Lessons

Lesson Info

Building an Online Presence with LinkedIn

So let's dive showing two part one for those of you that are new to my formatting, it is very simple the top has a breadcrumb to let you know what segment we're on out of the four, and if you have any questions that we may not have answered online or here in the audience, please follow me on facebook dot com slash giant thinkers and twitter and instagram hugely active on that. I think I answered a good thirty people last night on twitter, so I answer every single mention or question or message at the giant thinker so part one had a network and use it as your most effective job. Such tools the lessons for this segment are the following why you need to network where and how to network online, where and how to network offline, how to accelerate your professional relationships and they're going to bring on jacob cast fire so by a video to talk about social media networking success now don't be overwhelmed. I am going to go through this very quickly, all right, you will get the information,...

but it's important for me to maintain that pace because I'm deluded a lot of information and try to cram as much in for your benefit today, so they're the five okay let's jump straight into it this is really the reason why you need to network and to network effectively eighty percent of jobs in the western world are field through word of mouth only twenty percent of jobs available are publicly advertised now if you're not feeling that factor it in your own path ah then you will eventually I personally can testify to that eighty percent I have out of my entire eleven you created to date in design itself full time that there has been no instance where I have I got a job through a job website or through someone that I didn't know so it's always been through networking who he had took the networking class in high school did you take that subject no one did you like to dale for that you like tim it why did not take that well that's part of the reason why I know we can can be challenging we've been programmed to be suppressed to some degree heavenly from sitting behind a desk needing to raise up our hands of course that's polite but still the idea of productivity feeling between a nine to five framework that's quite limiting as well so there's a few things also we become vulnerable when we network we have to open up two allowed them to open up so that that can be not something easily done by most people that aren't seeing meeting people in that light it's not a very comfortable thing at times many of us simply don't know how to network so in order for us to shift our mindset on networking we need to put some weight on how important it is what is not working first of all well it's simply about building relationships pretty sure we all know that but it is also by far the most effective job search tool that you can use and it's the answer to the most common challenge that many students and graduates especially face and if I had a dollar for every time I heard this I'd have at laced two hundred bucks but I hear it very often no one have actually tells you how hard it is to actually get a job in the design industry you're required experience to get a job but you need a job to get experience the chicken and the egg theory there but it's just like getting I guess your first driving lesson or someone lending you their keys for the first time when you're driving that person you for well you wouldn't be you know a pro at driving right off the bat but they trusted you they they had enough report with you to allow them to hand the case and for you to give it a go this is exactly like getting a job through networking how about this one from kiplinger dot com it's a little snippet of an article there in today's competitive job market we're seeing older more experienced workers taking pay cuts it's an entry level jobs to ensure their financial security why is that? Are they using networking to the best of their ability? We all know this saying it's not what you know but who you know we hear that all the time but I think that we should scratch that and we should aim for this it's not who you know it's who knows you and we want to get to that point today there are only ah funny enough five of my graduating batch of fifty who are working as designers I'll tell you a story about barry for confidentiality psych his name's not really, barry but let me tell you a story about barry he was one of the five of us that worked in the industry and it's still working in the in the industry out of the fifty of us that graduated now superstore he barry had an auntie who was the managing director of a very well known australian airline but you can guess what that is at the time she was imagine director and she was the best friend off another ending director from a well known design company. So barry, my mate calls up his auntie and says, hey, I just graduated any chance that you can hook me up with anyone that you know in the industry within forty eight hours he had ah deal and and ah an offer to start as a junior designer under his aunt his best friend's company also it's worth pointing out that employees want to work with people they like there's a bit of likability factor we kind of know that we'll get to a bit of that bit later on but let me tell you about my first for one of my first junior design role so after the mail room and I moved on to design there that I actually moved on to an agency called smart which is a makhan world group company and finally enough on my second interview the contractor said to me so uh you did really well and we won't offer you the job but ah we did have others that were also in line for that was he was close and I said oh yeah I said our while giving me the job and she said to me it's actually not because of your skills I said friday um she said to me I see myself in you and she said there was another guy that well that was very competent above and beyond he was skilled in the program's his work was great but he just didn't have the personality and the culture of the agency that we that we felt he could contribute to he was very style very uh I guess kept himself very how should you call it yeah, he was just start a bit of ah I guess shy person and um she said, you know you're you're very hungry and passion, and you voice that out and we can feel your energy so that the currency of of just embracing yourself and other values is is something that I'm going to reaffirm throughout this. You should also know that it's a numbers game there's a chance to meet new people everywhere you go, it may be a link to a potential employer or a new client. Going to industry