If you are an entrepreneur or job seeker one of the best ways to network, market, and gain audience for your product or service(s) is to leverage the power of social media networks.

The following is a list of the top 25 social media “networks” as ranked by traffic (visits per month) in a great retrospective article by Andy Kazeniac of Compete.com “Social Networks: Facebook Takes Over the Top Spot, Twitter Climbs.” This is a retro look at Andy’s original ranking of the Top 25 last year.  Note: Twitter came in at #22 on that list–look at them today.

Top 25 Social Media Networks:

Courtesy of Compete.com:

Job Seekers

For job seekers #5, LinkedIn and #3, Twitter are the most vital social networks you can utilize to deliver your value, network, and research opportunities.

Entrepreneurs and Companies

Your social networks of choice will depend on your audience demographic and what you have to offer. Facebook, truly a social site, is great for lifestyle and consumer offers. LinkedIn is for business-to-business networking. Twitter spans both business and consumer, and Myspace reaches the youngest crowd.

I landed my first corporate, aka “real”, job out of college in early 1985. The company, Moore Business Forms the largest printing-forms provider in the world, was just finishing a hiring push for sales and business development talent. Please read this article; I have a question I would like you to ask yourself at the end of the piece. Here are some facts about my job search.

State of Technology

In 1985 there was no Internet, no fax machines, no cell phones in regular usage, and at that time answering machines were just beginning to hit the commercial market–I did not own one at the time.

Training and Resources

In 1985 the cottage industry of coaching, life-business or other niches, did not exist. The word tutor was attached primarily to language learning or students still in school. For job seekers interested in resume writing help, you could hire a resume writing service, buy an instruction book, or go to the library for resources.

Instead of instantly finding your job search answers via an online search, I was forced to drive to my nearest library or book store (national bookstore chains not prevalent at the time) wasting time traveling to and from my resource in search of answers.

1985 Job Search Activities that helped me land my job:

1. Purchased resume writing book; wrote my own resume
2. Crafted custom cover letters per job
3. Joined my alumni association
4. Called my friends, family, and contacts to announce my job search
5. Visited my library and bookstore 3 times per week in search
6. Collected 5 References for hiring managers to call
7. Hired a “Headhunter” aka recruiter
8. Read two newspaper’s Want Ads sections everyday; career or job sections dedicated to job search did not exist
9. Visited the unemployment office job board once per week
10. Spammed my local Chamber of Commerce with my resume

My Results

I sent over 150 resumes in a 5 month period. I hired a headhunter who continuously sent me out to interviews that were less than ideal–round peg in a square hole theory on her part. I read the newspaper want ad sections. I finally identified Moore as the opportunity for me. I requested my headhunter arrange an interview which she secured. I nailed the interview and I was hired the same day; nearly 5 months after beginning the job search process.

The Revelation

After being offered the Moore job, my manager asked me “Dean why didn’t you just come in and ask for an interview? Why did you go through a headhunter-I would have hired you and been more impressed if you had come to us directly.” Now it sunk in for me. I just spent $1,800 (1985 money mind you) when all I had to do was deliver my value directly to the company and my manager.

Ask Yourself:

• Are the majority of your job search functions, steps, and marketing based on the same “stuff” I did 25 years ago?
• Is the major focus, and marketing efforts, of your job search based on your resume?
• Do you approach each day like you would when you go to a job; simply put, are you treating your job search like you would a job that an employer pays you to perform?
• Are you educating yourself each day in order to add to your skill sets?
• Do you have an organized and structured plan you are executing?
• Have you performed your research and due diligence on the companies you target?
• Do you have a list of the companies and managers?
• Do you understand how to measure your job search efforts
• Are you networking in the right places online and in the real world?
• Do you understand how to provide value instead of bringing the hard sell approach in your job search efforts?

The Web 2.0 Revolution, blogging, and social media tools like Linkedin and Twitter allow all of us to become our own marketing machine, brand identity, and valuable resource. The following are 10 New Year’s Resolutions and steps any job seeker can take to begin to differentiate themselves and stand apart from the rest of their competition.

10 New Year’s Career Resolutions for Job Seekers

1. Direction: You can not begin a job search with passion and intention if you do not know what you truly want to do. Without direction there is no forward progress. Assessment testing, research, and networking can help bring clarity.

2. Declare Your Intentions: Let the world know that you are open to new opportunities and you are actively seeking new opportunities. One of the biggest mistakes we see people make in their job search is to not declare their availability for new opportunities.

3. Clarify Your Message: Simply put if you are looking for a position in engineering, then make the focus of your message in your linkedin profile, on your blog, or on any other social media site your abilities as an engineer. Do NOT make the mistake of listing a “consulting” job or a job in a completely different field because you fear a gap in employment. Nothing hurts your ability to find new opportunities than the wrong message.

