Jump Start Social Media offers free Facebook eGuide

November 10, 9:58 AMCareer Coach ExaminerMiriam Salpeter

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Today, I am happy to share a press release with information of interest to job seekers:

Job Seekers Flocking to Facebook for Professional Networking

KINGSTON, N.J. (November 10, 2009) – While LinkedIn® is known as a place for job seekers to make professional connections, Facebook® is also a significant tool for business networking and personal brand management. To help job hunters and career changers use Facebook for professional purposes, Jump Start Social Media is making the Facebook section of its popular e-book, Jump Start Social MediaSM for Your Career, available for free via download from its parent company website at (LINK HERE)  through December 31, 2009.

Four times the size of LinkedIn, Facebook is not just a place for students to post pictures of their last party. Many Facebook users are working professionals, business owners, and other influential people who make hiring decisions. And businesses are using Facebook as part of their hiring process. According to a Career Builder survey announced in August 2009, 45% of employers use social networking sites during the hiring process, with 29% saying they use Facebook to conduct background checks and research candidates.
Although Facebook is not used the same way as LinkedIn, it is a valuable networking tool in the job hunter’s arsenal. With the development of new career applications, such as job search agents, CV creation, job interview preparation tools, and the job marketplace on Facebook, people can expand their reach to over 300 million users.

“Many positions are unadvertised,” says Veronica Fielding, president of Digital Brand Expressions, Jump Start’s parent company. “Facebook users are connecting with old friends, friends of friends, former colleagues and others who might tip them off that their dream job is available. That’s why job hunters on Facebook need to post a professional profile and our free guide helps them do so.”
Jump Start Social Media suggests these Facebook strategies for job seekers:

§ Carefully configure your profile settings – People often don’t realize they are permitting their profiles to be open to the public or enabling applications to announce their uses of them. There are over 20 privacy settings for Facebook profiles. The Jump Start guide helps make sure they’re being used wisely.

§ Join groups of like-minded professionals – From engineering to healthcare, there are groups for many industries that you can join and contribute to on Facebook.

§ Build your network - Your network on Facebook is a way to communicate your status and request information about target companies.

“Facebook is filled with members who want to talk shop and with companies researching candidates before and after the job interview so it’s wise to have a professional profile,” says Ms. Fielding. “The image you project online is definitely being used to evaluate your candidacy.”
Jump Start Social Media’s free Facebook download is excerpted from Jump Start Social Media for Your Career, a digital guidebook ($9.95) that covers set-up, account configuration and ongoing usage strategies for business professionals looking to get started on Facebook, LinkedIn and TwitterTM. Purchasers of the guide receive free updates for one year, which help them stay on top of the latest social networking site developments. For those who want the added benefit of a webinar (with question and answer sessions with others who are learning the ropes), Jump Start Social Media offers the e-book plus webinar for $69.95.

Jump Start Social Media for Your Career is a fast, easy and affordable way for people to advance their online business networking skills with guidance from true experts.

For more information or to order the full version of Jump Start Social Media for Your Career visit www.jumpstartsocialmedia.com. Small businesses looking for help getting started in social media can purchase the Jump Start Social Media Guide for Small Business ($19.95, $69.95 with webinar).


About Digital Brand Expression (DBE):

Digital Brand Expressions (DBE) helps its clients increase sales by being found on the Web faster and better positioned than their competitors. Through an integrated package of findability programs, which typically includes search engine optimization, paid search programs, and social media marketing for businesses and social media education services for consumers, DBE’s services help its clients be visible on the Web when and where people are searching for the solutions they provide. Jump Start Social Media is a service line of Digital Brand Expressions.