With the popularity of social media, many people have some sort of online persona. Sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, micro-blogs like twitter and Plurk, and all the other social media tools give users a place to share information about themselves. This information is, for the most part, available to anyone.

There are currently few companies who have looked into this area of background checking, but it is coming. As the wave of users of the social media sphere becomes larger, as they become older and begin to fill up the demographic charts, we will see more and more companies doing a little extra bit of homework.

If you are not using social media, I would make sure that you at least look for yourself and see what employers might find if they were to look for you. If this area is old hat to you, I would make sure your house is clean before sending out that resume.

There is, of course, bound to be a LOT of controversy ahead regarding this area of hiring, but it is going to happen.

So, you think you aren’t concerned? Not looking for a job? What, you have a great job? Congratulations. Did you know that in most states, you can be fired for having inappropriate content on your social media sites? Something to think about.

There are hundreds if not thousands of web applications out there, I, of course, don’t use them all. I started with one, them tried a couple more. Now I’m up to about 20 that I use, some more frequent than others.

Here are a few.

The professional
http://www.linkedin.com
This is the professional’s social media site. It is basically your resume online. In addition to your CV, it allows you to connect with others. I have used it to build a network of professionals that I have worked with as well as people I meet outside of work.

Companies can post job openings here, people can ask questions, people can answer questions. Toy can even include a little LinkedIn icon with your signatures.

The sharing of your profile and participating in the answers section are good ways to build your network.

Adding connections is fun as it will look at your resume and try to find people you know through the places you worked and when you worked there.

The personal
http://www.facebook.com
Facebook tries to be the social tool for everyman. It does a pretty good job filling this bill. You can add images, facebook applications, videos, events, and much more.
It has helped me get in touch with friends I had lost, moved away from or just forgotten… not to mention the ones you see every day.

The dodgy personal
http://www.myspace.com
Don’t go there, it is the armpit of the internet.

The visual
http://www.flickr.com
At the very least, Flickr is a great tool to keep a large number of photos stores in a way that you can share.
The tag line on their site is “Share your photos. Watch the world”.
Like all the other sites here, you can connect in various ways to other people.
You can tag photos with keywords or geotags so others can find them.

Fun example, I recently went to a conference. They were able to keep a running gallery of images for attendees to share and view using Flickr. This cost them absolutely nothing and greatly added to the social feel of the conference. They recommended the attendees upload images to their own Flickr accounts and tag them with “mxconf”. This worked beautifully.

There are also several ways to get images to your flickr account.
• via the Flickr Uploadr (available for both PC and Mac)
• via iPhoto, Aperture, or Windows XP plugins
• via our upload web page
• via email
• via various free third-party desktop programs

http://picasa.google.com/
Picassa has been around for a while. It was the service I originally used. I do still have a ton of images there, but have found that Flickr just feels better.
Some neat things with Picassa is the stand-alone free application. For those mac users out there, it is like iPhoto, but you can have it on your PC. Also, their built-in mapping functionality for geotagging is easy to use.

http://www.youtube.com
OK, I know, we all know what this is from a viewer’s perspective. But have you added anything to youtube? Over 70,000 videos are added every day. Some rise to the top, some float about the middle and most sink into obscurity… but that is OK. If you put something out there that no one watches, it is part of the path to learning how to get views. Look at what you watch, what gets views, toss out the garbage and what is left should give you some clues on how to get attention.

There are many more sites and services that I use, but this offers a solid start.

The key any of this, the key to getting people to want to listen to what you have to say, is to have something worth sharing and to gracefully promote it.

:: john.hopkins

linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/johnrhopkins
facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1067563505
picassa: http://picasaweb.google.com/johnhopkins
flickr: http://flickr.com/photos/johnrhopkins/
Plurk: http://www.plurk.com/user/johnrhopkins
Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnrhopkins

The problem is that now, the information itself is in the way. There is just so much of it that separating the signal from the noise is the greatest barrier.

There are some valuable tools that can help you sort, share, find and deliver this information. More and more pop up every day, but here are some of the ones I either use or am thinking about using.

iGoogle: RSS reader Lite
http://www.google.com/ig
Like many others out there, this can be your default page in your browser. Fill it with RSS feeds from stuff you like and stay informed.

Google Reader: RSS reader
http://www.google.com/reader
Once or if you outgrow iGoogle, step up to the Reader. This is THE way I keep up with all the blogs and other RSS-enabled information I care about.

Del.icio.us: Social bookmarking
http://del.icio.us
A great way to keep and categorize bookmarks from home and work or wherever!
It can also be used as a group bookmarking tool. The PR2.0 group and the Interactive department both have unique tags we use to bookmark things worth sharing with the group.
Check mine out here: http://del.icio.us/johnrhopkins

Twitter: Micro-blog
http://twitter.com
This is a micro-blog… this is THE micro-blog. At first you might wonder why you or anyone would use this. I know I did. After seeing the power users like @zeldman and @guykawasaki I understood. The casual user like myself isn’t going to have over 13,000 followers like Guy has, but it works well to stay connected with distant and nearby friends. Then you realize that it can have many uses.
For some creative examples, take a look at http://www.jakebouma.com/2007/12/04/tweet-better-9-unconventional-and-slightly-badass-ways-to-use-twitter/
Follow me on twitter @johnrhopkins

Summize: Twitteer tracking/monitoring
http://www.summize.com
In my opinion, this is the best twitter monitoring site. The advanced features save you from learning all the boolean functions. Even if you know what Boolean functions are, this is a nice feature.

Plurk: Micro-blog
http://www.plurk.com
This is seen as a twitter clone, but it has some additional things to offer. The plurks are viewed in a timeline. You can link media live video and photos to the posts. Has same 140 char limit that twitter has. Has “Karma”, which is a system that gives you points for various types of plurktivity. I believe the Karma points will unlock further features… I felt this was a great idea that will help users grow into the features and not overwhelm.
Check me out on Plurk: johnrhopkins

Stumble It!
Stumbleupon: Find new stuff
http://www.stumbleupon.com/
This is a system that lets you opt in to categories of web content and will try to give you a site that it thinks will be of interest to you… the more you use it, the better the results should be.

Technorati Browser Buttons: page popularity tracking?
http://technorati.com/tools/favelets.html
See who’s linking to the page you’re on

And last, but by no means least

Friend Feed: social media glue?
http://friendfeed.com/
This is a great (the best I’ve found so far) way to keep track of your friends that use the above (or most any other) services. Once you are doing the social media thing and have friends that are as well, and trust me, you do. You will want this to tie it all together.

The tools above are an entry point to getting the message, the pull, and while some will get you started in sending message, my next post will be about the push and our individual presence on the web.

ADDITIONAL NOTE: Jason Falls has some good comments on Twitter vs. Plurk here.

John Hopkins