Corporate Social Media Use Will Lead to the Evolution of Web 2.0

Corporate social media use has been a hot topic in the blogosphere for awhile now. Most articles discuss ways that companies can get involved in social media from a very theoretical perspective. There are some absolute rules like; people want to talk to people rather than a brand name, transparency is essential, and employees need to be empowered to represent the company without jumping through a thousand hoops.

All of that information is great, but it's not concrete enough for companies to implement. Some companies have jumped into the world of social media, but many others are still resisting because they are in a highly regulated industry or they don't have the resources to get involved. The thing is, not getting involved in social media now is only delaying the inevitable. Social media isn't going anywhere, and the companies that are actively pursuing how to get involved today will have a major leg up when corporate social media use is the norm.

Gaspedal, a Chicago based word of mouth marketing company, started an organization called The Blog Council. It's a private community of senior executives in charge of social media at the largest corporations in the world. The community is defining how companies can best use social media to attain their business goals. In short, they are putting processes and controls on what is now an unregulated industry. And I think it's brilliant.

I'm sure many people believe that social media cannot be regulated, that applying rules and best practices go against the nature of the medium, but I disagree. Companies cannot use social media the same way that individuals can. Rules and procedures need to be put in place, and that's OK.

Last Friday, I drove down to Chicago to hear from some of corporate America's early adopters of social media at the Blogwell conference. I was blown away at the progress that some of these companies have made.

Home Depot has a three pronged strategy for their social media use. They plan to recapture attention, connect with new customers and engage current associates. Their main medium is Twitter, and they even have a set of rules for what type of information should be posted to it. It needs to be Trusted, Timely, Relevant, Accurate and Appropriate. Most importantly, they don't want people to be selling.

When Hurricane Gustav touched down, the company decided to stay open for 24 hours to allow customers to stock up. They put the word out through traditional media, but it didn't have the same effect as a simple tweet from Home Depot's Twitter handle. The news quickly spread virally, customers streamed in all night and Home Depot got the recognition they deserved for helping their community.

Sharpie's social media campaign is a one-woman show. "Sharpie Susan" started a blog and a Twitter account for the company. She is doing the whole thing on her own, and spent less than $2,000 on the whole campaign. Sharpie's blog does two things. First, they target artists who use the pens and display the art on the blog. Second, they show celebrities signing autographs with a sharpie. It's a simple strategy, but they know what they're doing and they're using social media the right way.

Molson is another great example. The company has embraced the huge social media scenes in both Toronto and Vancouver to spread their message of great tasting beer. Molson's marketing team identified top bloggers in each city and invited them to a beer tasting event. They mingled with the bloggers, educated them on how to brew beer, and politely asked that they write about the event if they enjoyed the night. Most bloggers were more than happy to write a quick post about Molson, despite being hesitant before the event.

There were many other companies at the conference including P&G, Allstate, H&R Block and even the U.S. Coast Guard. Each company was doing something unique, but they shared one common trait, they each had specific processes and best practices for social media use.

As time goes on and more places like The Blog Council spring up to aggregate new ideas and processes for corporate social media use, every company will adopt social media as an essential business tool. And I would be willing to bet that after corporate America comes to some sort of agreement on how they can effectively use social media, we will see web 2.0 companies with actual business models emerge on the scene.

Want to Get a Job in this Market? Control Your Google Rank

If you have a name like Photis Patriotis, Brazen's Software Engineer, showing up at the top of a Google search is a cakewalk. He can buy his personal domain name, start blogging, and hit the front page every time someone searches for him. By pure chance, because his parents gave him a unique name, Photis can take control of his online identity with relative ease.

But for those of us with a name like John Smith, or Ryan Healy, it's not so easy. Even after two years of blogging, and building a relatively strong online brand I'm still outranked by a copywriter in Seattle (or maybe its Denver now). He bought the domain www.ryanhealy.com, so I don't see myself outranking him anytime soon.

But after a lot of work, I have managed to claim a few spots on the front page of a Google search, despite competing with the highly active copywriter and an ultimate fighter who's nicknamed Ryan "The Irish Assassin" Healy. Hopefully people don't mistake me for him!

