This morning I was working away, as usual multitasking a variety of items including researching a tool to update PDF documents on a site, so that they are properly indexed by the search engines. This will prevent the client from having to backtrack and re-compile the documents. (Note: think I’ve found something but looking around to be sure it’s the best option).
I was also monitoring twitter (profiled today in USA Today) via an application I am testing called TweetDeck. This elegant desktop application is written in Adobe Air which allows for cross platform functionality … but more importantly TweetDeck has built the user interface in silos where you can categorize incoming tweets, helping you to monitor a diverse range of conversations. The key reason that I am most intrigued by it, is the ability to set up silos to sort “searched” terms in the background. This is similar to the disabled “Track” functionality originally incorporated in Twitter IM clients, and to me the killer app for brands on the web.
One of the terms that I have set up for TweetDeck to scan for is “Social Media”. Right in the middle of the page I get to see every tweet that is happening with the term social media in it .. this keeps me right on top of the conversation, allowing me to reply, follow, check out a URL, or simply absorb what is being said regarding social media on twitter.
This morning I came across the following tweet from mdurwin that said; “to link 2 each other on LinkedIn, should we put Twitted as an employer? until LI recognizes social media connections…” You know what? He’s exactly right.
First of all, notice that I saw this tweet because he had included the term social media in the statement. When I read his statement it caught my attention because I have been struggling with growing my personal network on LinkedIn because of this exact reason, I just hadn’t been able to put my finger on it to state it out loud.
The LinkedIn network is a powerful web service geared specifically for business users. The more famous social network sites like Facebook & MySpace are overrun with a much younger demographic and a quality resume would get lost in the crowd. LinkedIn can help professionals looking for business relationships plus it can act as a defacto employment placement tool.
When attempting to connect to others in LinkedIn, you are asked how you know the person, ie. Colleague, Friend, Classmate etc. These categories don’t exactly work for the growing connections being made via the social web. Mdurwin is not a colleague of mine, we never worked at the same company, we did not go to school together … and the ambiguous term “friend” does not apply since I have only known of his presence since this morning. However, we both believe that there are benefits to linking our networks together in a mutually beneficial way.
LinkedIn needs to update the application to include another classification of connections called “Social Networker”.
(Update 7/22: I was directed to this web site where the discussion of newly minted terms was being defined including the term “Dotcomrades”. There you go LinkedIn .. your new classification!”)
