Social Media for Community Centres - Part 3

Begin, Observe, Learn, Start Over

You are now convinced of the importance of converting to social media for the good of your organization and have carefully examined your online presence and your team's IT qualifications. You've even started to plot your strategy by mapping out a few main objectives you could attain. Excellent! You are now ready to open profiles on various social media platforms.

1. Start off small.

The social media learning process is one that incessantly repeats itself. For one, there are so many potential applications that there will always be one of its uses that will go unnoticed. Thus, there is always something to learn. Furthermore, the social media universe is in constant motion. Certain sites, such as Facebook, are constantly overhauling their service, which forces users to readjust their practices according to each major change. Not to mention how quickly a new social network can become unavoidable in less than a year. The secret to success in this case is to start off small. Pick two or three tools, tops, as your starting point.

Pick your tools.
Avoid tools that fulfill similar roles. For instance, if you're creating video content, you are not obligated to simultaneously upload on YouTube and Vimeo. While YouTube has more users, which gives you a greater visibility, Vimeo is better equipped to protect intellectual property rights (if these matters are important to you). YouTube will, however, allow you to showcase other users' videos on your own channel, which can allow you to present useful information to brief your target audience.

Social Media for Community Centres - Part 2

Assess & evaluate your stance on social media.


Did our previous blog entry convince you of the importance of using social media to not only show your respondents how to optimize their job hunt, but to raise the profile of your organization via an increased presence on social media? If so, fantastic!

Are you still wondering where to start? Fret not, for this is perfectly normal. The following article will assist you in creating a plan of action that will outline your needs, priorities all the while remaining feasible in terms of your target audience and available resources.

In order to adequately evaluate your social media strategy, it will be imperative you lay out a plan. However, nothing is set in stone, and this outline is not so rigid that it must be completed in its entirety before you start. You must constantly survey your online activity in order to adjust and optimize your strategy as you go along.

A. Assess your online presence.

All stategizing begins with an evaluation of the resources you're currently working with. Before launching a social media campaign for your organization, ask yourself the following questions in order to better assess your online presence:


Are you reaching your clientèle online (including via email)?
Do you have a website?
Do you have a blog?
Do you have social media profiles for your organization (on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, etc)?
Do you own any other online properties?
Is your organization listed on Wikipedia?
Is your organization listed on arrondissement.com (Montreal only)?
What are the results when one looks up the name of your organization on search engines such as Google?

As far as social network profiles are concerned, make sure you ask your employees whether the organization already has open, possibly inactive social media accounts. In the eventuality that user names and passwords have been either lost or forgotten, contact the social network in question and ask them to reset your login information.

Once you've done your IT inventory, you should look into whether you are putting the solutions you have already invested in to good use. The first element you should prioritize is the creation or maintenance of a website containing all pertinent, up-to-date contact information. If despite this you are still struggling to turn up in search results, consider starting a Wikipedia page for your organization. However, do make sure you abide by their guidelines when writing an article, particularly when it comes to citing your sources. A blog is also an excellent tool for community organizations. In order to keep your readership interested, try to upload new content at least once a week or risk having people tune out.  

There is also the possibility that you are using the tools at your disposal to the best of your ability, but that these are simply not the right tool for your organization. The most relevant social media in the community sector are, in my opinion: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs and Flickr. If you already have any number of these, you are on the right track.

B. Locate yourself at the heart of your team and in the face of new technology

You also have a few questions to ask yourself pertaining to your human resources:

Who is in charge of maintaining your website, blog, communication and information materials?
Is one of those people comfortable with managing your social media accounts as well?
If not, would any of your colleagues be up to the task of maintaining online profiles of your organization on social media?
Are they willing to undergo training to better acquaint themselves with social media?

An activity you could do with staff that is both fun and instructive is to classify yourselves according to the following list, which contains archetypes of roles and attitudes when confronted with technology:

1. Digital native.
You grew up in a digital environment. You are very comfortable with the usage of online platforms and the adoption of new ones. You also keep up-to-date with recent developments in the digital realm.

2. Savvy technologist.
Without having necessarily been around it your whole life, you are nonetheless comfortable with social online platforms and digital tools. You approach new platforms with caution and let others take the first steps before following suit.

3. Reluctant user.
You are aware of the digital realm and social media but are reticent to engage with them. You do not intend on using these tools more than absolutely required and generally resist incorporating them into your daily life.

4. Digital contrarian.
You are adverse to the digital world. You've probably heard of social networking but think it is but a passing fad. You use emails for work because you have to, and you avoid it in your non-professional life. You'd much rather phone calls.

