Most people would agree that social media has become an important part of our modern daily lives. Digital natives spend a lot of time using Twitter, updating statuses on Facebook, blogging, and engaging with other online users. Over time this engagement builds an online reputation.

Services like Klout, PeerIndex and more recently Kred attempt to measure your online reputation with mixed results. Yet the data that makes up our online reputation is valuable to corporates, marketers and more importantly you. But how do you exploit your online reputation and leverage it for profit?

Well, a new London based start-up, MinuteBox, said they have found a solution.

MinuteBox enables people to buy and sell expertise online in small units of time via multi-media (video/audio/text) chat. They believe that individuals with specific skills should be able to leverage their online reputation, and sell it to a growing online audience.

Using a web-based application, MinuteBox facilitates live advisory sessions between experts and clients and handles the payments for these transactions. To help experts fully leverage their reputation, MinuteBox also offers a powerful widget called MinuteBox Direct. This widget allows experts to offer live expert advice directly from their blogs, websites, and social profiles.

As a pioneer in promoting future social technologies, media140 is forming a partnership with MinuteBox to offer their service to our community. We are very excited about the potential of this partnership, and believe that it can actually help individuals leverage greater value from their online reputation and skills.

MinuteBox are trialling their service in BETA at the moment and are looking for early adopters to help them fine tune the product before they launch on a much larger scale.

As an incentive media140 can offer anyone wanting to register a reduced commission rate of only 15% (normal 25%). (The commission rate is fee MinuteBox deduct from the transactions.)

If you would like to take advantage of the special discount and trial the service please get in touch at info@media140.com

In this guest post, Greg Bruce, General Manager at MindBank Recruitment (Australia) takes a closer look at the effectiveness of using social media as a means of finding a new job.

In an increasingly competitive job market future employers are looking for individuals who are prepared to go that extra mile to demonstrate their knowledge, expertise or passion for a new role. Social media is one of the many tools that need to be part of any strategy when looking for a new job, but remember it’s not the only one.

In a profession that constantly rates job candidates in terms of their experience and knowledge, I guess it’s only natural for me to scale my own proficiency and expertise in the emerging recruiting tool of today – social media. Admittedly, I am a fairly raw (but enthusiastic) social media convert. In industry speak, I’d be an ‘undergraduate, with a keen willingness to learn’.

However, I’m fairly certain there are many others like me – recruitment industry veterans who have decided to test the social media waters and explore how sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter assist people in gaining successful and meaningful employment. As the debate if online news sites will replace traditional newspapers continues, it’s no surprise that similar questions have also been raised over the influence of social media on recruitment.

Will it completely transform the way we recruit and, conversely, how candidates apply for jobs?

Drew Hansen of Forbes explains how social media’s influence on recruitment has so far been incremental, not game-changing. I agree with Drew’s stand-point, but believe that industry change (of any degree) warrants, at the very least, careful consideration, especially when something as far-reaching and dynamic as social media is causing the change.

And it’s not just recruitment professionals who must acknowledge such change, it’s job seekers (and often passive candidates who aren’t even looking for jobs at the time) who must acknowledge the influence social media can have on their own career prospects.

The most important advice I can offer candidates using social media are:

Research your target.
Analyse your skills and interests and be targeted in what you’re looking for, instead of trawling through employment websites, in the hope that the perfect job will just appear.

As well as using mediums such as corporate and industry websites, traditional job boards and career councillor advice, use social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and LinkedIn to research the job you want. Think about the industry, role, remuneration and work-life balance that you desire, as well as organisations that you’d like to work for.

Whilst corporate websites will generally provide a wealth of information about an organisation’s core activity and values, far more in depth, less ‘filtered’ information about an organisation’s culture, its personnel, key industry players and the issues facing certain industries or organisations can be found in blogs, photos, videos and in discussion forums. Using social media to research prospective employers will ensure your application is an intelligent one.

Be prepared to be researched.
On the other hand, while social media now empowers job seekers more than ever before, allowing them easier access to ‘no holds barred’ employer-related content, the weight of ‘power’ is equally balanced in favour of the employer.

Recent Telstra research revealed that more than a quarter of Australian bosses are now using social networking sites to screen job candidates, with almost half admitting to turning away prospects based on something they’d seen on Facebook or Twitter.

Consider what information or images you have on your social media profiles and use privacy settings if this isn’t information you’d want your prospective employer to see.

Make your social media profile as strong as your resume.
It must be an accurate, honest and responsible reflection of who you are. Recruiters nowadays look for current information on job seekers so if you are submitting a resume, include your updated and complete LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook profile addresses in it (again, consider content and privacy settings).

The following article from MWH National Marketing Manager, Jacqueline Burns brings home the importance of ensuring your social media profile is an accurate, honest and responsible reflection of who you are. Embellishing job titles and past experience or posting entirely false information could have long-term damaging effects on your career and professional integrity.

