Check out this entertaining and sadly, somewhat astute video from The Onion informing parents on how social media can revolutionize their efforts to keep tabs on their college aged children. Hilarious. Take a peek.

Facebook, Twitter Revolutionizing How Parents Stalk Their College-Aged Kids

Many have asked this question before. And even now in the wake of the Twitter tsunami and the insurgence of many other forms of social technology, it’s still uncharted territory for some and down right terrifying territory for others. Fear not. Marta Kagan, self-proclaimed social media evangelist and extremely creative presenter, created the first of two slide shows found below a little over a year ago to inform us on what the f*** this new medium is and how we can and should be using it. It’s a funny but seriously informative and helpful presentation. If you haven’t seen it yet, flip through and you’re guaranteed to learn a thing or two.

Of course, the first presentation was created a year ago and, as we all know, a lot has happened in a year. Take a peek at the second version which she recently created with updated statistics and tips. Comparing the stats alone is slightly scary considering only a measly 12 months went by. But don’t let them scare you, instead let the presentation inspire you to, as Kagan says, “hop on the f***ing train!”

Today Mashable featured an array of graphics showing fascinating statistics on Twitter.

The graphics show what it would be like if the Twitter community consisted of only 100 people, relative to the behavior on it now.

The fun graphics were picked up from InformationIsBeautiful.net, a great blog with visualized ideas and data. It’s an interesting and visually stimulating way to show information. Check it out below.

The latest in interesting career related news and media tidbits :

Job Hunt: We’ve been saying this for awhile, now Reuters agrees: Go Social! (Reuters)

Hired: How to negotiate a good salary despite the bad economy (WSJ)

Fired: 8% of US Companies Have Sacked Social Media Miscreants plus one major Facebook Faux Pas (Mashable)

Words of Wisdom: What’s the best advice Arianna Huffington ever received? She’ll tell you. VIDEO:(Fortune)

Small business: Etsy founders start a “tool for small businesses to market, listen, and respond to their customers using social media,” called Postling. (Mashable)

Media/Social Media: NBC’s new pilot is airing on Facebook first? (Huffington Post)

This week, we’ll be talking a lot about new media and technology etiquette. It’s a topic we’ve covered before for Media Post, specifically concerning social media. This week’s column will tackle the issue of the ever-vibrating blackberry. But before we get too serious, here’s a light-hearted look at some Facebook faux pas to avoid.

By Beverly Weinstein

Start with securing your contacts before you’re in the job market. Part of your value as a potential candidate to any employer is your professional relationships. Those relationships are also an essential tool in looking for a job. Don’t take them for granted, don’t stop building them, and don’t underestimate new technology in helping you with the task.

I’ll be exploring the importance of using professional social networking in this column. Other job search basics will be covered in the coming weeks.

Where Are You Storing Business Contacts?

If you’re old enough, you probably had a Rolodex, the old office staple, perched somewhere on your desk. When you left your job, it was something you usually boxed up and took with you. Then enterprise messaging platforms (like MS Outlook) started and contacts went on your computer and your company’s corporate server which, in turn, allowed for seamless transfer to your company-issued PDA. Whether you should back up your Outlook is certainly a consideration, but I’ve found a surprising number of people that don’t.

So even if you have hundreds of names in your business contact files don’t assume they will always be available. Parting company with your job means parting company with your computer and your mobile device, along with all the information contained in both.

It’s time to take a close look at the importance of the professional social-networking sites, not as a substitute for Outlook but as another contact resource.

Secure Your Contacts

If you haven’t started using a professional social network like LinkedIn, what are you waiting for? If you have hundreds of Outlook contacts and 30 LinkedIn contacts, you’ve got it backwards. Linked In is a click away, and one of the great perks of social networking is that you never have to worry about it disappearing if your hard drive crashes, if you’re away from your computer, or if you leave a job. It’s always floating around the Internet waiting for you to hop on.

Some Easy Building Blocks

LinkedIn enables you to upload contacts from commonly used email services, including, Yahoo, Gmail and AOL or by uploading a spreadsheet of them. This only takes moments, no matter how large your network is.

You can keep adding to your network. If you’re a PC Outlook user, a tool is available to make connecting even easier. Every time you get a new email, it allows you to automatically invite the sender. You don’t even need to go to LinkedIn, because the site is”linked in” to your Outlook.  For step-by-step installment instructions, stay tuned on www.dearbev.com for a post with all you need to know.

Other Benefits

OK, you may be thinking: I’ve backed up my Outlook, why do you need to do any more?

• It’s easier to keep track of your contacts, and you don’t have to do the work. On Outlook and other address books, you make the changes, but on LinkedIn, the contacts do it for you and you receive notifications of changes your connections make, such as new jobs, new titles, new locations.
• It’s faster to send a blast email or message letting people know you’re in the job market. You can send individual notes, too, with the guarantee that the recipient will receive a notification from LinkedIn. If you’re contacting someone you haven’t spoken to in some time, you need not worry about falling into their spam box.
• Finally, more and more individuals, as well as recruiters,are using LinkedIn to communicate job openings and search for candidates. So what are you waiting for? Start connecting.

This is just the start of your job hunt. First, you need to gather and nurture your connections and contacts. Next, I’ll look at how to make them work for you.

This edition of “The Steam Room” is a little less steamy and a little more helpful than the last. Today’s guest blogger goes by the nom de guerre, Penelope Golightly.
The blogosphere is full of top ten lists and do’s and don’ts for searching and landing a job.

