support and encouragement. Suzy, thank you SO much for the amazing foreword you wrote. My first thought upon reading it was “I’m not worthy, I’m not worthy”.

Many thanks to Lyndzee and Sherri for the cover photo. I told them what I wanted and just liked they grabbed the image out of my head and put it on the paper, there it was! I love it so much. 🙂

Thanks to Bryan from b|creative tulsa for my fabu headshot. It’s on the outside AND the inside of the book. 🙂

Without Scott Townsend teaching me how to tweet, I sincerely doubt this book would have ever been written. Twitter has opened so many doors to me it’s really hard to believe. Thank you, Scott!

And of course, last but not least, David. He’s really a good guy, you know? I’m sort of a handful and I know I’m noisy but he always believes in me and I appreciate his love and encouragement so much.

The website for the book is http://www.pageantsavvy.com and I’m super excited to begin adding photos of savvy pageant gals to it. Stop by if you’d like a book. It’s really pretty. 😉

Why I LIKE the new @klout algorithm

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So I log into my klout account yesterday and I see that I’ve lost some serious pointage.

Just the day before, my klout score was 67 and I was classified as a Pundit. I liked that.

I look into my twitter stream and I see everyone is up in arms because their klout score has gone down. Well, I’m not too interested in my over all klout score.

I was never going to use my “klout” to get some poster or other little trinket. (Note: if they offer me a new Chevy Camaro as a klout perk to get me to tweet about what I’m getting, I sincerely will consider it).

But what I really like to see is my true reach number. That’s the one that’s important to me. I’m on twitter to meet people and build relationships so I feel that my true reach number should be relatively close to what my follower number is.

As I looked over this whole klout situation taking place in my stream, along came @mrautotweetwhitenoise (name has been changed so as not to insult anyone directly). I have blogged about him before. He, to me, is someone who just doesn’t get twitter.

Back when I first blogged about him, he had 50,000 followers and now he’s almost doubled that number.

But check this out:

My twitter follower count

His twitter follower count

And the very best thing:

Whoa! I have a higher klout score than he does, I have larger network influence, I have a larger true reach. Woo hoo!

Social media at the very minimum should be SOCIAL! It used to bother me to see @mrautotweetwhitenoise carrying a higher klout score when he was simply not present. Not social.

I feel vindicated, justified. I feel like my theory has been proven out. So, while you may bemoan your loss of klout points, realize that correction may provide a more accurate reflection of your true social media influence.

At least I’m going to go with that even though I still feel sad not to be classified a Pundit anymore. 🙂