5. Digital newbie.
Unlike the contrarian, you are not opposed to digital tools but rather lack experience in using them. You get by just fine without them and have no intentions of changing your habits, but are not against it either.

(source: Radian6, http://www.radian6.com/resources/library/social-media-strategy-for-the-retail-industry/ )
It is possible some are in between two archetypes or does not identify with any of them, and that's OK. What matters is that you have now raised the pervasive attitudes of your team on technology to the surface, which in turn allows you to determine what course of action to take. For instance, if the person in charge of communication is only comfortable with email and the phone and does not want to update the blog or social media hubs, then perhaps it would be wise to assign those tasks to someone else. If someone in your team identifies with the first or second archetype, they are most likely your best bet.

It is possible that you will have to rely on an intern or wait to have the necessary funds to create a new position, especially if no one in your team is willing to undergo training in order to learn how to manage social media for your organization.

C. Orient towards a social media strategy.

Now that you've assessed your online activity as well as the pervasive attitudes your personnel has towards new technology and social media, you must think about what advantages you wish to draw out of using social media for your organization. Essentially, you must target what matters most to you, as the options are nearly endless.

Define needs and objectives
What are your goals in using social media?
Do you want to render the information concerning your activities and programs more accessible?
Do you want to increase interaction with your clientele or community?
Do you want to reach new demographic segments, such as the youth?
Are you looking to instate a new way of gathering feedback?
Are you looking to increase visibility for your organization?
Do you want to modernize your online presence by making your site more interactive?

Identify your target audience
Which communities, populations and groups of people do you wish to reach?
What is their grasp on new Internet technologies?
Which social media outlets are they msot active on?

P.S. In the eventuality that your center offers social media training to their participants, such as the Networking 2.0 project, it would be relevant to have an online presence on every social network you offer training for.

In order to reach your clientele, you must know on which social networks they dwell. Ask your users what their Internet habits are. Many are probably already on Facebook and are familiar with YouTube. If you are actively promoting a cause or issue, a timely, well-constructed YouTube video may increase your visibility enormously and effectively raise awareness of its viewers. If you work in the employment sector, Twitter is one of the best means for you to share job offers with your participants. If you work out of a multicultural center in which many languages are spoken, using photo (Flickr) and video (YouTube) material to get the message out becomes much more effective than simple text (i.e. blogging), upon which you could use your blog, Facebook page and Twitter feed to promote your media content and make them more accessible.

It is not mandatory to know everything in advance. Develop a couple of key objectives for your social media strategy by consulting your team first, later by delegating that task to the person responsible for managing your online presence. Once that's done, you'll be ready for action!

For more:
Part Three

Social Media for Community Centres - Part 1

We are but a few months away from the end of an extremely active and prolific year for the Networking 2.0 project! We have already trained hundreds of employment counsellors and almost as many job seekers. However, we still have many centres to go before all job seekers in the Montreal area have equal access to the necessary resources in order to learn how to use social media in a professional setting. Therefore, I will make a shameless plug and advise you take part in one of our free seminars if you haven’t already done so. You already know how to contact us.

 However, if you’ve already followed one of our Networking 2.0 trainings, whether in your centre or elsewhere, you will have heard us explain and demonstrate the many uses of social media for job seekers. Since our public is observant, in almost every centre we visited we were asked whether the organization should add their own social media accounts to their arsenal. The answer was almost invariably the same:

“We encourage you to create a social media presence for your organization. However, our training is primarily concerned with services and competencies that are to be transmitted to immigrant job seekers first and foremost. That being said, there are many online resources pertaining to corporate use of social media, including NGOs.”

 We will now outline the reasons why we believe your participants, personnel and organization can benefit enormously from a social media presence.

 Part One

Why You Should Consider Organizational Use Of Social Media 

We have outlined eight reasons for you to be active on social media:

1) Tools at an affordable cost.

 Social media can implement quickly and for free what would require a lot more resources if one were to go about it by other means. Notably, one can use it for event planning, communications, file sharing, public relations, marketing, heightened visibility for the organization, etc.

 2) User rewards.

 By utilizing social media to reach your community in terms of job offers or upcoming events, you are providing an important, free resource to your participants as well as the community at large, thus giving them yet another reason to join the social media wave. Subsequently, you would be able to offer continuing support to their development in class as well as on the network through this new communication channel.

 3) Two birds, one stone.

 If centre personnel has come into awareness or is already active on social media, either to show your participants how to utilize them professionally (i.e. our training program) or to create an organizational account (as shown in our blog posts), you will have already invested the necessary time and effort into learning social media and are but a few steps away from tapping into its many other benefits. Teaching your participants how to use them and putting them to use for your organization are two applications for the same skill which go hand-in-hand.