Here’s another list on that theme, but with a twist; instead of do’s and don’ts, ratings of the most mentioned tips are served up for your summer salad of job-hunting:

1. Networking events in your core industry – 1 Stars
Regular life is networking, events are good to be seen, catch up with people and say hello. Expectations should be kept at a minimum for these.

2. Networking events slightly outside your core industry – 2 Stars
A winner because the business has more overlap then ever before. Spent your career in the TV sales? Maybe it’s time to attend one of the great digital conferences that are out there. You’ll see some folks you know, and meet some new people. You’ll also learn some things!

3. Reading-up – 4 Stars
There’s so much to read out there everyday and week (especially Bev’s column!) But I was once told that if you want your boss’s job, read what they read. So do a few trade-offs each week of something that you’ve been devouring forever for something new. It will broaden your perspective.

4. Twittering, Facebooking and Linked-In’ing – 5 Stars
Digital social networking has become so usual that it’s pretty much a must-do these days. To make this work stronger for you, create a regular plan for your Facebook and Twitter status updates and become someone that people want to read posts from.

5. Create a core group of advisors – 10 Stars
Pick people that you admire to be an advisor that you can check in with at least twice a month on a regular basis. Selecting people who are not only in a position to help you think through situations but can advance your brand is a plus.

6. Exploratory Interviews – 8 Stars
Practice will make you a better interviewer because you will get more comfortable hearing yourself talk. It will also take out any sting you may be feeling over leaving your last employers. Plus, exploratory interviews are a great way to meet recruiters and potential hiring managers. Someone recently told me to ‘practice your story about yourself and like it, because you are going to be telling it over and over’. These types of interviews are great to hone your story.

7. Create your Own Job – 6 Stars
This has been a frequently mentioned tactic; find a company you want to work for, look for gaps in their current staff and approach them on a role. Sounds good. Also sounds hard to do.

8. Be a guest Blogger – 7 Stars
Driving traffic to your own blog is tough, but being a guest-blogger gives you a built-in audience for what you want to say.

9. Polish Your Resume – 3 Stars
It’s hard to know if professional written resumes (or CV’s) are worth it because it depends so much on the audience. Polishing your resume might not be that important, but keeping it current, especially if you are doing pro-bono work is key.

10. Do some pro-bono work – 10 Stars
You want to work, right? Then take the plunge, and work for free in an area that interests you. You’ll broaden your mind, meet new people and maybe even create your own job along the way!

As any avid Facebook user has probably noticed, the site is changing all the time, introducing new features, changing layouts, and adding apps. Here’s a new one that is subtle enough to miss but useful enough to take note of: Simplifying Event Planning.

Creating an event on Facebook is used pretty commonly. With all of your friends already on the network, it’s much easier to send out a quick invite to a birthday party, art opening, or networking event without taking the time to find email addresses and worry about forgetting someone. Well, now it just got even easier. You can create an event right from the publisher or the “what’s on your mind” box where you update your status and share links.

Just find the “Events” icon that looks like a little calender right below the text box and you can fill in your info and select the “Invite guests” link to share the event with your friends. Like most changes to the social network, it’s being done gradually so if it does not appear on yours yet, keep your eye out for it in the near future. Here’s a snapshot of the function I grabbed from BoingBoing.net.

Word on the street is that very soon a new feature is being introduced that allows “per update privacy” controls. Meaning if you want to post a link or a photo but only show it to certain people, you can choose right from the Publisher. More on that when it comes out! But for now, you’re up to speed.

Any questions? Let us know.

A few weeks ago we posted an instructional video on how to use Twitter. It seemed to be useful for many, so here’s another how-to video on the most prolific and popular professional networking site. If you’re not using LinkedIn already, you should start. Take a look at the video and it’ll tell you why.

For more specific instructional and strategic help on using LinkedIn and other networks, visit the Services tab up top.

There’s no doubt about it, executive recruiting is changing with the times. Technology has altered the face of the profession and recruiters, like myself, have had to adapt. While change is never easy, most of the technology that has taken recruiting by storm is helpful. I don’t know any recruiters who aren’t using LinkedIn to find candidates. Many are now using Facebook more and more, in lieu of keeping that networking solely personal. And we’ve all heard about the force that is Twitter. But Second Life, now that’s a venue I hadn’t envisioned would really take off.

For those who aren’t familiar with Second Life, it is not a social network like the others. It’s a virtual world. Users access this world via the internet and create an avatar that interacts with other users. It’s an opportunity for users to have…you guessed it, a second life. In this digitized version of the world, they can look like, do, or be anything they want. You can imagine the (oft seedy) possibilities this carries with it.

Putting my judgements aside, I recognize that it is a tool that can be used in business, with some companies using it to carry out conferences and training programs instead of  conference calls or webinars. Many educational benefits have been found by institutions including language learning. But not until fairly recently has it really been actively used for recruiting.

Last fall, Missouri hired a state employee that it “met” with during a job fair in the virtual realm. The initial meeting was followed up by a real “first life” interview of course, but the first impression was made via the web. And get this, the candidate who got thee job as a developer for the Department of Natural Resources showed up to the event, and I quote, “as a tiny cat with a red bow tie on and expressed interest,” said Dan Ross,  Missouri CIO.

It would seem that the placement gas worked well, but there’s something strange to me (and I think probably to most) not only about your first handshake with a potential employer being between two avatars, but a digital cat? At least he put on a bow tie, right?

What are your thoughts on this kind of technology as a recruitment or business tool?

Read the article from Government Technology. Image via BusinessWeek.com.