The Social Media Channel

Blogging is the new resume: Why less is not always more
Want to increase your brand’s relevancy? Partner up with tween YouTube stars
How accepting a friend request could alter your credit score

Blogging is the new resume: Why less is not always more

Posted: 19 Dec 2013 08:00 AM PST

Ryan Hoover is the co-creator of Product Hunt, creator of Startup Edition, and instructor at Tradecraft. Follow him at @rrhoover or visit his blog to read more about startups and product design.

Can we all agree resumes are crummy? Can you really communicate your life's accomplishments and skill-set through an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper? Does anyone even read your resume anyway?

These manufactured documents might help weed you out from the obvious "hell no" candidates, but do a poor job of communicating your capabilities. More often than not, hiring managers rely on trusted recommendations and evaluate applicants based on tangible things they have accomplished. And this is where GitHub shines.

GitHub can be a fantastic resume for software developers. The open platform showcases candidates' creations, free to inspect and critique. Well-kept GitHub profiles exemplify one's breadth and expertise in various programming languages and their contributions to open source and side projects, exemplify programmers' eagerness to create. GitHub shows hiring managers what they have accomplished. That's a lot better than telling in a resume.

But if you're non-technical, what is your GitHub equivalent? How can you stand out from the forest of resumes?

I think you know the punch line… Blogging is the new resume.

Blogging is an effective way to illustrate expertise, personality, and most importantly, thought process. The way product managers, UX designers, and other "non-technical" roles think, communicates their ability and culture fit. Resumes lack this entirely.

Blogging opens doors

A year ago I started actively blogging, writing one to three essays each week. I write for fun. I write to learn. I write about startups, product design, user experience, psychology, and other topics I'm passionate about. The research and introspective thinking that goes into blogging, hones my expertise in these topics, and the more I write, the better I write.

Early on, a few of my pieces hit the front page of Hacker News. My Twitter following increased and I began to get more attention in tech and blogging communities. My writing has been featured on PandoDaily, FastCo, Forbes, and other prominent publications in addition to well-respected blogs like Andrew Chen's and Nir Eyal.

When I announced I was leaving PlayHaven to work on something new, I was nervous. I wanted a new challenge, but was I going to end up unemployed and depressed? Fortunately, writing paid off.

When I announced my departure without a plan, the network I grew from blogging, reached out with support. Several followers offered me a job and introductions to other founders. I ended up having more than enough opportunity. I was going to be fine.

Of course, my professional experience and accomplishments were instrumental in creating these opportunities, blogging amplified peoples' interest in me and helped market my expertise.

We can all benefit from blogging

Not everyone can or wants to maintain my level of dedication to the craft. And that's fine. Regardless of exposure, blogging is an excellent vehicle to share ideas, expertise, and interests. It's an evergreen resume.

Take Lenny Hu's blog as an example. I was first introduced to Lenny through a blog post he wrote titled LetsLunch Landing Page, where he designed a new homepage and described his thought-process for the changes. His post remains memorable even a year later as I reflect on my admiration for his pro-activeness and ability.

Since then he's continued to write product deconstructions and shares his thoughts on product design. Despite Lenny's relatively small following and infrequent blogging routine, he has built himself a strong, long-lasting resume. And it paid off.

Lenny recently sent me this direct message on Twitter:

hey ryan, I got hired on as a short-term consultant for a stealth startup… so random. They saw my blog. Hah!

Blog to build

Blogging may result in a role at your dream startup or the successful launch of your own.

Nathan Bashaw and I recently launched Product Hunt, a site to share, discover, and geek out about products. We seeded the community largely with relationships formed through my writing, inviting several dozen well-respected startup founders, investors, and product people to participate.

Shortly after its private release, we announced Product Hunt in the press and shared with our audience, acquiring another 1,000 users over the next week. None of this would have been feasible 12 months ago before I had established a network of supporters through my writing.