4) Effective integration.

 The degree of interaction one can attain through social media in our day is impossible to replicate without using these tools. You can easily trade information and strategies with other community centres or round tables, better redirect the populace towards the services they need most and will witness the arrival of people who discovered your centre via social media. Additionally, you will be able to gather feedback pertaining to the strengths or weaknesses of your services.

5) Recruit collaborators.

 Many other community centres, social movements, independent publications, even employers are on social media. These organizations are potential collaborators you would increase your visibility to, who you would also be able to better get acquainted with by this intermediary. Take advantage of this space to express the convictions of your organization. This could potentially lead to interesting collaborative efforts.

 6) Be where they are looking for you.

 People on social media love, with good reason, those free resources that empower its users, as well as unbridled access to information. They are seeking out services and job prospects on social media. They expect friends and contacts to refer the centres they had a positive experience with. If you are being looked up on social media but cannot be found, you are missing out on the occasion to serve a clientele that wants to use your services but cannot find you, therefore they cannot recommend you to their network.

7) Develop customer loyalty.

 If you are present and active on social media, people will not require a membership to your centre or your website to make use of your services. You are ensuring their access to information, a direct means of communication and follow-up with users. By developing customer loyalty through social media tools, you can make it so they continue using your resources after they’ve left your centre and have them speak of you to potential clientele.

 8) Render teamwork more efficient.

 Accelerate information sharing at the heart of your team, make evident the benefits of project collaboration, simplify group communication and reduce internal email by up to 50%! (Source, a StopThinkSocial PowerPoint presentation).

Click here for Part Two.

Self-Promotion, Personal Branding, Professional Image and E-Reputation

Are unsure of how to showcase your competencies or accomplishments?

Is it hard for prospective employers to notice the value in your work experience abroad?

Are you looking to launch a career as an autonomous worker, consultant or artist, but have yet to develop the necessary network of contacts?

Is nobody contacting you for your services due to a lack of Internet presence?

Perhaps you are ready for the concept of  Personal Branding, the creation of a self-image. So what exactly is personal branding?

Personal branding is, for some people, a description of the process whereby people and their careers are marked as brands. It has been noted that while previous self-help management techniques were about self-improvement, the personal branding concept suggests instead that success comes from self-packaging. Further defined as the creation of an asset that pertains to a particular person or individual; this includes but is not limited to the body, clothing, appearance and knowledge contained within, leading to an indelible impression that is uniquely distinguishable.

Personal branding has continued to gain in popularity as a tool to manage reputation online, especially through social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

(source: Wikipedia)

Some dislike the words 'branding' or 'brand', as their origins in marketing and business strategy may leave the impression of reducing individuals to mere objects.If that is case, you may refer to it in broader terms: self-promotion, professional image, e-reputation, electronic or online reputation, to name a few.

In any event, your image on the Internet is closely related to the more visible elements of your online activity: the sites you contribute to, your profile names and photos, the things you mention in your bio, etc. You must showcase what you perceive to be your best attributes in order to increase your potential employability.

You will find many suggestions enclosed in this document. You are not obligated to try all of them. In fact, it may even be counter-productive to have a presence on sites that mirror one another too closely, like Quora and Focus, or Vimeo and YouTube. Try to identify which sites correspond the most to your needs and willingness to engage in each respective social network. That being said, doing nothing is seldom an option that will help you attain the desired objective; in this case, a job.


1. Start a blog or personal website.
One of the most effective ways for you to assert your competencies and online activity is by creating a blog (yourname.blogplatform.com) or a personal site (yourname.com). If you are not comfortable with adding original content, you can  use it for SEO (Search-Engine Optimization) purposes in order to increase your visibility and to redirect people towards your other online hubs.

You will have to do some site optimization to ensure your page is easily indexed by the various search engines out there. While this all may seem a bit technical, most blogging platforms (Blogger, Tumblr, Wordpress, etc.) offer step-by-step instructions on how to proceed.

You should, at the very least, use your site as a landing page to redirect folks to your other online accounts, be it on LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, etc. One such example would be the www.dartbits.com page.

2. Open a LinkedIn account.
A great way to show your understanding of current labor market standards and procedures as well as display your seriousness and professionalism is by creating a LinkedIn account. You can simultaneously increase online visibility, look at what factors go into play when professionals in your sector are hired and get a glimpse at what your portfolio or resume may be missing.Pay special attention to vocabulary, particularly the terms used in job descriptions, work experience and requisites. Recruiters are accustomed to having previous work-related experience presented to them in a certain fashion. For instance, someone who works in IT must specify which programming languages or software he is familiar with.

