Social Media Jobs | Get Hired

Get Hired! | Crafting Your Social Media Marketing Portfolio

Social media marketing is the new cool kid in town! Companies big and small are scrambling to hire social media specialists both contract and staff. Hiring managers are bombarded daily with irrelevant resumes and unqualified candidates. To differentiate yourself from the crowd, you must have a killer portfolio that illustrates your abilities, highlights your achievements and proves beyond a doubt that you know how to achieve results.

Bio
Take the time to write a clear and concise bio. Don't try to cover the specifics of your experience but rather this should be a teaser that leaves the hiring manager wanting to learn more about you.

ex. Rachael Dror is a social media marketing specialist with two years of experience promoting small and midsized businesses through social media channels. She develops successful marketing strategies that result in brand awareness, site traffic and increased findability online. Her skills include; copy writing, community management, organic link building, video optimization, facebook application development and more.

Resume
Your resume must be easy to read! Don't make potential employers search for your work experience and education. Lay this part of your portfolio out in an easy to follow format.

Work Samples and Results
This is the creative section of your portfolio. Your objective is to show what you've done and how well you do it. Include:

* Screen shots of your work
* Explanation of your role
* Objectives
* Results

You must illustrate how you accomplished set objectives. The best way to do that is to show actual analytics on site traffic, friends, followers, conversions, brand exposure, etc.
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Social Media Marketing Metrics | Social Accountability

Social Media Marketing is different from all other forms of advertising but it must be held accountable just the same. As companies rush to jump on the social media marketing bandwagon, they seem to check their good business sense at the door. The same companies that have set objectives and strict reporting standards when it comes to the performance of other forms of advertising, respond like a deer in headlights when it comes to holding social media marketing accountable. There have to be set goals and analytics to measure effectiveness or else social media marketing is a waste of time.

How Do You Value Social Interactions?
Businesses are just Twittering away their time if they don’t know how Twitter translates into real business objectives. This is the data that I track to determine the value of Twitter.

Date:
Followers:
Following:
Updates:
Incoming Direct Messages :
Direct Message Responses:
Outgoing Direct Messages:
Incoming @ Replies:
Positive Mentions:
Negative Mentions:
Site Links:
Visitors to Site/Landing Page:

The number of both followers and following should increase over time. Updates should be done regularly. The number of incoming direct messages should equal the number of direct message responses. Outgoing direct messages should exceed both incoming and response DMs. The number of times a link to the site or landing page is tweeted or retweeted is one indication of success. The number of visitors to the site or landing page from Twitter is the most important indication of success.

How to Choose a Social Media Marketing Manager

So you want to add social media into your marketing mix? Here are some must have qualities that any potential hire should possess.

• Hands on Experience- with the main social networks and media sites. Theory is great but do they know their way around the networks? The candidate must have actual experience meeting business objectives through blogging, Twitter, FaceBook, MySpace, application development, etc.

• PhotoShop and Design Chops. Unless you have unlimited resources, the candidate should be selfsufficient and able to do basic design tasks themselves.

• Writing Skills. If this person is going to be the face of your company online, they must be able to write in a way that is in line with your overall marketing message. The various social media channels have their own styles of communication. The candidate should be able to take a company's message and clearly articulate it across multiple channels.

• SEO Experience. Understanding how search engines work, how people search & how to measure success online, are important skills for taking social media from a communications tool to a powerful method for meeting concrete business objectives. Implementing and decifering analytic reports is critical to understanding the success or failure of all online marketing efforts including social media.

• Social Intelligence. Your candidate must be able to think on their feet and respond appropriately. They must be able to engage with people easily and according to the culture of the particular social network.

• Strategy. Your candidate must be able to plan and execute campaigns, establish and maintain profiles, seek out new opportunities, tryout new and varied techniques, while keeping the overall business objectives at the forefront.

• Creativity. To get your message across in the social media space, your candidate must be able to package it in ways that are worth spreading. Developing ideas that people want to pass around to each other through social media channels requires out of the box thinking and creativity.

• Research Skills. The social media landscape changes on a daily basis. The ability and desire to stay on top of new developments and trends in social media technology and marketing is crucial to establishing your company as a forward thinking leader. You don't want to be in the position of having to play catch up to your competitors. Look for someone who can get you there first.

Let's Get Social | Awesome Social Media Marketing Twitter Tees

Twitter Tees is an excellent example of social media marketing and Twissness (a Twitter business). Check them out and vote HECK YES on my Twitter Tee quote of the day!

Search Engine Optimization for Jewelers and Other Businesses

Organic Search Engine Optimization |

Strategy and Creativity Beat Big Ad Budgets Every Time| SEO for Jewelers

To have success online, customers must be able to find your website. This means ranking on the first page of Google, Yahoo and MSN search results for relevant keywords. The higher up a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive.

Costly paid online advertising offers immediate results but as soon as you stop paying, your website drops off the search rankings, leaving nothing to show for money spent. The most effective way to achieve long lasting search rankings is organic search engine optimization.

Organic SEO is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a website from search engines including Google, Yahoo and MSN search via organic or algorithmic search results.

The job of a search engine is to return relevant results. They must distinguish between authority sites with good information and inappropriate or spam sites. There are many factors taken into consideration by search engines when determining the relevancy and authority of a website.

Rachael Dror | SEO and Social Media Expert 630-269-3725