Top 3 Twitter Tips
November 18, 2008 by Jonathan · 1 Comment
Whenever I tell someone that I work in social media (and explain to them that social media is things like blogs, wikis, Twitter, Facebook, etc) they almost always come back and ask me what Twitter is and why someone would use it.
I’ll save that post for another day (although I’ve written about it before, try searching my blog to find Twitter posts, there are a lot of them).
If you understand what Twitter is, here are my Top 3 Tips for better Twittering:
- Don’t try to read every single tweet — Twitter messages — that the people you follow send, it gets overwhelming very quickly.
- Reply to others early and often, it build good will and you’ll get more from the Twitter experience this way.
- Search for conversations you may be interested in and join-in! — use Twitter Search to search by topic.
If this wasn’t a “Top 3″ what tips would you share? There are a lot of different ways to Tweet, and this is only one way to do it.
The Basics of Managing Your Online Identity
June 22, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
As social-media spreads and becomes even more ubiquitous you need the tools to manage and control your personal identity and reputation online. Use the the following 10 steps to enhance your toolset.
- Buy yourname.com Even if you don’t plan to start a blog or build a web site immediately, you should own your own domain. Having a single point on the web for authoritative information about yourself is key to managing your online identity. I recommend buying domains from GoDaddy (it’s only $8 a year!)
- Set up Google Alerts for your name.
- Google your name (or for a more proactive approach, set up a Google Alert for your name)
- Make a list of all the places where you have content on the web, discussion boards, chat rooms, blogs, news websites, comments, etc. All of this content is traceable back to you, make sure it reflects your online identity goals.
- Decide what social-networking sites you are going to spend more time on than others, also look at what an appropriate amount of conversation and information is acceptable at each site.
- Monitor what images, messages, and spam are hitting your social-networking site profile pages. Have a MySpace? Delete the spam from your wall. Have Facebook? Untag yourself from questionable photographs or ask the poster to take them down. And certainly if you have photos or messages in any of your social-networking sites that don’t fit well with your online identity goals, take them down or delete them.
- Don’t delete your social networking accounts! Having a presence on the web isn’t a bad thing, just make sure that the information available puts you in a positive light.
- Read and comment on blogs. This should probably be higher up in my list, but participating in the numerous conversations happening at any given moment is a huge opportunity to meet new people, gain knowledge, and share knowledge which is what social-media is all about.
- Give back what you take in. If you learn something online, spread it around. Share the love, both in the form of links, emails, instant messages, etc. If you appreciate what someone is doing let them know.
- Each of us has our own set of skills and knowledge, you know things that others don’t. It isn’t difficult to reach out and connect with others who have similar knowledge, or who know more than you. Find those people and connect with them. Social media isn’t social without you.
Managing your online identity takes some time when you’re just starting out, but it’s worth it in the end when you have networks and connections with people you never knew existed. The sharing and the knowledge and the conversations that happen each day are amazing, and if you’re a part of it, your online identity will prosper.
How To Get Hired Using Social Media
June 22, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
I was lucky enough to know and be on the bleeding edge of social-networking when it began several years ago. I also spent a lot of time cultivating and contributing to my online identity and making connections with people online. The good news is that you don’t have to be an early adopter, or an Internet wiz to get hired using social media.
Looking for a job isn’t easy, and it can be very frustrating. Social media can help, but it’s not a replacement for old fashioned phone calls, emails, and letters. When I graduated from the Missouri School of Journalism I had multiple job offers, and the best of those offers were ones that I came across or was a candidate for because of social media.
For some time, I had been Twittering, Facebooking, and Blogging. I spent money to make sure my blog looked good. I spent hours finding interesting people on Twitter. I stayed up late when I should have been doing other things honing in my online portfolio. And you know what? It all paid off.
One job offer came from a person who followed me on Twitter for two months and noticed that I was talking with increased frequency about finding a job. A couple phone calls and emails later, I was interviewing and had an offer before I got home from visiting.
The other job offer from social-media crossed platforms, I knew the person who knew about a job, but we follow each other on Twitter, and are Facebook friends. Again, my talking about finding a job was seen by this person and I got a Facebook message about openings where she worked. It just so happened that this job was a perfect fit, I got the offer, and took it.