3. Showcase your prior accomplishments.
While LinkedIn is an excellent tool to increase online visibility, it is too limited a space to raise the profile of your acomplishments, artistic or otherwise. Depending on your sector, there are specialized social networks that are field-appropriate. For instance, if you are into performing arts you should consider uploading a few video segments onto a YouTube or Vimeo account. Teachers can look into Slideshare , a social network dedicated to PowerPoint presentations. Visual artists are best served on sites like DeviantArt, Flickr or even Facebook. Musicians looking to put up their music should do so on MySpace, SoundCloud or BandCamp.

What matters most is not whether you're on every social network, but whether you're on the ones best suited to showcase your expertise to the right people, which in turn ensures visibility and a quality online reputation.


4. Assert your expertise.

If you are knowledgeable in a given subject, video editing or finance for instance, then you have a degree of expertise you can share with other online citizens. There are over six billion people on the planet, many of whom have Internet access: certainly others will be interested in finding out what you already know. Furthermore, if the topic is related to your professional field, then asserting your expertise online is one of the best ways to improve your online visibility and reputation, which in turn can prove quite beneficial when it comes to networking or job searching.

There are many sites to choose from where you can showcase your expertise. Certain social networks are centered around the notion of asking questions and giving answers. Anyone with a query on any given subject will turn to a group of their peers who are experts in their field in order to find a solution. It is in such a public arena that you could have a chance to demonstrate your own degree of expertise in front of people who will acknowledge the quality of your contributions. Without a doubt, the most well-known of these sites is Quora, but you may just as well chip in on Yahoo! Answers, Focus or Ask. If you already have a LinkedIn account, you will also have access to LinkedIn Answers.

The formula for most of these sites is relatively simple: create a profile, name your topics of interest (either based on expertise or personal curiosity) and start answering questions you know the answers to, or start asking questions of your own. It's that easy!


5. Use this opportunity to grow as a professional.


You are under no obligation to use these services to strictly broadcast your experience. You'll discover there are many things you just don't know, even in your area of expertise, and especially in related fields. When one is job-hunting, one tends to have a bit more free time than when one is employed, but one won't necessarily land a job by simply sending out resumes on a full-time basis, even if one had the resolve to do so.

Make the most of this occasion to heighten your degree of expertise, your knowledge and your level of familiarity with certain work-related notions. When you don't know something, ask about it. When you notice others successfully self-promoting themselves, observe them and learn from their example. If you want to know more about a given topic, ask a question on one of the aforementioned social media outlets, or consult Wikipedia, About, maybe even a message board. Once you are so active online, you will be showing your network and subsequently potential employers that you are capable of learning new things how adaptable you are to the reality of the day. That, in and of itself, is an important hiring criterium, and counts for more than you would expect.

RSS Feeds: Using Web Syndication To Help Your Job Search

If you're an active internet user - particularly for blogs, social media and job search sites - and you're not yet using web syndication to simplify your search and optimize your reading time, you're missing out on a fantastic tool!

Web syndication is most often found in the form of feeds, Atoms or RSS (which stands for Really Simple Syndication). It's a technical solution that allows published web content from one site to be dynamically and simultaneously posted elsewhere, whether it's another website, a desktop application or a web application. It's easy to recognize sites that use web syndication by buttons which read "Subscribe", "Follow", "RSS Subscription", etc., as well as the following icon:

Let's say, for example, that you read three blogs and two news sites regularly. To read them each day, you have to visit each one separately to see if there are new articles. However, if you subscribe to their RSS feed, you can make new results from each site all appear in one place, allowing you to check only one site (rather than five!) to read all the latest articles.

If you have an account with Google or Gmail, the easiest solution to start using RSS feeds is Google Reader. However, there are many other free applications providing the same service. In any case, to use them, you'll have to first go to the site to which you'd like to subscribe, find the link to their RSS syndication and copy the link address by right-clicking the link with your mouse and selecting "Copy Link Location". Next, go to your web syndication application (Google Reader or otherwise), where you should find a button or field to enter a new subscription. Paste the link location you've just copied, follow the steps to confirm and voilà! You've subscribed. From now on, to read the articles on the site in question, you'll simply have to visit your Google Reader (or other application) to read all the newest content rather than having to visit the original site. The more subscriptions you add, the more time you'll save yourself!

Many job offer sites, as well as numerous Facebook pages and LinkedIn company profiles posting job offers, offer their content dynamically via RSS feed. In some cases, you can even set up syndication results in real time for a specific search, such as "Montreal nurse". It's possible that there's no posted job in your field right now, but by subscribing to an RSS feed, you'll have quick access to all the latest job offers as soon as they're posted from your Google Reader account. This will allow you to optimize your job search.