The point is, unless you're lucky enough to have a one in a billion name, you cannot completely control your online identity. But with a little hard work and strategy, anyone can hit the front page of a Google search.

Personalities like Dan Schawbel are evangelizing personal branding and controlling ones online identity for career purposes and the savviest of us are beginning to listen. Steven Moody, a member of Brazen Careerist recently wrote Penelope Trunk an email, he said,

"I am trying to get to the top of Google searches for my name, but competing with a Death Row inmate in TX and a con artist in Utah is proving difficult. So imagine my surprise when my Brazen Careerist profile is #6-8 on searches! I am indebted to you for the motivation this created."

Steven knows that controlling his Google rank is critical for a number of reasons. It's especially critical when you're looking for a new job because what employers find about you online is an extension of your resume. According to a Vault.com survey, 56% of employers have looked up potential hires on social networks to learn more about them, and 82% said that a negative profile will affect their hiring decisions.

Online career sites like Linkedin, Brazen and VisualCV are not going to replace paper resumes, because despite what some may believe; traditional resumes aren't going away anytime soon. But having a presence on these kinds of career sites can do wonders for building an online presence that will act as an extension of your resume.

If you're cool with Facebook being the first thing people see when they search for you, then this stuff probably doesn't matter, but if you're serious about your career, start a blog, check out the career sites I mentioned, and control what people see when they Google your name.

5 Things Small-City Companies Can Do to Recruit Gen Y

Most high performing people don't stick around one place their whole lives anymore. They're generally attracted to large cities with like-minded people. Because of this, companies based in small cities need to work especially hard to recruit top talent. But from my experience, if the right job presents itself, most Gen Y go-getters are totally open to new opportunities and new cities of any size. Companies based in small cities may be at a disadvantage, but there are things they can do to compete. Here are five.

1. Embrace your city
A lot of people grow up with dreams of moving to New York, L.A. or Chicago. So, if you're headquarters are just outside of Madison, Wisconsin, you better have something up your sleeve to compete.

Epic Systems does. They're competing by embracing their city. The Madison Art Fair is the place to be when the weather gets nice. When springtime rolls around, Epic encourages their employees to go to the fair and buy a piece of art. Epic will then hang the piece on the wall and reimburse the employee 100%. Epic has figured out how to embrace their location and you better believe they tell visiting recruits where all their beautiful art came from.

2. Put your young people on the front line
The biggest reservation that Gen Yers have about moving to a small city is that nobody our age will live there. When you don't have a family, a social life is extremely important. Companies need to show recruits that there are other young people working there by putting them on the front line.

Be sure the career fair recruiters are young. When you bring recruits in for an interview, send a young person in as an interviewer, greeter, or tour guide. Finally, let your recruits spend a night out on the town, all expenses paid, with your top young employees. Don't be shy to instruct your employees to talk about the cost of a night out, or the discounted rent in your small city compared to what it costs in New York or Los Angeles. If they still don't want to take the job after experiencing the best your small city has to offer, then you're probably out of luck. But this is one surefire way to find out.

3. Brand yourself as a great place to work
It seems like every year, the same companies end up on the best places to work list. Giants like Google, Ernst & Young and Deloitte are always named. They make the list because they consciously brand themselves as employers. Sure, they brand their products and services, but they know the value of people, and they make sure people know the value of working there.

This year, Quicken loans hit number two on the list. Quicken is located in Livonia, MI, a small city 20 miles outside of Detroit. They manage to attract top talent despite being located in a small city in the Midwest because they are consciously branding themselves as an employer of choice. And they're making a lot of money doing it.

4. Be a great place to work
Branding your company as a great place to work is a great idea. But an even better idea is to actually practice what you preach and be a great place to work. W.L. Gore has been a great place to work since they started in 1958, and the media has in turn, branded Gore as a great place to work. Without actively pushing their agenda, people (like me) have discovered that Gore is a unique company with no hierarchy, no job titles, and the opportunity for leaders to emerge from anywhere.