4. The Job of Finding a Job: Take the job of finding a job as serious as a job. Structure your day at home like a work day in an office setting. Create a routine, schedule and instill discipline in your day. Listing and creating structure provides a job seeker with the frame work to move forward. Without this structure, days float into weeks which can turn into months without results.

5. Research: You can’t find what you don’t understand. In order to find the job you desire it is necessary to research your industry of interest, the job market, the companies, and the hiring managers involved in your search. Compiling lists through your research becomes the “intelligence” that moves employment efforts forward; without research your efforts will stall.

6. Obsolete Methodology: Resumes are not a strategy or proactive method of finding a job. Resumes are simply a listing of your accomplishments meant as a “calling card” snapshot of your value to the potential employer. If you simply rely upon sending resumes, your efforts in finding a job will be nearly impossible in today’s job market.

7. Linkedin Profiles: Linkedin is the most important tool for job seekers today-yet very few truly understand how to utilize Linkedin. Your profile on linkedin is MORE IMPORTANT than your resume. It should be written so that anyone can understand you are open for new opportunities, you have value to give, and you have current skill sets that bring value. Updating your Linkedin profile must be a manditory once per week activity.

8. Blogging: Blogging is the most powerful marketing tool, broadcasting tool, and branding tool a job seeker can utilize. A blog is the centerpiece of any employment campaign designed to deliver your message of value to strategically targeted hiring managers, companies, and industry associations.

9. Understand the New Trend: Due to Web 2.0 social media tools now is the most amazing time in human history for communication, connectivity, networking, collaboration, and branding “you.” Tools such as Linkedin.com, twitter.com, facebook.com, and blogs support a global conversation. We now have the ability, as individuals, to create our message of value and deliver it to a global, national. local, or niche level. The mass media no longer controls the flow of information. We all have a chance to brand and deliver our message; simply put, this is the biggest development in job search in the last 50+ years. The tipping point for change is not far away.

10. First Adopter Rule: Is what you are doing now in trying to find a job working? If it is not then consider adopting social media tools, blogging, and employment campaigning as your new strategy in finding the right job for you.

“It’s a huge disservice to the economy, in that it means there are highly productive, hardworking people who are not maximizing their potential,” —Heidi Shierholz, a labor market economist for the Economic Policy Institute.

What Ms. Shierholz addresses is the growing problem within the employment market that often gets ignored: underemployment. According to the WashingtonPost.com’s article citing Bureau of Labor Statistics, to understand “underemployment” look at the groups of people measured:

1. Total number of unemployed workers.
2. People who work part-time when they would prefer full time work.
3. Passive job seekers already in the workforce who have discontinued looking for jobs, perhaps because they gave up searching for one.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the “percentage of the workforce that is underemployed is at 12.5%.” That represents the highest level in over 15 years and easily surpasses the level of roughly 7% in 2000 during the dot.com implosion.

Although the government does not count unemployed workers who are overqualifed for their current jobs, it does show a startling rise in workers who work part time, but would prefer full time work from 2.8 million, 12 months ago, to 7.3 million today.

Analysis

Continued corporate layoffs and elimination of positions will further enrich the unemployed workforce with higher levels of educated workers. The competition for jobs, even temporary low paying jobs, will add to the stress already associated with current market conditions.

What Do We Do?

Education and action are the steps necessary for people to stand apart and differentiate themselves from the competition they face. Please consider the following steps as an outline:

1. Education: You must be willing to learn new skills and stay informed on news and trends within your chosen field. Reading is key. RSS subscribe to newspapers and association newsletters that focus on your industry or employment news.

2. Networking: You should be willing to attend networking events related to your industry of choice, job fairs, employment groups, and any association that will provide support in your job search.

3. Research: You must research your industry and companies of choice. Learn their challenges, their pain points, and analyze how you and your skills could make a difference to their bottom line. Build a case, like an attorney, on why a company should hire you.

4. Adopt: If your companies of choice have corporate blogs, social media tools, and other Web 2.0 campaigns, this is a signal for you to become an adopter. If you educate and adopt a blog into your employment campaign, a robust Linkedin presence, and you become an advocate of online networking through social media, you will stand apart and differentiate yourself from the competition.

5. Employment Campaign: This is an organized action plan. The plan begins with a value assessment to help the job seeker find his/her expertise, knowledge, experience. The next step is to craft this value into a message. Once your message is created, we implement a plan that incorporates direct marketing principles to strategically target the hiring managers and companies you wish to interview. The final piece is the establishment of your own blog as the vehicle to deliver your message of value and as a centerpiece-hub to point people to your value.

Response Mode Warning: Don’t Be Like The Other Guy

If you are a job seeker and you are limiting your job search to creating multiple resumes, networking periodically and underutilizing Linkedin as a tool, then you are doing what the majority of unemployed job seekers are doing: the same old thing.

If you truly want to stand apart, then you must get away from response mode and get into action mode. Consider the 5 steps described as a beginning. The true winners in the competition for the finite number of jobs are those people who build an employment campaign and work their action plan every day.