Blog Archives
4 Tips for College Grads Targeting Digital Marketing Jobs
‘Tis the season for resume revamping, mass emailing and hoping and praying for your post-college digital marketing dream gig. Right??
Wrong.
The world of PR and marketing is prime for solid young digital guns and now is the time (read: you’re behind the curve if you haven’t started) to get a jump on your colleagues as you polish up on your interview skills, network like hell and prepare to land your first full-time gig. Here are a few tips to help you land a desired position in digital marketing:
1. Gut Check the Industry
Fact – PR/Marketing is transforming by the day. You can choose to ignore it or you can choose to adapt. I’d recommend the latter if you hope to last longer than a year. Ultimately, this means that there are a plethora of new roles and career paths to explore at agencies and companies alike. As brands continue to transform into publishing outlets, the need for digital marketing specialists is exploding. Managing editors, content strategists, videographers, graphic designers, copywriters, web developers, UX pros, SEO/SEM gurus, community managers, project managers…it’s an open space with a lot of opportunity. Assess your existing skills and your passions and sink your teeth in to an area you love.
2. Recheck Your Resume & Online Presence
Just do it. I know you think your resume and template cover letter (argh…don’t you dare) is perfect. It’s not. I promise.
And yes, you better have a polished LinkedIn profile, strong professional social media presence and a personal blog or website before heading down an aggressive networking route. Also, Google yourself. Often. Understand how others are perceiving the 3-second snapshot version of you.
3. Stop Praying, Start Chasing
Dear Scott,
I’m about to graduate and think I would like to work in digital marketing in Seattle. Know of any agencies that are good?
Do not write the line above to anyone. Ever. It’s 2013. There are more online resources for job seeking and networking than most can handle. Start with an advanced LinkedIn search (possibly worth an upgrade to be able to access profiles and message the people you’ll need to reach) and begin networking like a mad man. Get offline and seek out events, conferences and meet ups. Take as many people as you can out to coffee for informational interviews and to gather insider knowledge along with additional connection leads. Don’t stop connecting.
4. Go All In
Landing a job you love is rarely a haphazard miracle. Rather, it’s often a stepping stone process whereby you’ll come to land a great gig by first working your way through a variety of related jobs to gather the proper skills and experience. Be bold and tackle every job you have as if it is in fact your dream job. Hard work and drive paired with a constant itch for more learning will take you a long way in this industry.
Need a few more tips to help you along the way? Check out this solid Mashable post.
Go get ‘em.
Image courtesy of kylesteed.
What’s Your Slideshare Strategy?
Slideshare continues to evolve as one of my favorite social sharing and networking sites around.
With more than 25 million visitors each month, it should come as no surprise that Slideshare can be utilized in a variety of ways for general professional networking, to showcase ideas, gain competitor insight, talent recruitment, advocacy, develop new business leads, create shareable training, drive personal branding and support other outreach.
The site also continues to evolve and adapt to the needs of businesses and organizations alike with announcements this year around branded channels, video sharing capabilities and business products such as AdShare and LeadShare. Here’s some additional breakdown:
Interestingly enough, 80% of Slideshare’s members are qualified as decision makers – people you should be connecting with on a regular basis. For good reason, the site integrates with other professional networking sites such as LinkedIn and makes it easy as pie to share and embed content across the Web.
If you or your business are not currently utilizing Slideshare in one way or another, you’re missing out on a big opportunity. Take time to think about your company’s communications channels. How can Slideshare be utilized to help amplify your mission or news, improve networking or general efficiency around your training processes?
For those on the nonprofit front, Beth Kanter posted this excellent presentation around 9 Ways Networked Nonprofits Use Slideshare.
Feel free to share your own tips or insight on how to make the most of Slideshare below.
What’s Your 2009 Social Media Tool of Choice?
Here we are, 2009 and an exciting year ahead. Before we jump in on what your social media future holds, let’s take a quick look at where things stand with respect to social networking site traffic.
Last week, TechCrunch posted about the Top Social Media Sites of 2008. Not surprisingly, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr and WordPress were all included in the top 10 with Facebook taking second with 200 million unique visitors.
I was surprised to see sites such as hi5, Orkut and Six Apart rounding out the top 10. I’m personally only vaguely familiar with any of these sites, but it’s a good reminder of how many different social networking/blogging sites exist and are actively put to use on a daily basis.
Low and behold, Friendster cranked in at the number 11 slot with 31 million visitors. Wow, I’m amazed that site even still exists. Maybe it’s become the hipster version of social networking for those that are too cool to give in to Facebook.
Pulled from Techcrunch’s post above, here’s the full rundown on the Top 20 sites:
Top Social Media Sites (ranked by unique worldwide visitors November, 2008; comScore)
- Blogger (222 million)
- Facebook (200 million)
- MySpace (126 million)
- WordPress (114 million)
- Windows Live Spaces (87 million)
- Yahoo Geocities (69 million)
- Flickr (64 million)
- hi5 (58 million)
- Orkut (46 million)
- Six Apart (46 million)
- Baidu Space (40 million)
- Friendster (31 million)
- 56.com (29 million)
- Webs.com (24 million)
- Bebo (24 million)
- Scribd (23 million)
- Lycos Tripod (23 million)
- Tagged (22 million)
- imeem (22 million)
- Netlog (21 millionn)
It’s also quite interesting to take a look back at TechCrunch’s 2007 analysis of the top social sites to see how things have changed.
So, with that in mind and a fresh year ahead, which social networking sites do you think will sneak into the Top 20 this year?
Additionally, which of the following social media tools do you plan to use the most in 2009?
