Creative City

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Recently I gave a guest lecture at one of the many colleges in London, Ontario.  They wanted me to talk about Internet Marketing and explain some of the principles, practices and usages of IM to their Sales course. After researching a little more, and talking with the Professor for the course – a well established Financial Services man and networking extraordinaire – I learned that most of the students were Accountants. Now, call me crazy, but most people don’t go to their accountant for Internet Marketing advice. So I took a different route.

Most of the class was graduating. Soon.

Naturally, students about to graduate from college are looking into the future, and out of everything their studying and working towards one question is going to resonate louder than any other, “How am I going to get a job?”.  Well Internet Marketing was not going to help them secure a job, but some of the practices, tools and principles might. I decided to focus on that.

Since the focus of this particular lecture was intended to be on Internet Marketing it was obvious that to make my lecture not only relevant to the class material, but also helpful to the students, I would need to talk about something more up-to-date than what paper to print your resume on. So we discussed Social Media and the affects it can have on obtaining and maintaining a job.

In my lecture, I focused on tools they (or anyone for that matter) can use to get a job. Some of these tools were obvious: have an updated resume, network, remove compromising pictures from your Facebook (the sooner the better). Others were not so obvious. Here’s a few facts about Social Media that most people don’t consider when looking for a job:

45% of Employers use Social Media when considering an Applicant…
11% of Employers Plan on Using Social Media in the Future
53% Won’t hire you if they see Provocative photos and info
44% Won’t hire you if they see shared content with booze or drugs
35% Won’t hire you if they see bad-mouthing of former employers
14% Won’t hire you if Emoticons are used in direct communication

“Alright class, time to pick your jaws up off the floor a go remove last years St. Patty’s Day extravaganza from your Facebook photos…”

From here I went on to talk about the facts about Social Media, focusing on Facebook, Twitter and Linked In. Many people hadn’t heard of Linked In, arguably the most valuable SM tool any business professional can use to build their network, stay connected, get involved and get exposure. So we discussed Linked In. And we discussed Linked In. And still, we discussed Linked In. I displayed a typical Linked In profile (mine, actually) and explained how these students can utilize various features on Linked In to start getting exposure for themselves, get connected with the right people, and of course, search for Jobs.

I think this resonated with the class because in only a few hours my Linked In was flooded with requests to connect.

Well, I hope my lecture was a little more helpful than their originally scheduled “Internet Marketing for Accountants” lecture. And if anyone needs an accountant, I probably know a few more now.

Matt Bergmann

View the presentation: http://www.slideshare.net/CreativeMatt/internet-marketing-and-social-media-presentation