Social Media What???

I am the first to admit that just about everything has been written about the use of social media in HR and business in general.  What to do, what not to do.  And the choices of where to start, should I have a LinkedIn Page, Twitter, Google+, or Facebook page?  Should I blog? What is a blog?  The options can be very overwhelming. 

Here's where I started.  LinkedIn. 

It's the world's largest professional network on the Internet (it says so on their website!).  There are 161,000,000 professionals on LinkedIn.  I created a profile to be able to connect with other professionals.  So, if you are interested in dabbling in social media, I suggest you start here.

Creating a profile on LinkedIn shouldn't take you more than 15 minutes.  LinkedIn does a great job of walking you through step by step.  Be thorough! Don't leave your picture blank (but don't put a picture on that you will regret down the road!). 

Once you have created your own profile, there are so many other things you can do on LinkedIn:

• You can send messages to individuals asking them to connect with you
• You can join a group
• You can create a group
• You can follow companies
• You can create your company's LinkedIn page
• You can post jobs
• You can search for jobs

The list is somewhat endless.  That's because you can choose how much (or how little) time you spend on this social media site.  In my next few posts, we'll talk in greater detail about how to use some of the features of LinkedIn. 

I'm curious...

         Where was your first venture into Social Media ?