In two paragraphs I just explained how I got a job using social media, but that’s not incredibly useful is it? To help with that, here are my tips and suggestions on finding a job using social-media.
- Put your portfolio and resume online. This is more important than you realize. You’ve just in an instant opened up your resume and portfolio of work to the millions of people online. Now you just need to help people find it.
- Sign up for Twitter and find some people with similar interests to tweet back and forth with. You’ll quickly understand by looking at some of the so called Twitterati how useful and powerful this service is. After you sign up for an account “follow” @chrisbrogan, @guykawasaki, and @scobleizer the three of them have thousands of followers already and actively tweet throughout the day and night. A lot can be learned by example.
- Start a blog. This is a GREAT way to show off your knowledge and skills. This doesn’t have to be complex, start it off on Blogger or Wordpress.com if you want (although I would highly suggest putting wherever you portfolio and resume is). Write one or twice a week at first about what you’re working on, what you’re thinking about (that relates to your job ambitions), and your goals. Some of the best job related feedback I got was on my blog by people emailing and commenting when I wrote a post about “My Ideal Job”.
- Drive traffic to your online portfolio and resume. Do this by putting links on your Facebook page, in your Twitter profile, putting it in big type at the top of your paper resume, and by having it on ALL correspondence online and off. You never know where emails or resumes may get forwarded, and if your online portfolio is linked right there for easy access it makes a world of difference.
- Make It Personal. This is your job hunt, and it’s not going to be easy, but by taking advantage of the basics of social-media your job hunt can expand beyond the traditional into the extraordinary. Social media doesn’t work unless you’re human and make it personal. Being professional and sharing ideas is going to increase your credibility, but not including personal moments will exclude you from the conversation.
Social Networking Quick Tips
June 22, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
Different Social Networking sites are good for different things. You don’t want the same information on all of the sites.
Here are some things to keep in mind:
1) Facebook is a personal experience. Put your favorite movies, TV shows, and inspiration quotes on the page. Add a few applications that reflect positively on the hobbies and interests that you have.
2) MySpace is impersonal and highly commercial. This site was given over to spammers and tweens a long time ago, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have an account and have control of myspace.com/yourname though. Put a couple images up, make some friend connections, and move on.
3) LinkedIn is your professional resource. Take advantage of all of it’s features. People have been known to get hired because they posted or answers questions on the LinkedIn discussion area. Make connections with people and use those connections, send a friendly message every now and again, ask for recommendations from coworkers and supervisors when appropriate, be sure to link out to your personal portfolio or other social-networking site identities.
4) If you’re not Twittering you should be. If you don’t want to, sign up anyway and try it out. There is a lot of value locked up in those 140 characters and you should understand the system and how it works even if you aren’t going to participate.
5) Social networking is a lot of work, people quickly figure out when you’ve abandoned a particular site, or are only using it for professional purposes. Be personal, be professional. You have to find the right blend for you that fits into your growth goals.
This post is part of Jonathan Coffman’s Lessons In Social Media series.
Why Life Has Been Crazy: My Huge Job Announcement
May 23, 2008 by Jonathan · 3 Comments
Over the last few weeks I’ve been dropping hints on Twitter, but it’s about time I just came out with it. I’ve accepted a position at the Public Broadcasting Service. In case you’ve been wondering why the big move and road trip from Missouri to Washington DC was happening, that’s why.
I’m joining the ranks of those working full-time on social-media. Social media is such a huge part of the Internet now, and it’s not going anywhere and I’m here to make sure of that!
My title and job at PBS is Assistant Product Manager for PBS Engage. PBS Engage is the social media initiative funded by grants from the Ford Foundation and the Knight Foundation to get people to engage and connect with all of the great content that PBS distributes (like the awesome new series Carrier!).
The PBS Engage team is only a handful of people and the fate of social media is in our hands! 
Well ok, social media isn’t going anywhere regardless of whether or not we’re pushing for it, but I can dream right?
Feedback and response to Engage has been tremendous already with tons of comments on the Engage Blog, and lots of Twitter followers across PBS shows and communities.