Always be on the lookout for keywords and icons related to web syndication when visiting your favourite sites. For example, this blog has both a "Posts" and "Comments" button with the RSS icon in the right column. Can you find them? This will allow you to subscribe to our blog.

If you work in a community or employment centre with good web resources, you can also try using RSS feeds to post job offers automatically and dynamically to your website. Try talking to your web administrator to see if this might be feasible for your team.

You also can find a fairly extensive list of free, available RSS feeds on various websites, such as Feedzilla.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_syndication

http://annotatedgabbs.wordpress.com/2011/02/06/exploring-the-interwebs-part-1/

A Resource For Employers

Do you work closely with employers, trying to find internships for your immigrant clients for example? Today we'd like to introduce you to an extremely interesting website, www.hireimmigrants.com, a project created by Allies Maytree.

They've developed an interactive tool for employers (click to see it). While this resource isn't directly related to social media, we know that one of the primary hurdles to immigrants getting hired is the reluctance of some employers as well as a lack of resources for others. This fantastic tool can help you to fill the gaps in resources of some of the employers you're working with. You can also embed the tool into your own centre's website by copying the HTML tags found in this link.

Additionally, the site offers plenty of videos that specifically target employers to encourage them to hire more immigrant employees, along with testimonials from employers already succesfully integrating immigrants into their workforce. Among the many topics covered, here are a few that are particularly noteworthy:

Finding Talent
This training video was developed by TRIEC, who use a fictionalized approach to demonstrate techniques that will allow businesses to benefit from qualified immigrant talent.

Integrating Talent
This is another video produced by TRIEC, which again uses a fictional story approach to help businesses learn the best strategies to create an inclusive work environment.

Cross-Cultural Teamwork
Yet another video series created by TRIEC, this time showing us how cultural differences can impact team dynamics in a Canadian workplace and offering strategies to help maximize the contribution of all team members in a multicultural work environment.

You can also find additional information about Montreal in particular (in French) on the website of Maytree's local partner, Alliés Montréal. We also encourage you to check out the many additional resources found on the rest of the Maytree site.

Free Yourself From Email Notifications and Alerts!

If you've recently joined several social networking sites, you may have found that email notifications are flooding your inbox to the point that you're having a hard time finding and reading your other important emails. Here are some solutions to help manage these notifications.

The most obvious solution is to simply log in to each social media account that you use (particularly the sites sending you the most email alerts) and modify your account settings to eliminate, or at least reduce, the number of notifications you're receiving. It's tempting to remove all email notifications, but be careful not to eliminate all types of notifications, such as those that don't appear in your email inbox but are sent to you directly on the site. This is particularly true for Facebook.

You may find it easier just to reduce the number of email alerts you receive - especially if you're new to social media - rather than eliminate them completely. These notifications serve an important purpose: to remind you that you created an account and that you should check it from time to time to respond to people trying to interact with you through social media. Creating a profile on a social network and failing to answer those who try to interact with you on that profile is considered just as impolite as never returning a phone call, email or letter, or refusing to say hello to someone who greets you. Besides, you'll never learn how to use your account if you don't log into it once in a while! It's important to find a happy medium.

In our opinion, when first starting to use social media it's important to keep the following email notifications:

On Facebook:

• when someone sends you a message,
• when someone sends you a friend request,
• when someone accepts your friend request,
• when you join a group,
• when someone tags you in a photo,
• when someone posts to your wall or Timeline.

(Click here to learn more about managing your Facebook email notifications)

On Twitter:

• when someone mentions you,
• when someone sends you a direct message,
• when someone retweets one of your messages.

On LinkedIn:

• when someone sends you a message,
• when someone sends you an invitation to connect,
• when someone accepts your invitation to connect,
• when someone recommends you,
• when someone asks you for a recommendation,
• when someone asks you for an introduction,
• when someone responds to your introduction request.

(You can learn more about managing your LinkedIn email preferences here on the site).

If you keep only these email alerts, you should receive a reasonable amount while maintaining an incentive and several reminders in your email inbox to go back to your social media profiles.

Once you've mastered the many social media sites that you use and have incorporated them into your internet routine, it's possible that you'll find (even with these limited alerts) that your email inbox is being bombarded with notifications. You may be tempted to get rid of them for good. There's actually a much faster way to do this without disabling all email notifications in each site's settings. You can simply create filters (in Gmail, Hotmail, etc.) or rules (in Outlook) that will place all notification emails in a separate folder from your inbox, which will allow you to have access to them at all times without polluting your inbox.

