Are you a Facebook user?

December 22nd, 2009

Do you know what Facebook is?
How many people use Facebook? This question will not win you a prize or get you onto Fox News or CNN, but it’s an interesting question. The answer to the question is there are over 300 million users of Facebook. Isn’t that amazing?

The followers
Larry King and Ashton Kutcher challenged each other to see who could be the first to attract 1 million followers on their Twitter pages. Kutcher won easily, but the amazing thing is it only took a few days. That’s over a million people signing up to follow what you’re saying in less than a week! Before we had these social networking tools in our hands it would have been almost impossible to get so many people connected to you.

How does it help me?
Basically it gives you a personal brand. If you are an internet user and you spend time in cyberspace, you have a personal brand. Brands traditionally create fans. Some call them loyal followers. Like the guy who refuses to buy a laptop unless it has a sticker on it saying “Intel Inside” That’s the Intel brand.

Your personal brand
The common theme is that the brand builds a following that can be passionate and dynamic. You may not think of yourself as a brand, but the truth is you’ve been one all along. Whether you were conscious of it or not, people have been rating you and your appeal for years already. It happens as you join groups of friends, or go out on a date, or start a new job. You are constantly being measured up on whether you are a cool brand or not.

Our fans
Deep down we all want fans. We all know what it feels like to be accepted or rejected and we would all like to be accepted. Being accepted doesn’t happen by accident, it’s a deliberate process and if you can learn to master it, you could find yourself getting ahead of the queue instead of lagging behind. When it comes to your career, being accepted and having fans means that when you need support you’ll get it. When you need a good referral, or when you need to promote an idea, fans will make it happen for you.

Recruitment
There’s another thing. Recruiters scan the social networking sites to spot talent. All the big companies out there are opening up pages to attract fans, and by doing this, they can search for and communicate with their followers. This could mean you and your profile are noticed by a potential employer. This means that we have to learn to use tools like social networking to improve our chances of being hired. Following the traditional route is not getting us there any longer. We have to try and reach as many people as possible as quickly as possible.

Your fans
So think about it, how many fans and followers do you think you can get?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009 at 8:52 am and is filed under Personal / Internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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