Blogging isn't for everyone

I highly encourage people to blog (for many reasons) but before you jump in gung-ho, here are a few things to keep in mind:

You Need to Enjoy It - Blogging isn't for everyone. It's difficult to blog sustainably. If you're not intrinsically motivated to do so, you'll quit. Blogging does not mandate frequent writing, but the more you put in, the more you'll get out.
It's a Long-Term Investment - It's highly unlikely your first, second, third, or 50th post will "go viral." First, you must accept that most people don't care what you think and that quantity leads to quality.
It's Not About You - Readers also don't care how awesome you are. Too many bloggers continually write self-promotional pieces. The occasional #humblebrag is OK but if you're always writing about you or your startups' successes, readers will turn away.
Write About Your Passions - Another common mistake is to choose topics based on other peoples' interests. You shouldn't write about growth hacking just because it's vogue. You should write about growth hacking if you're genuinely passionate about it. And if you're passionate about topics without mass appeal, that's fine. I guarantee there are several others also interested.
You Don't Know Everything - You must have conviction in what you write but it's important to have humility and recognize your context. When criticizing people or startups, remember that you lack full context. People may have specific reasons or data, not privy to outsiders, to support their decisions.
Don't Let it Become a Distraction - Once you've built an audience and habit of writing, it can be hard to stop. While valuable, don't let blogging substitute the important things in your startup or life, that may not be as enjoyable. Do "shitty" work.

R.I.P. Resume

When startups ask about my background and expertise, I respond with a brief bio and link them a few select articles I've written, relevant to their situation. If you read my writing, you will know how I think. If you agree with my analysis and recommendations, you will trust my product decisions. If you disagree, then we shouldn't work together anyway. Resumes fail to communicate any of this.

I hope to never touch my resume again.

Image credit: Smit/Shutterstock

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Want to increase your brand’s relevancy? Partner up with tween YouTube stars

Posted: 18 Dec 2013 10:45 AM PST

Brands partnering with celebrities, influencers and advocates to reach a larger and more relevant audience is not a new approach to marketing. However, where audiences are active today is continually changing forcing marketers to adapt their approach to partnering with advocates especially when it comes to connecting with teenagers online.

According to Buzzfeed, 93 percent of the 13-to-18-year olds surveyed in a recent study visited YouTube once a week, while only 65 percent visited Facebook. Among the other top social networks, YouTube was the channel checked the most by teenagers.

Due to this growing demographic on YouTube, dozens of tween YouTube stars have risen to fame with thousands and sometimes millions of subscribers and views on their video content. Think of these YouTube influencers as the Mickey Mouse Club of our generation, except with 10 times the reach.

A few brands have partnered with many of these YouTube stars already to better position their product and service offerings in front of these advocate's massive followings. These teen YouTube stars, like iJustine, Bethany Mota, the Janoskians, Hunter March and others, create content on a daily, weekly or monthly basis that resonates with teen audiences across subject areas covering everything from gaming to beauty.

These YouTube celebrities often have a large and loyal following on other social channels as well like Twitter, Vine, Instagram, Facebook and elsewhere that help drive further traffic to their YouTube channels with each new video they upload.

If you're looking to reach a younger audience in an organic way where they are most active, partnering with a YouTube star relevant to your company's target demographics may not be a bad idea.

Here's how other brands have initiated partnerships with YouTube stars in the past and what you can learn from their efforts.

Partner to spur user-generated content

When partnering with a YouTube star, one of the goals is for that online celebrity to create content about your brand and its offerings for their audience. This can come in many forms, but ideally this user-generated content should be genuine when it comes to the incorporation of your company in these videos.

Taco Bell executed this type of partnership effectively when working with YouTube star FreddieW on a FieryDLT commercial for his YouTube channel that gained over 1 million views. The video starts with Freddie explaining that the video was in fact commissioned by Taco Bell and to possibly look out for it on TV in addition to YouTube. This channel typically shares videos about video games and sports, perfectly matched with an audience interested in fast food.

The video was created in a similar quality to the other videos regularly uploaded to the channel with a few visual enhancements from the help of Taco Bell, which helped make the video both organic and relatable, while adding an extra visual moment that made the video stand out.

It appears that Taco Bell helped work on what the video would specifically be about, helping direct its message. Emulate this approach with other YouTube stars to increase the amount of user-generated content being regularly created about your brand online. In some cases, scripting the direction of the video can help control the message sent to viewers as long as its inline with the YouTube stars typical voice.

Invite YouTube stars to your events

Other brands have taken the less scripted route with their advocate partnerships, inviting YouTube influencers to their events to capture what's happening at these events across their YouTube and other social media channels as they see fit.

For the 2013 Video Music Awards, MTV invited multiple tween influencers from YouTube, Vine and elsewhere to interview celebrities and record their experience on the red carpet.

