Nothing makes me cringe more than people choosing to use the very public Internet as their very personal diary. It’s altogether worse when folks don’t realize that is what they are doing.

Exhibit A: young professionals who Tweet drunk photos of themselves, not realizing they’ve perviously set their Twitter feed to autopost to their LinkedIn profile. I’ll not “out” this gal here on FlackRabbit, but I did email her and suggest she take down the unflattering photo perched atop her very impressive skills summary and employer information. Then, I Tweeted about it:

I received a flurry of replies, from folks who wanted to know who the gal was (I’ll never tell!) to the social media savvy who strongly believe streaming your Twitter feed shows future employers and peers that you possess a working knowledge of the Internet.

While I agree that having a visible link to your Twitter account makes good sense, I can’t see the logic in auto-posting my sometimes “unprofessional” thoughts/opinions/beer selections to my “professional” resume. I’d much rather a head-hunter see my skills and work history than my excitement over finally getting to try DC Brau’s Penn Quarter Porter. Which, by the way, is very tasty.

Fortunately–thanks to Twitter hashtag magic–we can Tweet about our beer and appear professional on LinkedIn, too, by displaying only the Tweets that include #in. Here’s how my settings look: Read More…

I read a lot of resumes. For the most part, they attempt to detail the career path of smart, well-educated young professionals on the hunt for their next great challenge. Yet, most of these resumes scream mediocrity and naiveté. Maybe it’s because most folks learn how to craft a thoughtful resume in college; maybe it’s because they are trying so hard to be a team player.

Whatever the reason, Young and Talented People of Earth, please stop making these three resume mistakes:

1. Leading with your education and grade point average: Oh, I know this stings; you’ve worked so hard to earn that masters degree. But as much as you love your alma mater, your major/minor, GPA and campus activities offer an employer zero indication as to how qualified you are for an actual job. We want to see your real life work experience. If you’re leading with four paragraphs about education, we’re assuming it is because you don’t have much relevant employment to talk about. There are of course, exceptions to this rule: if you are a Ph.D. applying for a fabulously wonky research position at a well-respected think tank, you have our permission to lead with education. If not, you should move education down by “Special Skills” and “References Available Upon Request.”
2. Cutting and pasting your title and job description: I don’t know anyone whose day-to-day responsibilities mirror her job description. You do so much more; am I right? Why so many of you choose not to communicate your gig beyond your title is beyond me. It’s also the first sign of someone whose self-esteem is keeping them from achieving greatness in the workplace. Take the time to thoughtfully craft the description of your contributions, successes and skills. Read More…

In this month’s issue of Her Nashville Magazine, I touch on a topic I’m often asked about: how to establish a consistent, relevant voice for your blog.

It took me years to find my blog(s) obsession, tone and style. Along the way, I discovered that while search engines love–and drive many, many random surfers to–my posts about nail polish and Steve Sullivan’s hockey comeback, my actual readers prefer less “stuff I like” and more teachable-geek-and-career-moments. My metrics spoke to me; I listened and adjusted my content accordingly.

If you’ve been blogging for a while, I’d love to hear about how you’ve found and continue to fine-tune your written voice. In the meantime, here’s a teaser from my May column:

Obsession is key.
Pick a topic and make it the only thing you write on and rant about. For example: my FlackRabbit blog is about PR and geek stuff. When folks visit my site, they expect to read about those things and nothing else. I love hockey, but I don’t blog about it. I also love my husband, but never write about married life. When we have kids one day, I will not turn FlackRabbit into a journal about motherhood. If I did any of those things, I’d lose my audience. The plain truth is that hockey, hubby and kiddos aren’t what my readers signed up for and I respect that. Read More…

Are you a member yet?

If you know (or ARE!) a young woman in the DC-area who is making stellar contributions to the communications field, Washington Women in Public Relations wants the world to know her, too! Nominations are open for the 2011 WWPR Emerging Leaders Awards.

As a WWPR board member, I’m co-chairing the second annual ELA’s. If you know a deserving flack, please tell me about her! And of course, self-nominations are welcome!

Here are the rules:

• Candidates must be female professionals between the ages of 21-35 as of June 3, 2011
• Candidates must work in one of the following disciplines: Media Relations, Crisis Communications, Event Planning, Social Media, Website Communications, Strategic Communications, Community Relations, Internal Communications, Speechwriting, Public Affairs, Marketing Communications, Government Communications, Investor Relations Communications, Consumer/Lifestyle Communications, Branding, and Writing/Editing

I’m looking for the best of the best–will you help me find her?

{Today’s guest submission comes from frequent FlackRabbit contributor and friend, Joe Flood. When it comes to hiring a public relations or marketing firm, how do you know you’re getting your money’s worth? It’s a question Joe poses and hopes you’ll answer! Do you tally sales, social media mentions, traditional media placement, happy executives? Do metrics differ between “marketing” and “PR” efforts? Share your thoughts in the comments!}

I recently attended a seminar on movie marketing. A pair of experts from Allied Integrated Marketing shared their experiences in promoting independent films such as Milk and Sin Nombre.