events is one way, but of course you must be open to networking everywhere, and that includes talking to the brewster. When you get a coffee, getting your sandwich from the sandwich shop, any interaction is going to help your networking. So some key personal stories that I need to share with you because I think that these stories are really ingrained in giving and sharing the value that I want to instill in in a lot of you in wingrove was actually the one hundredth cole that accepted me when I was in grade ten, I called him up very casual guy said, yeah, come on over when you want to come over and said next week, he said, you're cool whenever you want, so I do that twenty minutes early, eager beaver, fifteen year old kids sitting down on the couch he walks in a couple minutes later drops his skateboard starts you know, skate and all over the wooden floor boards like who is this guy that can't be in kicks up the skateboard and walks up to me says I ran my man I said, well ok, you could be my boss like this guy, you know, roll creative directors like this this is really cool, so it was an amazing experience from the get go and it was fun and I learned a lot out of him he's one of my biggest mental six years later every year in between, I sent him an email, one email just saying merry christmas or happy new happy easter, whatever it was one email are you? Six years later, he calls me up and says, hey, I'm starting a new agency we need some help what you have to, and I said, I'm actually transitioning between jobs at the moment, he said, cool before you do come on over shania portfolio and we'll chat I stayed for the week because they had a pitch for a big client. We're up against five other big firms. We want that pitch and I was there for three years after that point it's amazing like you don't know how important news until something to that degree off that length of time uh affects you and we're looking back that's a huge story of mine backpacking through asia and being in a sauna what's that about well simply was in this very nice I still and I was like I can't crack and relax now so I went in it was about midnight almost and I was like sweet song all to myself this is great get to relax two minutes later this massive guy walks in he's like how you doing? I was like I'm going to die in asia uh yes I'm going to die in asia and in a sauna long and the short of it is he was from canada and I was a very cool guy he and ah petrol company and I start doing well for him after that just start on the other side of world professional way is a brand that ah is my one of my clients now and you can check him out professional way dot com they produce some great products but basically they they were introduced to me about six years ago and I had used different types of protein brands ok, all the ones on the market I e mailed them and I said yours is by far the best party I've ever tasted and and most pure and healthy feeling and I said I'm a graphic design if you need anything let me know this was an email I get email back within a couple of thousand saying, well perfect timing we're about to re brand so I'm not only rebranded their company I've also uh done all their packaging so over fifty products of done their packaging for just from one email and just for me saying that I love your product by the way I'm a designer seems pretty easy right? It happened and it was it was that easy I got really busy after that. So how did that work online? We're going to tackle these three these ah one, two, three, four, five, six also in flat so make sure you're like love that leveraging linked in leveraging social media channels blogging creative communities, job post websites they're still of course worth a try. I'm going to give you eighteen job post websites, constant interaction and why that's important, but for the most part we're going to talk about linked in lincoln is known as the place to find and be found many of us are on it if you're not pleased, teo and and you'll see why network with people who are relevant to your career that's what it's for and I'm going to go through the five key features in order of why I think it's so important to use it first leads there the search tool you can search for people jobs company is contacting people in one portal makes it easy it's also great to stalk people you didn't hear that from may find out unique information about the people and organizations that you could potentially be working for great for interviews of course, because that information is going to be hugely valuable for your research the news feed keep up to date with articles, thoughts from industry peers and occasionally have people in your network posting job rolls literally people will go we need a designer we need you know digital that folks digital person that focuses on u x designer or anything people will post jobs and it could be contractual basis like you know, a six month contract we need someone next week to start for at least a month we need someone feeling from returning to leave who notes people will do it because I need to get people to fill in all the time recommendations and endorsement is also great because thiss adds powerful credibility and social proof and believability if you are so this is a huge feature of linked in it is proof of what you've delivered and what you're capable of literally people will write and recommend and endorse you they are similar to letters of recommendation within a resume on linked in these are visible for all your connections to say lincoln groups this is cool it's important to get onto the groups that of course relevant to your industry each group had its own discussion board this job boards there's news and you can keep up to date with the industry there groups allow you to make professionals with similar interests so it's, easy to make quality connections and many use groups as a brainstorming top of session or sessions. Rather, in it's, a powerful way to establish trust and improve your reputation is just interacting on the online space, and at the very end, you have a completed profile, which is essentially your online resume. That is a huge part of your online presence and personal brand, because many employers, as well will recruit directly from linked in. You know, recruiters can charge anywhere between fifteen to twenty five percent on re sourcing, finding people like you and connecting you with people that need it so many employees would just go there direct and a strong paul profile. And that solid endorsement is a big head turner. He is proof. Ah, I just checked out my recent starts. I'm in the top three percent off almost thirteen hundred of my connections. Uh, and