If you're comfortable with social media and create a profile on a new site, we recommend this approach as you get used to the site and its functions.

Facebook Searches Using Google

Have you ever tried to find a group or page on Facebook but haven't succeeded? Don't worry, you're not alone! You're one of the many to discover the limitations of the Facebook search engine.

Rather than get discouraged and give up, you can simply try searching the group or page on google.com, but by adding the keywords "site:facebook.com", you can limit your search results to that site. So, for example, a search for the Facebook page or group of Tyndale St-Georges Community Centre would look like: "Tyndale St-Georges site:facebook.com".

You can also use this method to search on sites other than Facebook by substituting the domain name "facebook.com" with whichever site you'd like to visit. For example, to find the Wikipedia article about pumpkins, try "pumpkin site:wikipedia.org".

To find our project's Facebook group, you can click on the link under Contact in this blog, or simply click here.

Managing Your Online Image & Visibility

Employers will often do a preliminary search of the names of job applicants. They use the internet to complete most of these searches: most will use Google and then have a closer look at social media profiles, images, anything out of the ordinary. Job seekers, then, should regularly ask themselves: "What is my online visibility and my reputation on the internet?"

1- Do a Preliminary Search

All that's required here is to follow a simple procedure, preferably using the same steps a potential employer might follow: go to google.com and complete a search by entering your name (as it appears on your CV) into the search bar. If your name on your CV says "Pat Smith", search for "Pat Smith". You should do this regularly, a few times a year.

Now you'll have to take inventory of the results. Let's start by concentrating on the first page, which means approximately the first ten results. Do the sites listed talk about you? Do they lead to your social media profiles, to a blog or website talking about you, the site of a former employer, a school you attended, a newspaper article quoting you or talking about you, to a criminal record? Do they lead to pages talking about someone with the same name as you (a homonym)? Are there no results about you at all? ?

Now let's evaluate the results. You should take note, for each page that comes up, if they:

1. talk about you
   
2. talk about someone with the same name as you,
3. have no relation to you or your name at all.

You should now take the time to consider if an employer will positively or negatively interpret the information they find. If you think the results might bring up mixed responses (some viewing it positively but others viewing it negatively), for the purposes of this exercise let's consider that they will see it in a negative light. You should complete this exercise even for those sites that aren't about you specifically but in fact a homonym. You know that these sites are related to someone else who shares your name, but the employer can't be expected to know or guess this information. For them, the first impression (whether positive or negative) can be a deciding factor in their judgment of your credibility.

Finally, ask yourself how you could improve your image (if there are too many negative elements) or your visibility (if there aren't many sites that talk about you). To improve your image, you'll have to limit negative content and/or increase positive content. To increase your visibility, you must ensure that positive content referring to you (rather than a homonym) appears as high as possible in search results. Technophiles refer to this process as SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

2- Strategies to Control Your Image

If you feel that what is found in your name online doesn't reflect you in a positive light, you should take a few quick steps to resolve the situation. First, for all negative elements, if it's you that put them online, you should try to remove or at least hide them. If they're on a social media site, rather than remove them entirely, you could simply opt to restrict your privacy settings or block public search results on search engines. If you've lost your password, try to regain access to your account so that you can either close it or simply remove negative content (of course, you can always leave content online when it portrays you in a positive light!).

If ever you find negative content in your name that was put online by someone else (other than one of your homonyms), you could ask them politely but firmly to remove the content by explaining that it's harming your job search or your online image.

3- Strategies to Increase Online Visibility

If negative content in your name was put online by a newspaper, magazine or government agency, your chances of getting it removed without legal recourse are unfortunately pretty slim. The only way to hide the content is to increase your visibility (SEO). By focusing on positive content that will come up high in search results - specifically social media sites and blogs - you can rest assured that the first visible elements when completing a search in your name will be positive and controlled by you.

To increase your visibility, one of the simplest solutions is to create a LinkedIn account and complete it to 100% (or as close as possible). To do this, consult our training material. Another approach is to create a profile on Google+. We don't discuss this site in our material, namely because the uses for job-seekers are limited at this time with the exception of increasing visibility. Click here to find a detailed online resource discussing how to create a Google+ profile (as well as the functions of the site, etc.). In completing your profile, remember that the goal is to present yourself positively and professionally.

Finally, if you enjoy writing and are willing to commit some time to it, you could consider starting your own blog. To do so, have a look at the free resources on wordpress.com, blogspot.com, tumblr.com, as well as many other free blog platforms.

