Job Seekers and Hiring Managers – Here is an article about the importance of manging your online profile (and your company’s online profile) in case you really haven’t embraced the Social Media frenzy yet.

Digital Brand Expressions is a high-end search engine and social media marketing consultancy and services firm that helps companies enhance their findability on the Web to drive business success.

When looking for a new job, remember to utilize social media sites, especially LinkedIn. According to Jump Start Social Media, as many as 75% of hiring managers use LinkedIn on a regular basis to research candidates before making an offer, compared to 48% using FaceBook, and 26% using Twitter.

“Social media is not only a great networking tool, it’s also a way for employers to perform reference checks on job candidates,” said Veronica Fielding, president of Digital Brand Expressions and its social media service for consumers, Jump Start Social Media. “Because LinkedIn is the most professionally oriented of the three, it tends to attract hiring managers who are doing due diligence.”

When it comes to sourcing job candidates, more hiring managers again prefer LinkedIn to Twitter and Facebook. Of the hiring managers surveyed, 66% of hiring managers visit LinkedIn, 23% visit Facebook and 16% use Twitter to find job candidates to fill openings.

To ensure that your personal brand is professional, monitor what you post on social marketing sites. Ms. Fielding reminds people, “Whether or not you are job hunting, you should be aware that your public profile is easily accessible so be sure to maintain a professional personal brand.” Social media sites can enhance a candidate’s position or be detrimental.

“Social media tools offer hiring managers the ability to gain a broad picture of an individual,” says Rosina Racioppi, President of WOMEN Unlimited, Inc. “I prefer LinkedIn because its focus is on business connections and it allows you to see the professional beyond their resume. Utilizing social media tools enables hiring managers to assess whether a candidate is an appropriate fit for their organization.

The experts at Jump Start Social Media offer these tips for using social media in the job-hunting process:

Become familiar with the popular social media sites so you can participate in important dialogues, including opportunities to network for jobs.

• Start with one service, get comfortable with it, and branch out from there. The easiest, safest choice is LinkedIn because it has always been 100% business focused.
  
• Share links to interesting news stories combined with a sentence of insight, and join groups (your alma mater, former employers, industry associations, etc.) in order to participate in online discussions with the other members.
  
• Ask people in your network to introduce you to the people that they know. It’s these dynamic group interactions that help shape perceptions of you and your business acumen.
  
• Make sure to finish your social media profiles and keep them updated.
  
• If you are “tweeting” on Twitter, share links to stories, reports, interviews, etc. to which you add your insights.
  
• Don’t overlook Facebook’s value as a way of keeping in touch and staying top of mind with the business connections you’ve made during your career.

Bring it home: If you don’t already have a personal brand, start developing one. And by all means, keep your social media sites in line with your personal branding efforts. If you don’t want certain people to know something, don’t post it for the whole world to see. Use good judment and common sense at the minimum when posting information on your social media pages.

The Jump Start Social Media survey polled 100 hiring managers at small, mid-sized, and large companies. Polling was done by Digital Brand Expressions and interbiznet.

To learn more about using social media in the job hunt, visit

www.jumpstartsocialmedia.com or www.digitalbrandexpressions.com.

For more information on hiring great talent – and getting hired – visit us here.