At PBS I’ll be working with some really brilliant minds to come up with new ways of enabling participation, engagement, and conversation based around PBS content across the country. In addition to thinking of great ideas, we’re also building social tools to make things like social-networking even easier for PBS viewers regardless of the distribution channel used.
I’m really excited to be joining the PBS family here in the Washington DC area and am looking forward to seeing all of the progress we make in the next year.
With this new position I’ll be relying on YOU even more than before, so keep those @jdcoffman’s, dms, emails, and Facebook messages coming. Without YOU, there is no social-media.
On Email Organization
April 22, 2008 by Jonathan · 1 Comment
For the last month or so I’ve been on a rampage, an email rampage. I haven’t quite hit Inbox Zero but inbox 30-40 suits me well actually. Here’s what I’ve done:
- I now have only 2 visible email addresses, Gmail and my @jonathancoffman.com mail. Those other addresses (.Mac, Yahoo!, Mizzou, and my secondary Gmail) all now get picked up by my primary Gmail account, this way I only have two inboxes to check, and hopefully by responding to those with only one address I gradually get fewer and fewer messages going to those other addys.
- Combining the last two addresses, my primary gmail and my domain email isn’t yet feasible. I can’t quite take myself down to that level yet. Because they’re used for two very different purposes (personal and professional) the use cases will remain mutually exclusive for the time being.
- The downside to still having two inboxes: two sets of gmail tags/folders. My domain email is handled by GoogleApps (which I love by the way), so for now I have two identical but disconnected sets of tags.
- Account and Login Information
- Banking
- Bills
- Blog Conversations
- Contributr
- Current Projects
- Pipeline Projects
- Coupons and Discounts
- Job Hunting
- Journalism School
- Newsletters
- Personal (family)
- Private Betas
- Product Orders
- Service Orders
- Require followup
- Servers and Hosting
- Social Media
- Travel
- URGENT
Jonathan’s Twitter Updates for 2008-04-03
April 3, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
- Good Morning Twitterville! #
- Do you know of a REALLY good email program for the Mac? Apple Mail has been misbehaving lately #
- @gregbd, Adobe Connect can be finicky but I do love the service. What’d it do? #
- Just setup my next meeting with the startup incubator who’s going to assist with Contributr #
- Taking a look at Scalr, the open source Amazon EC2 management initiative #
- @smalljones DM or email me more info you have any please #
- @newmediajim I’ve heard good things about the Sony line #
- Following up on job leads and making appointments with people #
- Just ordered a pizza for delivery via txt message, crazy isn’t it? #
- @melissaha I REALLY doubt it! #
- @danielpunkass you must have caught them on a good day, good catch #
- @benstein ah dang, to yourself? #
Personal Branding Knowledge Is Still Just Beginning…
March 16, 2008 by Jonathan · 1 Comment
UMass Students Are Sucked Into the World of Personal Branding « Personal Branding Blog - Dan Schawbel: “Blog About Dan Schawbel Publications Press
I often read Dan Schawbel’s Personal Branding Blog for insight and tips on how to improve my own personal branding. You did realize that I have a personal brand didn’t you?
I do in fact have a brand that is pretty apparent right here on JonathanCoffman.com. It’s one that encompasses my abilities to take new and in-the-pipe technologies and make them work in the real world, right now.
In the blog post that I’m linking to, Dan tells the story of a recent visit to the University of Massachusetts and how the student he talked to almost all were on Facebook, but very few had even heard of LinkedIn.
This really exemplifies the need for personal branding and social-media strategy to be a part of the final curriculum at our nation’s universities. These students know and understand how viral messages get spread, how to network online, and how to control how they look, but they don’t understand quite yet how to apply those skills to multiple outlets across the web.
For the last 2 years I’ve offered extremely cheap web hosting to my peers at the Missouri School of Journalism. What I offer them is 10 gigs of storage space, email, etc all for $20 per year. $28 if they want me to buy and manage their domain name as well.
It provides plenty of space and help for building a personal portfolio (which every grad needs) and it’s not going anywhere, I have too many personal and professional sites to just walk away from the web.
But here’s the real story: I’ve gotten several signups lately and I setup times to meet with each student who wants the deal to talk to them one-on-oine about how they want to use it and how I can help.
