September 7, 2009 66 Comments

Why Social Networking

Cadillac CTS-V I was talking with Michelle at an event in Austin, and we started talking about her passion for cars. I told her that I had a huge crush on the Cadillac CTS-V, and she said it was a decent car. Then, Michelle went off about how most American cars have lots of power, but that they don’t know how to transfer it to the ground. She said it’s a problem with most suspension systems. So, the cars can be powerful, but because they can’t transfer that power efficiently to the wheels and into the ground, it’s somewhat wasted.

I tell you this because I woke up realizing that this makes an apt analogy for why people often have trouble finding jobs.

Your capabilities don’t matter much if you don’t have a robust enough network to get them out to where they can do the most good.

It’s great that you know how to do all kinds of things. It’s wonderful that you’ve got all kinds of experience. If people don’t know you, if your name doesn’t readily come to mind, it doesn’t matter a lick.

At the end of 2008, I wrote a free ebook to help you understand how to use the social web to find work. If you or a friend needs work right now, please give it a read. It might help.

What do you think? Does that analogy make sense? If you can’t transfer your power to the ground, what good is it?

Related posts:

  1. My Best Advice About Social Networking
  2. Five Things to Do at a Social Networking Meetup
  3. Social Networking Features are Toilets
  4. Using Social Networking and Media Offline
  5. Share YOUR Social Networking Success Stories

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  • http://milestechnologies.com/PublicPages/CS-Social-Media-Optimization.aspx Miles Technologies

    A great analogy, not only for individuals finding jobs but for businesses finding potential customers. Social media optimization can be highly effective in interacting with your target market and helping you to attract prospects to your website.

  • http://christophercatania.com Chris Catania

    The analogy does makes sense. But it's also important to remember that the”power” transfer flows both ways and you have to feed both sources with equal care and attention. This is especially hard to remember with social networking because sometimes it's easy to neglect the offline when the online connections seems to be working better, so when you need to go back to the offline, it's hard because some of those relationships have been neglected. It's a very difficult balance but those who are able to nuture both online and offline simultanesouly are in a good spot when it comes time for a power transfer.

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  • hiteshthakur034

    hi….auto feed pligg to twiter seems to be of great use…i will give it a try ……..well u can try out http://thetwittersecret.com/ to know about various twitter applications..

  • 66epp2

    Google Ad Sense Message Boards Fraud
    Google Ad Sense is when a web site owner opens an account with Google to place advertisement on their web site. When a person clicks this advertisement, the web site owner gets an average commission of .45 cents. A web site that gets a lot of traffic, they can easily make $150,000 per month.
    There are message boards claiming to be informing the public about scams being done by companies or individuals. These web sites have individuals working for them for the sole purpose of targeting companies or individuals in order to generate traffic to the web site. This method is artificially generating traffic to the web site, this is FRAUD as outlined by Google. The higher the traffic, the higher the percentage of individuals that will click onto the Google advertisements.
    Additionally, Individuals post copy right information about a company on these types of web sites; this is against the policy of the Google Ad Sense program.
    If you believe that you are being targeted by individuals on a particular web site; simply click the Ads by Google in the bottom right hand corner of the advertisement on the web site. You will be taken to a Google page, click onto: Report a policy violation regarding the site or ads you just saw.
    File a report and the Google Fraud Department will investigate.

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  • http://twitter.com/KimbaGreen Kimba Green

    Chris,
    I read your post when it came out in Sept because I knew my contract was ending I would be without a job. It was helpful but I would like to see you update it as so much has changed. More opportunities to get yourself out there. Your overall advice was spot on. Thank you for writing about us “funemployed”!

  • http://twitter.com/KimbaGreen Kimba Green

    Chris,
    I read your post when it came out in Sept because I knew my contract was ending I would be without a job. It was helpful but I would like to see you update it as so much has changed. More opportunities to get yourself out there. Your overall advice was spot on. Thank you for writing about us “funemployed”!

  • http://www.memorybits.co.uk/ usb flash drive

    I really thought you were going to head in a different direction! A leader can be powerful, but if he / she does not know how to transfer power efficiently followers that, it has some pointless. Sharing and giving to others who get away with it can run a power, and really do things to make, so there is a good use of electricity.

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