4- Additional Considerations

If ever, despite trying all of these measures, you feel you still have issues maintaining a professional image on the internet, you might want to consider including a link in your CV or email signature leading employers directly to your professional profiles online, or to the most positive elements of your online activity.

Once you've finished this, you should have a look at the Image results page and follow the same steps - identify positive & negative content, identify content representing you and not a homonym, identify content over which you have control, etc. A diligent, disciplined search would also analyze content found on search engines other than Google, such as yahoo.com, bing.com, etc. (though this goes beyond the needs of most people). This strategy is most often employed only for web sites or professional blogs.

Social Media for Immigrant Workers

Throughout our trainings and our teaching material, we insist on the importance of social media for job-seeking immigrants. There are several uses of social media that are of particular interest for immigrants. We've assembled these considerations here, for clarity and also to just as a reminder.

1- Facebook is already used by numerous immigrants

Facebook is used by families in order to keep in contact after one of the family members leaves their country of origin. Many immigrants keep in touch with family back home in several ways, including phone, mail, e-mail, Skype, as well as Facebook. And ever since Facebook has partnered with Skype to allow users to use Skype video-conferences directly on the social media site, this option has become that much more appealing.

Your Private Information and Social Media

This article is primarily targeted at employment counselors, but contains information that could be useful for all social media users.

When giving a training for the Networking 2.0 project, it's understood that the counselors we train will re-transmit the content we provide in a way that best suits their workplace and clientele. To teach this content, it's important to use it and, at least at some level, master it. This means that you should be using social media in order to teach it to your clients.

Not everyone wants to have a social media profile. Many people, employment counselor and job-seeker alike, are hesitant to learn these tools for fear that their personal information may be shared or used against them. It's both normal and smart to have these fears.

That being said, it's essential for job seekers to have access to important skills and resources for their job search (as demonstrated in other blog posts and documents created for this project). Even though we strongly encourage you to familiarize yourself with social media, we understand that it is within each person's right to protect their private information in the way that best suits them, including abstaining from sharing them on social media entirely. As the final decision rests on each individual to do what's right for them, rest assured that we've considered many facets and approaches to this important subject.

A. Considerations for Protecting Your Information: What Are They?

1. Data-Mining (Collection and Processing of Personal Information)

Social media sites collect information about you. It's true. However, it's not all that frightening considering you're the one who decides what you share and what you don't in the majority of cases. How do Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn collect and use your personal information?

First, by the information you provide when filling in your profile. For example, when you list the city you live in or the school you attended.

Second, when you authorize a third party with access to this information to share it, such as your email provider or other social media site. A third party is a person or organization other than you (first party) and the social media providing you with a service (second party). An example would be if you were to grant Facebook access to your Twitter account, or vice versa.

Third, in documenting how you use the services they're providing, by monitoring your comings and goings (who do you communicate with, what pages do you visit most often, what subjects interest you, etc.). If you join the Networking 2.0 Facebook group, for example, the site can determine that you're interested in employment and networking.

Finally, if while connected to a social media site you consult other websites as well, and these sites use "social modules" of that site, it's possible that they share information with the provider of the social media (when did you visit their website, how long were you on it, etc.). You'll know you're embarking into a social module when you see a Facebook or Twitter button on a site other than Facebook or Twitter, for example.

2. Why Do Social Media Sites Collect Data From Their Users?

This is a common and legitimate question.

First, because a social media profile is nothing more than the kind of information about ourselves that we share with other users (friends, followers, connections) through the intermediary of a service that collects them (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn). Your name (or username), the city you live in, your job, what you talk about, etc. - a certain amount of basic information is necessarily collected for the service to function.

Second, because social networks are often more interesting when they're adapted to the user. It's in collecting your information that personalized suggestions can be made to you. For example, someone who has five or six friends in common with you will be suggested to you as a friend because they're probably someone you'd be interested in connecting with or may know already. Or if you read many articles about rock bands, a site could suggest that you have a look at an account dedicated to this subject.

Third, and for most sites this is the primary reason, because the revenues for these sites - which provide extremely sophisticated services at virtually no cost to the user - are generated almost entirely by ads. Ads found on social media (as well as on sites like Google) are targeted to your use of the Internet. Ads for magazine subscriptions or newspapers are targeted specifically to those who read a lot of articles, while ads for a band's new album would be targeted to those who listen to a lot of music online. Thus, data is collected from your personal information to target you with ads, products and services that will most likely interest you rather than those that are unlikely to appeal to you. Everyone using these networks will be exposed to ads, whether they share little or a lot of personal information. Either way, we generally suggest that you ignore ads while using social media. Thus, this use of your personal information will have a relatively limited impact on your privacy.