Connecting with key industry influencers online and being an active online participant in groups and industry discussions will also position you firmly in the market, ensuring you stand out as an ideal target for recruiters.

Even if you are not actively pursuing a new job, your profile on sites such as LinkedIn and the connections and recommendations you have from colleagues can stand you in good stead in the eyes of recruiters.

Finally … a holistic, integrated approach is best.
Social media will never entirely take the place of traditional recruitment practices, however it would be naive to ignore the changes it has and continues to make to recruitment. Candidates must consider social media’s influence on their future career prospects and use it smartly, among other more ‘traditional’ tools like face-to-face networking.

Social media is an evolving beast. It’s hard to imagine anyone becoming a ‘graduate’ of something so ever-changing and dynamic. The only way to keep up, I guess, is to stay amongst it, keep contributing and to embrace the change.

Have you used social media to land a job? Tell us more about your experience and tips you have for other job seekers.

Register to attend the event. We have entered an era where people are simultaneously living their lives online. At a time when data is being coalesced through the gathering of personally identifiable information such as emails, photographs, names and IP addresses – we are reaching a point where many digital services are amassing detailed profiles from publicly available data. Our ‘single issue focused’ events are a natural extension of our larger events, but much more of a focus on creating more intimate experiences with a smaller number of people. Allowing everyone who participates a much greater opportunity to debate, engage and collaborate with emphasis on creating conversation and collaboration. Join media140 in The Hub, London on the 16th Feb from 6.30pm for a lively panel debate to discover what the future of identity in a ‘digital social age’ means from a media, political, security and social perspective. Confirmed Speakers         Adam Baker Entrepreneur and founder of Blottr   Jeremy Newman Founder & CEO, New Model Identity   Wendy M. Grossman Science and technology journalist.   Rik Ferguson Director Security Research & Communication EMEA, Trend Micro   Wendy M. Grossman. Is a London-based American science and technology journalist who has specialised in the border wars between cyberspace and real life since 1990. She is the author of several books, most notably net.wars (NYU Press 1998) and From Anarchy to Power (NYU Press, 2001), and over her 20-year career in journalism has written for many publications including the Guardian, New Scientist, the Daily Telegraph, Scientific American, and most of the UK’s former computer titles. She does most of ZDNet’s book reviews and writes an interview series for The Inquirer. In 1987, she founded the UK magazine The Skeptic (www.skeptic.org.uk); in 2010 she edited a “Best Of” anthology for the magazine, Why Statues Weep (Philosophy Press, 2010). She sits on the advisory councils of the Open Rights Group and Privacy International, and writes a weekly column, net.wars, which appears at www.newswireless.net, her own site, www.pelicancrossing.net, and in the ORGzine. Adam Baker. Is an entrepreneur and founder of Blottr – a citizen journalism news service. The idea for Blottr came to Baker during 9/11. He was amazed that it took mainstream news services nearly seven minutes to cover the atrocity, even though there were hundreds of people at the scene capturing footage without an outlet to publish it. It was at this juncture he started to realise how powerful citizen journalism could be. There are many stories that go unmentioned in the regional press, national and sometimes international media, and Blottr offers the platform for citizens in the location to report events in realtime and publish these stories on the website. By empowering anyone, anywhere to report stories as they witness them, Blottr is able to break stories first, often hours before the mainstream services cover it. Blottr is available in 3 languages – English, French and German. Jeremy Newman. Jeremy Newman is a Programmer turned Product Manager turned software entrepreneur. He is currently the founder and CEO of New Model Identity (consisting of the IDmeme, idAngels and realidcheck operations). NMI is his second software venture since forming biometric signature firm, PenOp, in Somerset in 1990. He grew the firm internationally, moving to New York in 1994 to set up US operations. He has spoken on electronic evidence, legal and regulatory compliance of e-signatures at over 40 conferences in the USA and Europe. PenOp was acquired by a US public company in 2000. Jeremy is the co-author of 12 US patents covering electronic signatures and digital identity. Before PenOp, he worked at Acorn Computers of Cambridge and at OCR specialists, FormScan. Rik Ferguson. Rik Ferguson brings more than seventeen years of security technology experience to his role as Director of Security Research & Communications at Trend Micro. In this position, Rik is actively engaged in research into online threats and the underground economy. He also researches the wider implications of new developments in the Information Technology arena and their impact on security both for consumers and in the enterprise, contributing to product development and marketing plans. Rik writes the Countermeasures blog and is the lead spokesperson for Trend Micro. He is often interviewed by the BBC, CNN, CNBC, Channel 4, Sky News and Al-Jazeera and quoted by national newspapers and trade publications throughout the world. Rik also makes a regular appearance as a presenter at global industry events. Remaining actively engaged in customer projects, Rik tries to ensure his views and areas of research reflect the security concerns as experienced by enterprises and individuals as they come to grips with new technologies. In April 2011 Rik was formally inducted into the InfoSecurity Hall of Fame. Prior to assuming his current role, Rik served as Solutions Architect at Trend Micro. Previously, he served as Security Infrastructure Specialist at EDS where he led the security design work for government projects related to justice and law enforcement and as Senior Product Engineer at McAfee focused on network security, intrusion prevention, encryption and content filtering. Rik Ferguson holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Wales and is a Certified Ethical Hacker and CISSP-ISSAP in good standing. Event Details Date & Time: 16th February, 6.30pm – 9.00pm Venue: The Hub, 34b York Road, Kings cross, London Tickets: £10 (exc. VAT) Google Map link to The HUB Registration

Registration

For the past 10 years Google has always published a year-end Zeitgeist report on the major search trends around the world. 2011 is no exception – they have sorted billions of searches to capture the year’s 10 fastest-rising global queries and the spirit of 2011.