it's, because I was active in those in those platforms, the search, the I was posting a lot. I was relevant stuff and active in groups, things like that. And if you scroll down now, we have, ah, blood out to these people, um, but if you look at that woman just to pay, ah, pay your focus on onto the labelle's here you know there's ceo over of not camera go global there is the general manager there there is uh head talent manager of leo burnett as crazy you know and to be among these people is a huge on on there's global recruiter there there's co founder and director of reborn which is a huge digital agency um so it's important to get active because all of these people are so building a personal brand which is what I'm alluding to is well outside of linked in it requires long term commitment touched on that on the other workshop create a knockout portfolio of course this we need a strategy genuine engagement, clever content curation and originality okay, so just keep those in mind in terms of platforms and channels besides linked in there's of course twitter, instagram, facebook and google plus then there's pinterest tumbler youtube and read it um I want tio just point out that if where talking about social media to our employers I have personally found that the left column is by far the strongest and the most engaging two to to engage with those those creative directors and our employers rather than those so I'd rather you focus on these three uh sorry these five five left um so I want you to spend your energy on those as you move forward with your branding some daughter from the twitter web site itself two hundred eighty four million monthly active users five hundred million tweets of senate today eighty percent of twitter active users are on mobile. Seventy seven percent of accounts are outside the u s this is good daughter for us, we've got to start learning to pull daughter to our advantage and really informing how and why this was sending things out rather than just flying by. We want tio design on purpose, we want to live on purpose, we want to do things purposefully and thoughtfully, and part of that is being informed daughter is great! So instagram, check this out one hundred fifty million active users, forty million photos daily and the birth of instant meets so that they've got now instrument where you can host or go to an intimate just bring your things, people that have the same interests as you in the real world and interacting with them, so check it out online topping estimates the sure there's one probably around the corner from you if you look at images in general, ninety percent of information transmitted to the brain is visual and visuals are process sixty thousand times faster in the brain and text she's something to think about when you're sharing daughter on facebook as we know he is just a couple, but this is good for us know the first on twenty five to thirty four year olds are almost thirty percent so that's the biggest demographic age group on facebook which is why I say question if you're going to spend your time posting things and your goal is to get a job should you be spending your time on facebook for may that might cancel it out uses are fifty three percent female and forty seven percent male that's good to know it's almost a fifty fifty split although you might find that here you're targeting is is more female or more mail so again you let that inform you on this is a great step isn't every sixty seconds on facebook this these things happened five hundred comments posted two hundred ninety three thousand status is one hundred thirty six thousand photos that's incredible so I won't go into too much detail about this next point, which is why you should have a blogger and how to integrate one but it's essential about credibility and having frequent users. I did touch on this on the other workshop, but I just want to leave it at that for for the purpose of the time that we have together. So credibility essentially is that your you're using that channel to show your interests and to demonstrate that you're participating in the world that there are other dimensions of your character frequent users of course it's a perfect platform to post fresh information and uh you can use that to little people in integrating bloggers super simple so you can have that blawg within the same platform as your portfolio website again I've covered this in the other worship but generally speaking if you have a word precise squarespace anything like that you can integrate that within an all create a separate web site altogether and just link them but question if there is a reason why you should keep them separate from each other examples of successful design bloggers jacob pass we're going to bring him in via video call shortly after the end of this segment check him out just kind of dot com david area david area dot com and tina roth eisenberg swiss dash mr calm it's always great to use those as an exam pull off who are doing great things in the blogosphere oh I go into this again I ah it's just important for me to show you creative communities that will raise your personal brand the hands is one of them number one I would say and then the rest car afloat cargo collective dribble dot com the loop to come today cool. All right, get your pens already actually waiting for this one eighteen job designed job post web sites worth looking at number one car float dot com slash jobs number to be hands dot net slash job list number three authentic jobs dot com number four it's nice that jobs board dot com say that five times fast uh, number five design jobs. That a idea? Dog. One of six crop dot com now the seven designed jobs board, dot com number, right dribble, dot com slash jobs number nine. Credit pool, dot com slash jobs design observer, dot com jobs, dot smashing magazine, dot com and fresh web jobs took home all right. And the last batch simply hired dot com. We work remotely dot com sensational jobs. Dot com creative hotlist dot com the shelling in front dot com that a year for all yours is that's where the good and the loop dot com today you have a job board as well. There's a lot of web sites that you can now apply on. Now, the only thing I'll say about these that some are more skewed too particular disciplines someone more have more digital jobs. Some have more package designed jobs posting up there, or print or industrial design motion graphics. A whole bunch have a look. See what's more applicable to you and also some arm or geographic centric. So some might be more skewed towards the american market. The u k market, the australian market, asian market wherever. All right, so just have a look.