YouTube star Anthony Quintal was one of these attendees who shared his experiences in a video that saw over 500,000 views. The video was Anthony's retelling of his evening at the event in the typical format in which he creates YouTube videos to his subscribers. In a sense, it was an organic commercial about his experience with MTV celebrities and attendees at the awards shows.

Invite select YouTube celebrities to your next event to document their experience and share what's happening behind the scenes with their audiences. For the cost of their attendance, travel and hotel accommodations, your brand can help spur the creation of user-generated content that can be seen by thousands and sometimes millions of relevant teenagers days and weeks after the event about your event but most importantly, about your business.

Build an engaging contest around a star's core audience

The most engaging type of advocate partnerships are those that not only involve a YouTube star, but involves their audience to participate in a branded contest.

Host a contest on behalf of your business that requires participants to enter by creating and uploading a specific YouTube video or other form of content on Twitter, Facebook or elsewhere across social media. A tween YouTube star is an effective way of gaining visibility for a contest amongst the teen demographic.

YouTube star Blair Fowler has been a longtime fan of L'Oreal mascara, often referencing it in her beauty tutorials and other videos throughout the years. L'Oreal approached Blair to create a video about the contest they were hosting as a means of driving more engagement to their promotional contest from her vast audience of teenage girls.

As part of the contest, participants had to share a special memory involving L'Oreal's Voluminous Mascara or what they referred to as a "V-moment." If chosen, a winner will be featured in a masthead ad on YouTube Canada's homepage and on the brand's YouTube channel for a day with the hopes of making that winner a YouTube star.

This engages viewers past simply viewing a video with the mention of a brand, but encourages them to participate in creating content about the brand as well.

When launching your own contest supported by a YouTube star, focus on the details of how participants will use a YouTube video to enter, as well as what the prize will be for the winner or winners. Both factors of the contest must relate to the interests and topics typically covered by the YouTube star to ensure there's a match.

In this instance with L'Oreal and Fowler, she already had a passion for their brand and products, which made it an authentic partnership between the star and the makeup brand. Look to work with YouTube stars genuinely interested in your brand to help support your contents and partnerships for the long-term.

Develop an ongoing Web series creating your own stars

The trickiest option to navigate for your brand is creating your own YouTube stars through an original branded video series. This is by far the most difficult and expensive option to pursue, but if done right, could reap long-term benefits for your business. A Web series can feature your business as much or as little as your company sees fit, as long as it isn't distracting from the subject of the videos.

Kmart, in partnership with Alloy Digital, attempted its very own video series on YouTube known as First Day, featuring popular Internet star Molly McAleer. The series was aimed at teenage girls, similar to the successful series "Pretty Little Liars" and "Gossip Girls." All of the cast's clothing were items available at Kmart, which sponsored the series with hopes of creating a hit show online with a large viewership that would in turn see their various product lines regularly. The series drew 10 million views, even though it only lasted for two brief seasons.

Create an original series hosted on YouTube that matches the interests of your target demographic and the ideals of your brand. Collaborate with existing YouTube stars to help draw an audience, while also using the talents of other actors and actresses that could one day become an influencer on YouTube on behalf of your brand.

Incorporate your company's unique offerings organically into this Web series to ensure you're providing interesting content to your audience first and foremost as opposed to an infomercial about your products.

Tread lightly with this approach since it's quite difficult to predict the success of a Web series until it's live. Experiment extensively and listen to your audience to best understand what'll work for your business when it comes to partnering on YouTube.

How will your brand partner with YouTube's growing pool of tween stars? What seems like the biggest obstacle to your success working with these YouTube celebrities? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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How accepting a friend request could alter your credit score

Posted: 17 Dec 2013 12:44 PM PST

Joe Polverari is the General Manager of Yodlee Interactive, a provider of financial applications that aims to make online banking more profitable.

Are you only as good as the company you keep? Before you accept that next friend request, consider what that person says about you, what that association might eventually cost, or be worth – even in the financial sense.

Where you live, who you friend on Facebook, the frequency you shop at Trader Joe's, how much you spend – all of this information will be picked up, shared, and analyzed amongst the various connected devices and services you use. We are rapidly reaching a point when technology services (a.k.a. machines and software), will have access to all of this data based on your everyday routine and will, among other things, act as your most trusted financial advisor.