You’ll see many familiar faces and a few not so familar, but we are not surprised to see Apple feature in three of the top ten trends. You can drill down by country and region to reveal more insights into what whetted our appetites in the wired world in 2011. Brilliant!

See all the trends visit http://www.googlezeitgeist.com.

“Did you know YouTube has 490,000,000 unique visitors each month, generating 92,000,000,000 page views and 11% of the world population has a Facebook account”

There should be a closing slide for the total number of typos and grammatical errors. How many can you count?

See more video infographics at http://www.videoinfographics.com/

Another hectic year comes to a close for us as we celebrate entering our third year as a growing global community and organisation. This wouldn’t have been possible without your support in helping to make media140 happen; whether you were a speaker, a sponsor, media partner or participant we would like to extend our thanks.

There is oodles coming up in 2012!

• Our London team have partnered with the HUB to host a new series of eight events,
• Barcelona sees the continuation of our partnership with VilaWeb with new workshops and we’ll be starting a series of experimental events in Bar Borneo called media140+,
• In April we will play host to a new exciting three day digital festival in Perth,
• We will be returning to Brisbane in May with a ‘Digital Science’ event,
• media140.com has been relaunched with a completely new look and feel,
• We are back at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia with four workshops,
• And we have a few more surprises coming up in Sydney, London and Atlanta!

We are indeed very excited for 2012 – keep up with all the news by following us at www.twitter.com/media140. And so from all the team in Barcelona, Sydney, Perth and Atlanta we would like to wish you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Cheers,
Ande Gregson

media140 founder
@andegregson

Do you have the right to be anonymous online? If so, when? Anonymity protects Syrian political activists, internet trolls and criminals alike. There are no easy answers to the questions around Digital Anonymity.

Digital Anonymity was the first theme to be tackled as part of a new series of media140+ events that will be hosted in Sydney, London and Barcelona in 2012.

Over the next 12 months we’ll be bringing together the some of the most exciting and influential thinkers in digital media to share their experience and knowledge with a small number of participants.

The media140+ events are a natural extension of our larger events, but much more of a focus on creating more intimate experiences with a smaller number of people. media140+ events will run every 6-8 weeks as an open forum with emphasis on creating conversation and collaboration.

The opening event in Sydney, Australia took place with Jessica Hill from ABC Radio current affairs, David Stewart from law firm Wrays, Karalee Evans from public relations firm Text 100 and Stilgherrian, writer and broadcaster with ZDNet, Crikey, Drum and others.

It was a very lively debate that lasted over 90 minutes hosted by John Kerrison from Sky News Australia.

Event Highlights

Event highlights have been produced for ZDNet Patch Monday by Stilgherrian read the full article at ZDNet Australia.

Full Podcast

Listen to the full audio podcast and recording on Audioboo.

We will be announcing a new series of events for 2012 in mid December on our event page, through media140 twitter account and on Facebook.

[Photo: The media140+ panel discussion as photographed by Neerav Bhatt]

“To better understand social consumers, we asked 3,000 US and UK consumers about the two products and services they had most recently researched online and how they went about it. Today’s social consumer is one that can either be categorized as a high or low sharer, who utilizes various digital channels differently depending on whether he or she is researching and interacting with high or low involvement products. ”

The full report and white paper can be downloaded from Beyond [PDF 2.7Mb]

*Infographic represents US consumer data only.

Images courtesy of Iain Weir.

Ann Holman – Network Silos to Brand Hubs
Ann Holman is considered a leading authority on social media, marketing and leadership. She has advised companies and higher educational institutions around the UK on building business communities around brands by transforming their relationships with people both internally and externally from transactional to a more intimate, participative and trusting experience. You can follow Ann on Twitter at @AnnHolman

Download slide presentation PDF

Images courtesy of Iain Weir.

Paul Skinner – Platforms for participation and the power of networks
Paul is the founder of Pimp My Cause, a new online collaborative platform bringing together professional marketers with charities, NGOs and social ventures to whom they can donate not their money but their expertise, talent and creativity.

Paul is also the director of Blue Marble Consulting, through which he advises clients on how to build networked, collaborative initiatives to create social, environmental and business benefits. You can follow Paul on Twitter at @PimmpMyCause