If you are a blogger or microblogger and are in the Dublin area on Saturday this week, the 10 May 2008, be sure to join fellow bloggers at The Market Bar in Fade Street, Dublin, from 4.30pm.

This is a Dublin Blogger and Twitter meetup organised by Bernie Goldbach.

Hope to see you there.

And even if you have not started blogging yourself or have yet to step in the virtual world of online social networks or social media, do come along and meet some of the people behind the blogs.

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One of the social networks that I’m a member of here in Ireland and recommend to any female entrepreneur or would be entrepreneur is Irish Business Women, founded by the CEO of County Mayo Enterprise Board, Frank Fullard.

It’s a great community of women and a few men who support each other with tips about starting and growing their business - many of them work at home moms (WAHM’s).

I was fortunate to be a key note speaker at the first ever Irish Business Women conference back in 2006 and since then their membership has steadily increased to almost 2000 members.

They have recently announced the 2008 conference details which will be taking place on the 29 May 2008 at the Mullingar Park Hotel. 

The theme for this years Conference is “Inspiring Women” and speakers include Sue Stockdale, author of“Secrets of Successful Women Entrepreneurs”,  Senator Mary White, co-founder of Lir Chocolates, Newstalk’s Karen Coleman and Celebrity Chef Jenny Bristow.

Unfortunately I’ve a prior commitment so won’t be able to attend. But if you are thinking of attending, register soon, as I am sure it will be a sell out.

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As you know I write a lot about the power of social media to help you build your reputation online.

One of the case studies I share in my speaking about social media, personal branding and career success is of my good friend and mastermind buddy  Jessica Bowman who is an SEO expert.

After relocating across the US, taking up a role at Yahoo, Jessica lost her role in the recent massive shakedown to everyone’s surprise in just 90 days after taking up her appointment.

Jessica has a blog that is well regarded in her field of expertise and as she has been providing excellent advice and tips there, she is well known by key influencers in the world of SEO.

This has led to her story and how she has successfully managed career transition since leaving Yahoo to be picked up by a major US glossy where she will be featured in their July edition (sorry can’t tell you who until she makes it public) and she is attracting great opportunities from consulting to speaking, all through her network both online an offline.

So Jessica is using the power of her social network through blogging to manage her career transition.

But here’s the thing - you actually don’t need to be blogging yourself to make sure of the power of blogging and social networking when in career transition or when searching for another job.

I can not recall the thousands upon thousands of speculative CV’s I have received through the post or email over the years. And unfortunately it is rare that those speculative CV’s ever amount to someone landing a new role in the businesses I have been recruiting for- the reasons for that warrant an article or two on their own so I won’t go into it here.

I must declare that I get really frustrated when someone connects with me by email with their CV looking for a new role and they have not gone to the time to research who I am or how to correctly spell my name.

Take a situation that happened just this week when someone addressed their email to me ‘Dear Sir’. You see I am not a man. 

So take note of the following - this is something I can guarantee most career coaches, recruiters, HR professionals and executive recruiters will not even think to tell you…

A little time researching online would have told the job hunter that I have a business blog where they can find out a lot about what I am interested in, what services I provide and what kinds of clients my company serves. They can research me online before even applying fingers to their keyboard to send me their speculative CV or resume.

They could also have found me on Facebook or LinkedIn, noted who is in my network and who are mutual contacts so they could have had someone introduce them to me in a more personal way.

They might even have followed me on Twitter where they could get a feel for other things that are going on in my life, not just work and business.

Even better would have been if they invested a little time in building and nurturing a relationship with me online before they email me about looking for a job move.

For example they could have added insightful comments or experiences about the issues I cover in my articles or podcasts.

You can be sure I would have taken more notice of them when I received an email about them looking for a new role. 

I would probably even have connected them to my network to assist them in their job search.

So before you hit the send button on that next email, whether it be a job opportunity you are looking for or a new assignment, why not use the power of the Internet and the accessibility of social media to research and nurture  relationships with the people you are connecting to.

That will ensure that you are more specific and relevant in who you connect to and what you say in your letter or email.

The result is that your personal brand will stand out from the crowd of people interested in that same next job or assignment you are interested in.

So why not access the power of social media and social networks in your career research - I’m sure the results will surprise you.

And if you are not looking for your next big gig, why not pass this guidance on to someone you know who is.

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At the iQ Bootcamp last week, in the Future Now Panel session that I took part in we shared the resource of Twitter.

One of the questions always come up when people hear about Twitter (one of the currently popular micro blogging platforms)  is ‘what’s the purpose?’ closely followed by ‘isn’t it a waste of time’.

Well here is an example of where following Twitter has resulted in a potentially huge opportunity for one of the not for profit organisations I work with and I hope will be of assistance for you too.

Today I noticed a tweet (a message on Twitter) from Laura Fitton of Pistachio Consulting (you can find Laura at @Pistachio on Twitter). She sent a message that she was doing a live video stream using Qik and her mobile phone from PodCamp NYC.

So I moused on over and heard the end of a presentation about ‘Affordable PR For Non Profits Using Social Media‘ hosted by Christopher Penn. 

Christoper shared a great tip which I don’t think many people are aware of. You see Google is supporting non profits by making grants available for Google Adwords for non profits.

The Google Grants web page states:

Google Grants provides free Google Adwords advertising to various charitable organizations. The program is designed to help organizations extend their public service messages to a global audience, in an effort to make a greater impact on the world.

Here is some further information about Google Grants:

• What are Google Grants?
• Details of the Google Grants Programme
• The countries supported by Google Grants in addition to the US  - yes the UK and Ireland are included.

Sometimes social media can help you attract more leads and more profits - today however, social media has led me to a resource to attract more leads, potentially more donations and saving us money in our marketing, public relations and communications budget.

So if you are a not for profit or know people in a not for profit, make sure that you tell them about Google Grants and prepare your grant application.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Twitter as a research tool article

Talking About Twitter podcast

And if you are on Twitter or decide to sign up for an account which is free, you can follow me on Twitter here.

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Are you looking for a current understanding of the scale of social media across the globe? Well look no further than the extensive study undertaken in March 2008 by Universal McCann - Power To The People - Wave3.

The research covers input from 17,000 internet users across 29 countries and was undertaken to understand the rise in consumer generated content and how people are using social media.

It is certainly the most extensive global report I have seen on the subject of social media adoption.

Key notes from the Power To The People - Wave 3 report include the following statistics:

• 83% of people are watching online video, an increase from 62% at the time of the last study in June 2007
• 78% of people are reading blogs, an increase from 66% in the previous study
• 57% of internet users are members of social networks
• RSS consumption has increased to 39% from 15%
• 48% of the people surveyed listen to podcasts.

There are also some interesting differences about social media adoption across geographies:

• Blogging - China leads the way with 70% of internet users writing a blog (that’s 42 million bloggers versus 26 million people in the US), followed closely by the Philippines at 66% and Mexico at 60%
• Social networking - the Philippines leads the way with 83% of the people surveyed being a member of a social network, followed by 76% in Hungary and Poland alike.

Unfortunately there is no specific data for Ireland - I guess we are such a tiny dot on the social media landscape and as we have discussed here previously we are still behind the curve in the adoption of social media of business blogging an podcasting, though increasingly more people are a member of social networks from Linkedin to Facebook, from Bebo to MySpace.

You can access the Universal McCann Power To The People - Wave3 social media report online.

A word of warning - the file is over 25MB.

Thanks to Theresa Houlihan of Universal McCann for sharing the report with me.

I do recommend that you check out the Universal McCann where you can access other reports including their Anytime Anyplace report that covers mobile phones and portable technology.

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