How does your “social media footprint” compare?

Boris Epstein is CEO and Founder of BINC, a Professional Search Firm that specializes in the Software Marketplace.  He poses a question that more employers are starting to consider:

If all else were equal, like education, work history and general skill set, and I had to evaluate the social media footprints of two candidates to determine which one of them I would contact, which one would I contact and why?

With the amount of information available online to employers, job seekers should not only be conscious about what they post, but should also be actively networking and leaving their own “social media footprint”. The practice is not limited to the unemployed, establishing and maintaining your online persona is a good habit to get into.

Companies today are looking for well-rounded people that can integrate well with their team both professionally and socially. Epstein highlights key points and outlines his criteria for comparing equally skilled job candidates.

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Think tank stresses journalism’s need for context

Martin Langeveld, a former newspaper executive, participated in a Washington, D.C. think tank that dealt with the future of news. “The Future of Context” discussion was mediated and organized by Matt Thompson, a fellow at the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri.

The theme of Thompson’s discussion was obviously context, meaning, journalism must embrace the ubiquity of user-generated content and the necessity of the link to sustain itself.

Langeveld noted several points of insight introduced by participants in the D.C. discussion. The self-inflicted technological lag being felt by print newspapers was one of the more obvious observations.

Journalists must nurture discussions with their audiences, according to Steve Yelvington, a strategist for Morris DigitalWorks.

“Newspapers in the past couldn’t tap into conversations very well, but now we can. By focusing energy on making people part of the conversation and building community, we raise demand for our product.”

Newspaper survival advice: Use social media, multimedia

In “To Prepare for the Future, Skip the Present,” Dennis Roussel offers 10 steps for newspapers looking to survive. Among them are two of great importance to budding journalists:

• Engage with your readers. The explosion of blogging and social media Web sites has created a culture in which consumers of news expect to be included in the news publishing process. Closed operations that shun reader engagement will increasingly be seen to offer a second-rate experience. Create functionality that encourages readers to share eyewitness accounts of breaking news, rate services such as restaurants and hotels, and get into discussions and debates.
• Embrace multimedia. Train editors to see video, photo galleries, graphics and maps as equal storytelling forms to text. A story about Tina Fey’s takeoff of Sarah Palin is incomplete without video highlights from “Saturday Night Live.” A story about a soldier’s life on the frontline in Afghanistan is best told with video, a map, and pictures as well as text.

Career resolutions for journalism students

Based on personal experience and the advice of experts, journalism student Suzanne Yada offers two career resolutions for her fellow students:

1. Become invaluable , and
2. Network like mad.

Lots of great information here!