Getting a job with social media is about relationships, not content

One of my primary points on this blog and to clients is that relationship building should be a primary tenant while entering into and building out social media communications. Social media and the tools used to operate in the landscape are a means to building relationships, but that is often forgotten.

Social media presents a platform to build relationships with clients, consumers, influencers, competitors, recruits and more. The preamble to developing relationships is content. The content has to draw people in, but ultimately content won't deliver on new business or new partnerships.

There is a common phrase in the communications world, "content is king." I respectfully disagree with that adage no matter how entrenched it is in our industries mindset. Content is clearly important, but relationships are much more important. The time it takes to produce an abundance of content can be better spent developing meaningful relationships with people attracted to slightly more sparse content.

I know this to be true with brands and businesses, but it might be even more true when marketing oneself on the job market. Content alone may initially attract a would be employer, but he or she won't stick around long if their isn't a line of communication opened and harvested. Experts say that over 75% of jobs are filled when the employer has a personal connection of some kind to the applicant. Social media can be your tool to developing that personal connection, but content won't do it for you. A relationship has to be built in order for you to leave a lasting, meaningful impression on a person.

This means you have to cultivate conversations, reply to comments on a post, respond to @replies on Twitter, send a message back to people on LinkedIn or whatever other platform you use.

In the ever-growing world of social media, the way to get noticed will increasingly be going above and beyond in building relationships. It will be an exception to the rule when a person is noticed and benefits greatly just from their content.

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You Forgot Blogs, Discussion Boards, Video Sharing and Others

I just came across an article on the Examiner.com asserting that Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn is the holy trinity of social media. There is no doubt that these these tools are immensely popular and extremely effective marketing tools, but it is terribly shortsighted to call them the holy trinity.

The first segment of social media that was forgotten would be blogs. I know I've lumped hundreds of millions of sites in together here, but that is what blogging is all about. It is having a singular source to share your thoughts, while connecting with others blogs to network and converse. The power of blogs is amazing. Lets look at Gawker Media Groups blogs in particular:

• Gizmodo averages over 2 million visits per day
• Lifehacker averages over 1 million visits per day
• Deadspin averages just under .5 million visits per day

Those are astounding numbers that cannot be discounted when weighing the value and influence of a social media tool.

Discussion boards are still wildly popular. They are most prevalent when talking about consumer products or college athletics, but lets not forgot about the passion that is shown on these forums. The fervor people display in these forums is greater than you will ever see on a social network or a comment section of a blog.

Video and photo sharing sites also can't be forgotten. The Youtubes and Flickrs of the world have immense influence and often touch the peripheral social media users more than other sites will. These are also rapidly growing platforms and will continue to gain strength moving forward.

I don't want to call out the writer of this original statement, but I think he jumped the gun on declaring the existence of a holy trinity of social media.

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