3. Sharing Information with Third Parties and The Use of Your Image in Social Advertising

Social networking sites have various policies regarding the sharing of your information with third parties. Many people are afraid that Facebook is sharing personal details about them with these parties, however that's very unlikely. First, it's hard to conceive of why Facebook might want to do this. Their livelihood comes from just that - their privileged and unequaled access to your information; as long as they don't reveal it to others, they're the only ones who can profit by selling specially-targeted ads to their individual users. Further, it's stated in their privacy policy that they won't share this information without your consent. Thus, for this exact reason, it's very important to review all your privacy and account settings on the site.

Second, there are legal considerations. If a judicial authority provides a search warrant requesting access to information in a person's social media account, it's possible that Facebook or Twitter would provide police with access for investigative purposes. Twitter will alert a user that their account is under surveillance, but Facebook won't. In either case, it's best to consider that all information published on a social media site (including in private messages) is considered "public" in terms of the law, and so one should refrain from sharing information that could harm their reputation.

Finally, there is always a chance that hackers could somehow access and steal your personal information (without your consent nor that of the social media site in question). Nothing is perfectly safe online - much like in real life - and social media sites have bugs and security issues just like any other website. There are several ongoing lawsuits trying to force Facebook as well as other social media companies to better protect client information. In general, your information is relatively well protected, but perhaps not to an extent that will make everyone happy.

B. Options for Secure Learning

If you're unsure about using one of the social media sites discussed here for personal use, even with the many possibilities presented for managing the amount of personal information you share, it's still possible to use social media while sharing only a limited amount of personal information (virtually none).

However we must insist that some of these options are only a last resort, because should you later choose to create more engaging profiles on these sites, you may have to do everything twice.

The first thing you could try is to create accounts in your name from the get-go, maintaining strict privacy settings and maintaining a very small network. You can use our guides while you get to know the interface and master each site, but much more slowly than how you might be using them already.

The second option is to create corporate accounts for your organization. An official Twitter account, a company profile on LinkedIn or even a Facebook page can all be created for your company or community centre without requiring any personal input from you. This way you can kill two birds with one stone - learning the interface of these services while increasing your organization's visibility. However, if you choose this option, you'll have to get informed on the professional use of social media before making any major errors (we're working on an upcoming blog article that will discuss this subject in greater detail).

A third option is to create accounts using pseudonyms, with no relation to your real name, company or person. These accounts will allow you to explore the interface of each site without risking your reputation or that of your organization. Of course, if you find yourself interested in using social media more and manage to overcome your fears, you can stop using these pseudonyms, delete the related account and start fresh with real social media accounts.

C. Conclusions

Concerns regarding confidentiality, your personal life and access to your information are valid and important concerns, both for your internet use and life in general. It's important to stay informed, to form an opinion and express it, and to speak up and try to change practices when we find them unjust. There are several proposed bills in the works in Canada, the US and elsewhere that could give more power to either corporations, the government or individuals in terms of control of power of information in the near future. Some social networks, most notably Path or Diaspora, are more respectful of their users' private lives than Facebook. However, their applications for employment are limited - not to mention their user base, which consists primarily of technophiles who can easily juggle several social media accounts. Facebook has a more tarnished history in terms of confidentiality issues, compared to Twitter and LinkedIn. If you prefer to abstain from Facebook and teach only Twitter and LinkedIn to your clients, you will still be providing them with a great service. But you will be in an even better position to help them if you're able to teach them to manage their privacy and account settings on their existing Facebook accounts.

Best Practices
We recommend that all users follow some general guidelines when sharing personal information online:

• First, refrain as much as possible from sharing information that could easily be used to steal your identity: address, postal code, birth date, ID numbers (social insurance number, driver's license, passport, government ID, etc.), telephone numbers, credit card and bank card numbers, etc.
• Next, carefully read the privacy policies of any sites or services you use, and update your account and privacy settings accordingly to choose the degree to which you want to engage in sharing of your information.
• Third, think carefully before you share any private, personal, confidential or delicate information online, or if you engage in a conversation that might be questionable or controversial.
• Fourth, always use HTTPS (rather than HTTP) when this option is available to you, most notably on Facebook and Twitter.
• Fifth, install an anti-virus on your computer (not necessary if you're using Linux). Many free programs exist (AVG, Avast, Microsoft SecurityEssentials, etc.).
• Sixth, choose secure passwords (as long as possible, mixing types of characters such as letters and numbers or punctuation).
• Further, you can limit social media applications' ability to access your information by blocking cookies or installing plug-ins on your web browser.
• Finally, always sign out (disconnect, log off, exit, etc.) from any service protected with a password as soon as you've finished using it.