They used a variety of interesting tactics to get the word out about these important movies, including partnering with local nonprofits and having “tastemaker screenings” for influential people in the community.

But I had a more fundamental question. How do you measure the results?

After all, if you’re going to hire a public relations firm to promote your product, business or movie, how do you know that the expenditure is worthwhile?

In the case of movie marketing, there’s no direct way to track promotional efforts to ticket sales. You can’t connect PR to asses in seats. At least not in an objective way.

I think that’s part of the reason why the field can be so frustrating to clients. If I bought Google Ads, I could see how they’re performing and adjust my efforts accordingly. I could measure the clicks and the ticket sales. I’d know what ads and markets were working.

But how do you measure schmoozing tastemakers? It’s certainly worthwhile to appeal to the audiences who would be most interested in your film, especially for challenging films that are difficult for the general public to embrace. Read More…

One reason I’m always pushing folks to lunch with strangers, network and participate in relevant professional PR association events is that you really never know when a person you’ve met will call you and offer up your dream job. Unfortunately, when presented with this option, many of you will turn down the opportunity because you are scared that “changing jobs” after a year or two at your current gig will reflect poorly on your work ethic.

Really? You’re saying “no” to a communications gig custom-made for you because of what others may think? Are you sure you’re in the right profession?

Seriously! You are a PR professional. It’s your job to message this career move on paper, in pixels and in person, not just let it lie out there and hope folks see and value it for what it really is. If you’re moving up with each move, you have nothing to hide! And your future employer has the right to know how you roll; she may truly need a “lifer” and clearly, that ain’t you. It ain’t me either. For PR job-hoppers likes us, transparency and consistency of message are critical.

You can do this. I simply cannot rest thinking there are folks turning down career-advancing jobs out of fear/shame when in fact, job hopping may actually make you a better, more productive employee.

Here are three strategies to consider when messaging your (many) gigs and revamping your resume:

1. If you were recruited, say so. My favorite message/resume trick is to brag on the fact that you were recruited into the position. This aptly addresses the inevitable question “Why did you leave?” right off the bat. Plus, it’s human nature to want a person more when you know he/she is wanted by others.
   
2. Paint a picture of the ladder you’re climbing. We’ve been over this before: communicate beyond your title and job description. Really outline the increasingly impressive responsibilities, employees and deliverables you have been assigned with each new gig. The goal is to assure that the first-time reader of your resume can easily interpret this “Changing of the Jobs” as The Steady Rise of Your Career. {Insert trumpet call.}
3. Show confidence in your value and success. It’s important that you and your resume convey 100 percent confidence in your career history and path. If you are going to justify “job hopping,” you’ll not only need to  prove you are movin’ on up each time, you’ll also need to show you leave each employer (and/or client) better than you found it. Stop being so humble. Your resume (and talking points) must communicate that you will bring value to an employer–no matter how long you work in her office. Read More…

There’s no shortage of SXSW Interactive 2011 “reviews.” Give it a Google; you’ll find all sorts of contradictory soap boxes, from SXSW has “jumped the shark” to O M G, it was “awesomesauce.”  Other than the mediocre panels, tsunami of street-marketers and QR codes, and an on-again-off-again AT&T 3G signal, three things about this year’s conference stand out:

1. We should all talk to strangers more. Seriously. It wasn’t the panels or keynotes that rocked my world, (could have skipped most of them, honestly) it was the limitless conversations with talented people. There were talkative geeks at every turn. And this wasn’t just a “shake hands and be on your way”-type of networking, these were hour-long talks where you walked away a smarter, more motivated person. I hated leaving before the closing party because I kept wondering not what, but WHO/WHOM, I’d miss.

2. You can solve your Meetup location crisis using only an iPhone and tha Twitter. About a week before the conference started, Dave had this great idea for us to declare a Meetup for DC-area folks attending SXSW Interactive. We called it DCxSW. He made a website; I filled out a Twitter profile, started a #DCxSW hashtag and got to spreading the word. We immediately saw a positive response from DC-ers, including retweets and offers to help.

The problem came about five hours before the event was to start, when I discovered that our venue, Shakespeare’s Pub, had been bought out by Maxim. Thanks, guys. But I didn’t have my laptop with me; Dave was at the hotel with the Team Newman iPad; all I had was an iPhone and a panicky feeling. How would I tell everyone? Where would we go?! Less than 10 percent of an iPhone 4 battery later, a new location at the Driskill Hotel bar was secured, the DCxSW Twitter profile edited and DMs and @ replies sent to every RSVPing person. Except Tod. Oops. Sorry, man. It really proved to me how powerful that tiny little Swiss Army Knife of a phone actually is. Oh, and 45 folks showed up! And Tod eventually found us.

3. The New York Times, Verizon and Quora need to have a frank talk with their marketing folks. I’ll sum this up this way: Read More…