They were number 15 on this year's list, and they're located in Newark, DE. Newark is a nice little town, but it's certainly no New York City. Gore has managed to overcome their small city location and thrive for more than 50 years.

5. Expand your recruiting network
You may think that being headquartered in a small city requires you to stay local when it comes to recruiting. I disagree. By staying local, it's very hard to recruit the top talent. If you want to create a world class business, you need world class talent, and world class talent is probably not all local.

At Brazen Careerist, we knew that finding all of our talent in Madison was probably not a great idea. There is certainly a lot of talent here, but limiting ourselves to local recruiting would eventually hold us back. We managed to recruit one person from Philadelphia, and another from Chicago. They came to a small city because they saw opportunity in the job. If you expand your recruiting network and provide a unique opportunity, people will come to a small city. It just takes a little extra effort.

Bootstrapping or Angel Funding? (And Why I Don't Regret Partnering With Penelope Trunk)

My company Brazen Careerist is in a position that nobody wants to be in – out of money and in a recession. And because our CEO is Penelope Trunk, and we practice complete transparency, we're living the whole thing publicly.

Penelope recently wrote a post about the tough times we're having. As I read through the comments, and the strings on forums that picked up her post, I noticed many people said things like the business model sucked, Penelope was unstable, and we weren't going to make it. They asked questions like, why did we have to burn through cash so fast? Why didn't we bootstrap?

There was another minority who were more positive, they liked the business model and wished us well. That was nice.

Luckily, I already had my breakdown last month. I blamed myself and I blamed Penelope for letting the company blow through so much cash instead of trying to bootstrap the whole thing. But after a month of beating myself up, I realized that we made a conscious decision to go big and bring in funding from day one, and we knew what we were getting into.

We could debate for days which way is better, but here are a few things to consider before you decide between bootstrapping and angel funding for your internet business.

How Long Can You Survive Without a Paycheck?
If you and your business partners can survive without a paycheck for a year, then bootstrapping your company is a good idea. On the other hand, if you don't live in your parent's basement, have little in your bank account, and have monthly bills to pay, pursuing funding is probably your best move. At Brazen, we calculated that we could make it six months without funding, and that's about how long it took before we raised the initial round.

Can You Make Money Fast?
If you can't survive without a paycheck and you don't take in funding, you need to start generating revenue, fast. Unfortunately, most internet companies take time before they start making money. And even if you do bring in some revenue, what about operating costs? Can you afford hosting, servers, office space, freelancers, insurance, etc., and still have enough to take a paycheck that keeps you above the poverty line? Make sure you can before you decide to bootstrap. If you can't, it's probably time to investigate your local angel network.

How Many Co-Founders Do You Have?
The more founders there are, the more cash you need to pay them. This gets even stickier if your partners have a family. Not only are they risking their own livelihood, but they're putting their kids and spouse at risk by not taking in angel money. It's hard to start a company alone. But it's also hard to generate enough revenue to pay three or more people. Not taking in money and "staying lean" probably also means "staying lonely." If you want to bootstrap your business, you may be best off starting it with one other person at most, or keeping your day job.

What Skills Do Your Co-Founders Have?
Let's assume you're an internet start-up. Are the founders all developers? If they are, you should consider bootstrapping. Developers can do the work needed without freelance costs. But what happens after you develop the software? How do you market it? How do you create a sales strategy? How do you sell? What if your site becomes popular? Who has the connections and negotiating experience to raise the money you will need to scale your business? Co-founders who can do the work needed to keep costs down are good, but so is a little variety in experience.

How Fast Do You Want to Scale?
Most entrepreneurs are not patient. It's not in our blood to wait around and see what happens. By the time Brazen has launched a new product or feature to the public, I'm already embarrassed that it's not good enough because I'm ten steps ahead in my own mind. In a world of constant information and customer feedback, you better be able to respond to your customers' needs. And if the business does begin to take off, you better have the resources to scale it. Can you do this if you bootstrap? With the right team members and preparation, maybe. But it's never easy.