One actually emailed me last week saying she was going to have to wait to get a portfolio because ‘I’m saving up for Spring Break and I didn’t realize I could move my files around so easily.”
Well I’m sorry folks, but if you can spend $20 for a full year of online personal web presence, (2 or 3 drinks in Cancun for Spring Break of your senior year in college), you probably don’t need to be trying to get any job that would require an online portfolio or web presence.
Let’s just hope this particular person is smart enough to not post all of those crazy Cancun pictures to Facebook after the vacation.
This is just yet another example of why we need proactive education on social-networking and identity management. Firms like Google, Facebook, etc all have enormous amounts of data about US, and if you’re managing that information yourself, you’ve left yourself open to all kinds of abuse and inaccuracies.
Jonathan’s Twitter Updates for 2008-02-25
February 25, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
- @jowyang yes I’d say so. #
- I’m tracking ‘academy awards’ are you? #
- #aa08 montages always rock! #
- #aa08 I could do without the Titanic song #
- #aa08 yeah for iPhones! #
- @iellie wasn’t it wonderful? LOL #
- #aa08 don’t think I’ve seen any of the animated movies #
- #aa08 wonder why there hasn’t been a Netflix commercial yet? #
- #aa08 Steve jobs wins again with the rat movie. Gotta love Pixar! #
- #aa08 katherine is beautiful #
- #aa08 havent seen this winner. #
- Of like to see Enchanted #
- #aa08 thank Disney for the academy awards’? ABC/rat/this song #
- @brb there’s ur in! #
- #aa08 this is the first academy award iveseen since being press for it 3 years ago #
- Think Twitter can handle the awards’ tonight? #
- #aa08 the rock is a Disney star as well…. #
- #aa08 stupid golden compass movie #
- #aa08 now a walt Disney quote? #
- #aa08 my Netflix queue is seriously growing quickly, I feel bad that I haven’t seen these movies. #
- @annier consider it done/added! #
- It’s events like this when I love Twitter SMS, and my unlimited Texting plan on my iPhone! I’m sure I’ll hit 1000+ incoming tonight #
- @kindushinski geez, i’m up to like 60 I think (although many of those are HBO series’ that I want to see in addition to movies. #
- #aa08 Michael Clayton was good, it’s one that I actually saw. #
- @waydbot participating in the #aa08 Tweeme-a-thon and watching the Oscars. u? #
- @mariosundar definitely so! #
- #aa08 just because it’s user-generated… doesn’t mean the Dove commercial can’t have good production value, come on people! #
- @aa08 very tastefil binoc. and scope montage
# - @rabeidoh agree that the girl is good. #
- @chironae yeah she can #
- @sonnygill indeed, this one is pretty good, song is just ok though. #
- #aa08 Owen, boring and monotone much? #
- Didn’t see Beee movie either, didn’t really look all that good. #aa08 #
- sooo…. are American filmmakers that bad that these are all foreign films? #aa08 #
- @annieR I haven’t been out to the new location yet, I figure I might see a couple shows at the film fest this coming weekend. #
- #aa08 hmm, worst dressed nominee? #
- @sturlington you got that right, geez #
- by the way, I ordered a new case for my iPhone today, I’m going with the PDO TopSkin http://tinyurl.com/ypyfvu #
- @aanier I’ll have to head down and get tickets tomorrow afternoon maybe. #
- This is the first time I’ve watched TV ‘live’ in a long time, I almost always wait until 20 minutes after the hour to start a 1-hour show. #
- Miley is so bubbly, gotta love her #aa08 #
- This rendition is pretty funky-fresh #aa08 #
- I wish Oprah would give me a big bundle of cash, I’d love giving it away too. #
- Angelina joke is a new classic, I actually LOLd #aa08 #
- Bourne did have GREAT sound editing #aa08 #
- Seriously? come on AMPAS #aa08 #
- "Thank you life, Thank you love" is the official quote of the year. #
- I’ve never played a wii, anyone want to invite me over for a game? #
- This song sounds really flat #aa08 #
- The "legendary Jack Nicholson" took his dark shades off and now has his light shades on. #aa08 #
- @annier have you been? I wanted to go last time I was in LA, but didn’t get a chance. #
- Alright, Renee is just plain cute no matter when/where #aa08 #
- @annier interesting, it does appear to be beautiful #
