The title of this post may be a little deceiving. There should actually be a question mark at the end of that title because this is not a "how-to" post, but more of another one of my many questions.

As you may know from reading my blog or following me on Twitter or even just knowing me, I'm heavy into the social media uprising. I'm not one of those people who claims to be a "social media expert" or "guru", but I do think that I have a pretty good handle on the medium and genuine interest in it.

I would like to be able to incorporate my love of this new "buzz" medium into anything I do in the PR/communications field. In fact, that's probably good because a lot of companies are seeing its potential and looking for people who understand how to best use social media to their advantage.

I'd like to be one of those people.

Here's my dilemma though: how do I add social media experience into my resume when I really have no "experience" in the traditional business sense??

I have been heavily involved in the social media scene, especially here in Toronto, for well over a year and half and think that people would agree that I pretty much know what I'm talking about. As well, while in PR school I tried to incorporate social media strategies and tactics into my projects as much as possible. Most of these projects seemed to go over fairly well.

Now how can I incorporate that into my resume??

My resume currently highlights different skills I learned in school, such as different forms of PR and communication writing, but I didn't actually learn any social media or writing for the web while in school. Some of my larger communications plans would incorporate social media, but how can I say that when I already have just communications plans down?

I enjoy a good creative writing challenge, so I'm looking forward to trying to find a way to squeeze my social media "experience" onto my resume. However, I'm always willing to take some advice from experts on the fields of PR, social media or even resumes.

As always, comments thoughts and opinions on the matter are both welcomed and encouraged below.

So, a lot of people may not agree with my thoughts on this subject (I know because I've read a lot of blogs, articles and books that don't) but this is my opinion anyways.

I'm fine with prospective employers looking at my facebook.

I thought about this because last year a friend of mine in law school was applying for his summer articling student position and while doing so he completely changed around his facebook. He made the security extra secure on it and even removed his wall altogether. When I asked him why he did this, he said, "because I'm trying to get a job right now." This made no sense to me.

I'm fine with prospective employers looking at my facebook.

I'm not going to completely change around the way I live my life just because I'm looking for a job right now. I've even thought about why I wouldn't change my facebook.

For starters, I have a certain level of security on my facebook already. Most things on my facebook can only be viewed by people I've accepted as friends. To that, I also know that most of my friends on facebook are or were real friends of mine anyways. I'm not one of those people who will just add everyone and anyone. For me, facebook is a place for me to stay connected with actual friends. Any other social network I'm open to adding anyone that may grab my interest. I may even add you to facebook after we've bonded on another social network. But, if we're not really friends, we probably won't be facebook friends.

Second, I'm not ashamed of my life. In fact, I'm quite proud of it. Yes, I sometimes have stupid status updates, but that's my personal brand of humor. I'll probably say dumb stuff like that in real life too. I don't (really) do anything that would be considered evil or against the law, so there'll be no pictures of me doing such things. Sure, they might be some pictures of me with a drink or cigarette in my hand, but I do drink alcohol sometimes and I do smoke (although I'm trying to quit, but that's a completely different story) and I'm not ashamed about either. I'm not going to pretend like I don't do those things just because I want a job. Chances are if I did pretend I didn't, my new employer will be disappointed when they find out that I do.

Lastly, I do have some friends who can sometimes write dumb things on my wall. Truthfully, I do the same to them. That's what friends do, they joke around with one another. Chances are my future employer will have friends that do the same to them, so they should be just as ashamed of their friends as I am of mine.

So go ahead prospective employer - creep my facebook. I have nothing to hide from you. I am who I am, and I'm proud of who I am.

Now some may argue with my logic, and I invite you to do so.
Leave a comment and let me know your thoughts on the subject of facebook while looking for a job, I'd love to hear what others think.

To bring people up to speed, I just spent the last month in Thailand and Laos after completing my masters down in Australia. Now I'm back in my home town of Toronto and ready to get my life going again.

While I was travelling though, I couldn't help but wonder (and maybe worry a bit) about my future. I just spent the last year and half learning for my new profession, public relations. Now it's time that I need to put all that learning to good use and get myself a job. The problem is, I have so many questions about this new life of mine.

When you decide that you want to do something like PR there are many subsequent questions that come up that I now have to weigh options on and make some serious decisions.

• What kind of PR do I want to do?
• Do I want to work for a specific company?
• Do I want to work for a government agency?
• Do I want to work for a large PR firm or a small boutique agency?
• Do I want to specialize in social media (which I do seem to favour) or do I want to try and encompass many faculties of the industry?
• If I do want to specialize in social media, how can I put my expertise onto a resume despite my lack of actual social media work experience? (a full blog post on this subject will follow soon)
• Because I got my masters, should I still be looking for internships or can I just try to find a real job out the starting gate?
• What's the best way to go about finding myself a PR job?
  