Intuitively, most of the above examples would seem completely unrelated to your finances — but what's a better indicator of your financial status: 1) paying 20 percent of your credit card off every month, 2) how much you spend on rent, 3) the financial status of your closest friends and family, or 4) the average cost of your meal out? All of these examples can signal the type of spending and financial patterns you are to likely follow.

Here are a few emerging trends that will lead to very personalized, machine-based financial advice:

1. Your devices know more about you than you think

You've probably heard about the Internet of Things, in which your everyday items like cars and light switches will be communicating with the web. Soon, your devices will also be communicating, device to device, using their own stores of data to work in concert and create better, more useful sets of data.

Think of it like the Cloud of Things. Everything from phones, cars, thermostats, refrigerators and watches, will act like mini-servers communicating with each other about your behavior and usage patterns. Soon your car might notify your oven to start preheating because you're only twenty minutes from home and it knows based on your emails with your spouse that you're planning to cook lasagna that night.

2. How the digital "you" is growing

As these devices interact, a pool of very useful, very personal data will accumulate, and can be used to help you make more informed, even very complex, decisions. This technological shift towards the Cloud of Things will see an exponential increase in amount of data produced and analyzed.

This wealth of data will also be applicable to your financial decisions. "Who you are" as a consumer will no longer be based solely on your purchases, investments or credit file, but will also consider your daily routines, such as browsing the Internet, where you shop, and more.

Consider Coin, which is a single, swipe-able card that holds all your credit, debit, and rewards cards, so that you can manage them all with one device. You can easily imagine that using something like Coin would quickly build up enough data intelligence to pick your cards for you, depending on the type of purchase, maximizing your rewards and minimizing your fees. Together, data and devices have the power to revolutionize the financial industry.

Information around your broader social life and risk tolerance will also provide better insights for financial advisors to help with loans, savings and improving your credit. It will offer you greater financial security and value creation over the long term. It's happening already.

Companies like FeeX use the power of crowd sourced information and trends, combined with vast amounts of relevant personal data to personalize and maximize your retirement investment decisions, potentially saving tens of thousands of dollars you would ordinarily pay in fees to banks and mutual fund providers.

3. A Pandora for human finances

Information you can leverage won't just revolve around you, but also around those you associate with — even indirectly. The general lifestyle choices of people similar to you, driven by everyday information, like where you live, the restaurants you frequent, and the items you purchase, will also help derive more enlightened financial recommendations.

Consider how Pandora mapped music: music was labeled, then connected, trends developed, improving the algorithm, and eventually defining "if you like that, you'll probably like this." Soon something similar will happen for you with your finances: advisors will make better recommendations based upon other people who are similar to your digital self and based on how their financial decisions have panned out.

Armed with a wealth of your own data, and aggregate data from other people like you, you will be able to better define and personalize things like the best health care option, savings or investment strategy, for you with an efficiency and effectiveness never before possible.

Equally useful, but so far under discovered, silos of data about you are available to insurance companies, the government and credit bureaus and should be made more readily available to the most important person — you.

Consider your credit score, in particular, which is calculated based on antiquated and often inaccurate information. Most consumers in fact know very little about their credit score, how it's aggregated and what it really says about them. Worse, consumers have little to no input in the actual data that fills out their credit profile; rather, that data is reported by other entities, often incorrectly.

Technology and new services are now making it possible to incorporate entirely new, more relevant data into a credit profile — data that is mostly consumer controlled or contributed and generated by simply gathering and delivering your lifestyle data. Data that should provide better indicators of your financial success as a borrower.

Over the long term, aggregating personal data is a macro-trend that will save people time, money and help them make smarter, more personalized decisions. Ultimately, it will make the markets for the products – especially financial products and the way they are scored, priced and sold – more efficient and responsive to your needs.

The opportunity to access, incorporate, and innovate with data is exciting. Imagine being able to foresee the financial benefits of being an active participant on LinkedIn, or how purchasing groceries via delivery will decrease your likelihood for stress disorders. They say how you handle your money says a lot about you — soon you'll know what that really means.

Image credit: wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock

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The Social Media Channel

The Social Media Channel

Blogging opens doors

We can all benefit from blogging

Blog to build

Blogging isn't for everyone

R.I.P. Resume

Partner to spur user-generated content

Invite YouTube stars to your events

Build an engaging contest around a star's core audience

Develop an ongoing Web series creating your own stars

1. Your devices know more about you than you think

2. How the digital "you" is growing

3. A Pandora for human finances

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