- #aa08 The Bourne Ultimatum is a total hit tonight, quite surprising. #
- I didn’t think Kidman was there tonight, they had a static picture of her in the ‘baby’ #aa08 #
- Now that is a heck of a necklace, ha! holy cow that thing is out of control. #aa08 #
- @annier never had the pleasure of Nutella in my kitchen, can’t quite bring myself to it. #
- The Birds, now that’s a good movie #aa08 #
- geez, haven’t half of the winners already tonight been foreign films? It sure feels like it #aa08 #
- Disney absolutely OWNS the Academy Awards #aa08 #
- @vergil66 I used Blockbuster online for a while, b/c of the in-store tradeins, but really just like Netflix better overall. #
- @annier only because it’s harder to get access around here to those films #
- Once won! It is such a good song, I’m going to have to see the film. #
- @chrisbrogan you didn’t even need TV tonight, just follow or track #aa08, over 600 tweets by my count so far. #
- @chrisbrogan At least as far as the OSCARS are concerned… #
- @vergil66 yeah, it was fine for a while, but Netflix is just too hard to beat, and BB cracks down on the limits, etc unfortunately. #
- I had kinda forgotten about the Kite Runner #aa08 #
- Go US Troops, glad you’re a part of the OSCARS tonight #aa08 #
- I’m kinda glad Sicko didn’t win, I just don’t like Michael Moore. #aa08 #
- @annier what are your picks for True/False this weekend? #
- @tweet140 just started harassing my DM box with such things as my average-77 is too low to be considered for a Twoosh award. I’ll show them! #
- @geoffliving ha! I just Followed @tweet140 this afternoon, not all that impressed other than the API work. #
- why the Flinstones dress? #aa08 #
- I’ve gotten over 800 txt messages tonight by Tracking #aa08 and "Academy Awards" … amazing the participation going on this evening! #
- I’d like to thank Twitter for handling the heavy load, and not crashing once, we may have hit a milestone today. #aa08 I applaud you. #
- It’s over, have a good evening everyone, and thanks for taking me past the 2,900 Tweet mark this evening. You’ve been great! #aa08 #
- @mufan96 you’ll love how easy to use it is. #
- Dang, a street 3 blocks away from me had over 60 police calls in the last year… mostly drug related crimes. I had no idea! #
- Goodnight Twitterville #
- Checking out Las Vegas hotels, any suggestions? I’ll be there for NAB in April and booking now. #
- @acafourek thanks, I’ll take a look those. #
- ha! how back woods am I, I just spray painted my mailbox black and the flag Red, the paint had been peeling and whatnot for a couple years. #
- @acomputerpro congrats on the save! #
- @rodrigoMX lets hope that’s where it stays #
- @acomputerpro as long as you youtube your recitals, we’ll be happy #
- Working on my article that’s going to be posted to Adobe.com re: my AIR experiences. #
The iPhone For Business
February 25, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
I was speaking with a friend of my dad’s recently about the iPhone and it’s implications and usefulness on the enterprise level. I thought I’d share some of the ideas and thoughts I had about it in a quick post today.
- The lack of ‘push’ email is a limiting factor
- The 15 minute wait for new messages automatically is probably soon enough for most purposes, however I’ve found that the phone often doesn’t actually check that often unless you’re actively using the phone.
- Traditional business types don’t tether their cell phone anyway, sure road warriors and the like do, but everyday usage, probably not)
- Having mobile Safari is a very valuable tool not just for people like me, but the crackberry world as well.
- Security, these smart phones carry so much even with my limited data set I keep the phone on automatic password lock, and you should too.
- Until recently ATT didn’t offer enterprise plans for the iPhone, now they do, so what are you waiting for?
- Now that the bulk of the buzz about the iPhone has died down a little what’s left is still the best cellphone I’ve ever used, and I’ve used a LOT.
- For new and social media types like myself it’s powerful enough to tide me over for a weekend if I leave town and decide to leave my laptop at home (gasp!).
So there you have it, my latest thoughts on using iPhones in the business world.
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