What Do You Want to Learn?
Taking in funding has taught me how to hire people, how to manage people, how to let go of people, how to manage a budget of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and how to pitch a big idea to potential investors. If we bootstrapped, I would have learned a lot too, like how to manage a tight budget, how to be frugal, and how to make a high pressure sale. Each way teaches you a ton, but the question you need to ask is, what types of things would you rather learn?

What Percentage of the Company Do You Own?
Bootstrapping is a great idea for young people with nothing to lose. Typically, founders split the pie evenly when starting a company. But if all the founders are young, inexperienced, and have never run a business before, this isn't always the best move, because your fifty percent equity share has a good chance of equaling $0 if the company goes under. On the flip side, if you partner with someone who's been there before and can provide some guidance, connections and money, you might only get fifteen percent, but that small percentage may have a higher probability of putting some cash in your pocket when your company is acquired.

How Big Is Your Idea?
Do you want to be the next Facebook, Amazon or Salesforce.com? Or do you just want to have fun and make a few bucks? Most entrepreneurs think big. If you bootstrap, be prepared to think small, at least at first. Once you find a niche and begin to take off, you can start to think big and pursue some cash. But shifting from thinking small to big right in the midst of it all is not an easy task.

At Brazen, we knew from day one that we were taking in funding, scaling a business and hopefully making a big splash. I don't regret the decision for a second. We've all learned a ton and had a lot of fun. Now we're learning how to cut costs, change a business model and make it through the toughest financing environment in history.

Bootstrapping is one way to run a company; another is to take on investors. Whichever you decide, be sure you know what you're getting into before you start. And don't forget to have fun.

A New Year, A New Blog (And, Why I'm Doing It)

It's been a long time coming. It started months ago when people started asking why I didn't blog anymore. It sure felt like I was still blogging. And I was, just not on Employee Evolution.

What I realized is that I'm not that passionate about writing on careers anymore. When I was sitting in a cubicle every day it was great, I was living it. But that's just not the air I'm breathing anymore.

Today, I live and breathe community. In retrospect I always have. So as hard as it is to say goodbye to EE—the blog that started it all—I've decided to move into something I can be more passionate about.

I'm feeling a lot like I did during my last semester of college—anxious. I guess that's fitting since I bought my domain (ryanpaugh.com) at about that time.

I was sitting around with a couple or friends—drinking tequila—and talking about what we would be doing after graduation. I decided that it would be a good idea to own my domain name. So I hopped on GoDaddy, whipped out a credit card and made the most intelligent choice I'll probably ever make while drinking tequila.

I squatted on that domain for going on three years. Today, it's finally being debuted: My new bachelor pad on the World Wide Web.

The landing page (ryanpaugh.com) is nothing more than an introduction to who I am, where I've been and what I hope to accomplish through the site. My real focus will be at ryanpaugh.com/blog, where I contribute regular content about personal discoveries, social media and community.

Here are a few things you can come to expect week to week …

Blog posts about community: Online, offline, in popular culture, etc. I'll continue to focus a lot of my attention on Generation Y.

Brazen Community profiles: Every week I'll feature a member of the Brazen Community as part of my continuous quest to bring great Gen-Y voices into the spotlight.

Brazen Community updates: Every week I'll blog (or vlog) about what's going on at Brazen HQ. One of my big goals in 2009 is to bring better streams of communication to our Brazen Community. This is the first step in that process.

Lots of pictures: I love taking them. Now that I'm out meeting the stellar people of the Brazen World, I want to be able to share the experience with all of you.

So now that we've gone over the basics, go subscribe to the site! Leave comments! Your feedback is really important to me, and I'll be making changes based on what you say.

Thanks to everyone who has supported Ryan Healy and I with Employee Evolution. It's really sad to walk away (I feel like I'm neglecting a child), but it's a good decision. Employee Evolution will be a more focused blog, and I'll finally have a place to explore my own passions more deeply.

I hope you'll come and join me for the ride!

*Special thanks to Benjamin Jancewicz and the team at Zerflin. They go above and beyond with their work and I'm happy I had the chance to work with them again. Check them out. They do everything, online and offline.

**And congrats to the Jancewicz family on their new baby boy!