Purple Squirrl

Build Your Company with LinkedIn Recommendations

LinkedIn has posted on their blog some recommendtions from one of their users - Sasha Strauss, Managing Director, Innovation Protocol. He talks about how businesses can grow by employing a LinkedIn recommendation strategy. Here are the tips he shares in the post -

Get pre-qualified for new opportunities

• Represent your accomplishments by having an authentic, accurate depiction of your career
• Grow your network by uploading your contact list and reaching out to former colleagues, clients and employers
• Get recommended by connections who know and respect your work so that new opportunities have

Junior Web Producer for a Political Campaign

This is interesting, I found this ad on the Toronto version of Craigslist. It looks like the Ralph Nader campaign is looking for dev help in Canada. Why would they need to be looking north of the border?

Here is the complete ad -

Ralph Nader for President 2008 is looking for junior Web producer to join the campaign team.

The position is available immediately and can be done from anywhere. Most of the Web team works remotely (including Toronto, hence this post). The position is full time until November 2008.

The junior Web producer works closely with the rest of the Web team, and the communications team to implement new Web site functionality. Producing Flash / ActionScript “widgets” and simple programming in PHP or Perl, and database administration are all elements of this position. Other requirements are updating Web site content, sending e-mail blasts, and supporting the campaign team via e-mail and telephone. Attendance at once-a-week team meetings is also required.

Responsibilities
+ Wrangle data with cowgirl / cowboy like precision
+ Develop new Web site functionality in Flash / ActionScript, PHP, or Perl
+ Work closely with other members of the Web Team to both develop clear project plans with deliverables and timelines, and to ensure timely completion of deliverables.
+ Communicate to the Web team with efficiency and accuracy any progress and/or delays.
+ Delivering under pressure, and working with limited resources (including sleep)

Should have experience with:
+ Flash / ActionScript
+ jQuery
+ PHP or Perl
+ PostgreSQL / MySQL
+ Unix system tools / shell scripting
+ Subversion / Trac

URL for more information: http://www.votenader.org/

Compensation is negotiable. It is not big, corporate, client rates (probably closer to strapped start-up or non-profit rates). However, it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for someone with left-of-centre politics, and an interest in the US Presidential election process.

If you’re interested in this position, please reply with your resume or CV and at least two references that we can call.

Social Media Jobs Report

At the moment Social Media is the flavour du jour in online marketing. It seems that after Facebook launched its developer platform the idea of reaching folks via social media has been on the rise. Ben Parr from Mashalbe asks the question - “Are Social Media Jobs Here to Stay?“.

Parr goes on to deduce that social media jobs are in fact here to stay -

Companies generally have one overarching goal: to increase profits. And anyone can tell you that keeping current customers (or users) and adding new ones is directly related to that single goal. These two things, keeping current users happy and adding new users, are the purposes of social media jobs.

Since June, Jeremiah Owyang has been collecting a list of “social computing strategists and community managers for enterprise corporations”. You’ll notice from the list of companies that there are some pretty big companies included - Intel, IBM, Cisco, HP, Yahoo, Sony, and Nokia. Even many outside the traditional tech space are getting into the act, such as General Motors, JetBlue, American Express, and Best Buy.

As with most jobs in interactive the job titles are all over the board. Here are some of the social media job titles:

• Social Media & Community Strategist
• Social Media Manager
• Sr. Digital Strategist
• Sr. Mgr, Social Media Marketing
• Manager, Web & Social Media Marketing
• Web Marketing Manager, Social Networking & Social Media
• Social Media Specialist
• Senior Social Media Strategist
• Community Manager

To get an idea of salaries for Social Media jobs I went over to Indeed.com to plot a graph; I compared it to Online Marketing. It seems that the Social Media jobs are better paying but this probably due to the fact that most Social Media jobs are senior level jobs (see list of titles above).

Source: Are Social Media Jobs Here to Stay? [Mashable]