And those are just a few of the questions I have racing through my mind right now.

Lucky for me though, I'm not currently unemployed while I try to answer these questions. I was very fortunate that my father's company needed some help, so I'm working, but it is not in my chosen profession. I will however be trying to answer these questions and find a job in my chosen profession while I still make a little bit of money.

I'd like to hear what other people may think about some of my questions here. Especially if you're a seasoned PR vet, I'd love to know what you think about some of these things. So please leave a comment here because any form of guidance I can get would make my day.

Also, keep your eyes here and watch for this blog to become much more active as I settle back into real life.

Well, it's that time. School is done. Which means the reason why I started this blog is no longer a driving factor to maintain it.

However, I like this blog. I've gotten semi-attached to it. That's why I've decided to keep it going. I've also decided to change it up a little though.

While I still plan on exploring the use of web 2.0 and beyond in the world of PR, I'm also going to use it to document my venture into the real world of PR.

For almost two years I've been studying PR and now that I have my Masters I'm going to be looking to apply all of my new knowledge in an actual working environment. I'm going to now be blogging here about things I'm doing to get a job, updates of how those things pan out and hopefully my experiences once I actually start in the field on top of my little analysis' of things I find interesting in relation to PR.

So please, continue to read, follow and comment on this blog.

I hope you enjoy the change.

So far in this blog I've looked at a bunch of different popular forms of social media and web 2.0 tactics that companies are using and how they are using them. There's one that I've been holding off on though, because I just don't have much to say about it, but I thought I'd try anyways.

I'm talking about social bookmarking.

Social bookmarking is an online tool that acts just like a bookmarking tool in your browser, except it is online and can be shared with other people (if so desired).

Here's a video that explains social bookmarking a little bit better:

The video highlighted one social bookmarking site known as Del.icio.us, but there are many more. Another two popular social bookmarking sites that I know a bit about are Digg and Stumble Upon.

I thought I'd start by explaining how I personally use the social bookmarking tools.

I personally use Del.icio.us and Digg, but not very socially (at least I'm being honest). I usually use Del.icio.us to bookmark sites or articles I find online that interest me, but that I just don't have enough time to read then, or things I want to save to share later with other people. I tag each page I save accordingly. For instance, the articles that I want to save to read later I tag "later" (go figure). Then (now this is a little trick you may want to try for yourself), I have my browsers homepage set to my del.icio.us page for the tag "later". This way, whenever I open my browser the first thing I see are articles I didn't have time to read at previous time, but I might have some time to read then. Now, I don't use this service in a social way, I more use it for me to remember things. I don't subscribe to anyone else on the service, but others may be subscribed to mine.

The other one I use is Digg. Digg is more of a news aggregation site where users decide on what are good and/or important things to read. It's a bit hard to explain, but this video does a fantastic (but not the most exciting) job of explaining exactly how the site works:

I use Digg for just finding interesting things to read. I have an account so I can a) give my opinion about things I think others should read by digging something, and b) because the upcoming diggs link shows me new articles that I may find interesting based on previous things I have dugg (that seems the appropriate past tense of the word).

But how are companies using these sites as communication tools?? That's a good question that I don't really have a good answer. This is one of the web 2.0 tools I can admit I know little about, but still have a basic understanding of how companies would use them.

First we'll look at Digg. Companies and organizations can add a digg button onto almost any web page they may have. This could be their homepage, a video (on or off of a site like youtube), a picture (on or off a site like flickr) or their blog. Companies can then submit their own material to digg or let someone else do it. The more diggs the page gets the higher it will rise on the digg chart. A company should hope that their page gets a lot of diggs because the more popular it gets the more people are likely to see it.

I tried to find an example of a large companies digg page to show you as an example but failed. I think you get the point though. I do have an example using del.icio.us though.

As you saw in the video people and companies can bookmark things on the del.icio.us site for others to see. People can subscribe to a companies del.icio.us feed and see what that company is putting up to share. What a company puts on their page is up to them. It could be any page of their own they want people to see, or it could be something related to their company or industry that they want to share.

Adobe is the maker of many computer products used in design. These include programs such as Photoshop, Flash, Illustrator and Dreamweaver. These are all widely known and used programs. Because of this there is also a large community of people who share tips and tricks for doing things with Adobe's programs. Adobe has created a del.icio.us page where they book mark all the pages they find where others share their secrets to using the programs. Their del.icio.us page probably has a large following because it will be an easy place to find new and interesting info on using the Adobe programs. Check out the page here. This is a great way to use a tool like social bookmarking.

As I said, I know a bit about using these social bookmarking tools, but not too much. If you have something to add, I implore you leave a comment.

Let me know if and how you use social bookmarking sites, or if you have a good example of how a company is using one.