December 17, 2012
Likes, follows, endorsements: Are they worth it?
NWjobs
The word "like" may be one of the most abused words in the English language. Not only does Webster's categorize the word in seven distinct classes of language — verb, noun, adjective, preposition, adverb, conjunction and verbal auxiliary — the word is, like, totally everywhere in today's casual conversation.
In the last few years, "like" has been given yet another irritating resurgence with the advent of social media. "Please like me on Facebook," has become as ubiquitous as those old reader-service cards used to be, back in the days of printed magazines when they'd fall into your lap. The same goes for "Follow me on Twitter." Sure, these requests can gather clicks, but is there any measurable value behind all this liking and following? These responses rarely tell hiring managers anything more useful than the amount of people with whom a person has made connections.
Besides, it's becoming much easier for people you don't know to break into your Facebook page for the purposes of marketing. Writing in the ReadWrite Social blog, Web developer Bernard Meisler recounts a disturbing trend of mysterious "likes" popping up on his news feed after taking part in the Sponsored Links program. Friends, he says, would appear to endorse political candidates they never chose or recently deceased people would chime in to like certain products.
To help sort out some of this mess, Dan Zarella, a scientist at the HubSpot marketing software firm, wanted to find an equation to determine, in dollars, just how much every like or follow is worth. After crunching the data, he came up with this formula to calculate the "value of a link," or VOAL:
VOAL = L/UpM x (LpD x 30) x (C/L) x CR x ACV
The variables for the equation include many of the metrics found in social media analytics software, such as total likes (L), unlikes per month (UpM), links per day (LpD), average clicks (C), conversion rate (CR) and average conversion value (ACV). For more details, see Zarella's deeper explanation of the main terms or visit his VOAL calculator to punch in your own variables.
Today, there's a new social media trend on the rise: the "endorsement" feature that began in September on LinkedIn. You may have seen members of your network contact you out of the blue — "John Doe has endorsed you for copyediting," "Jane Smith has endorsed you for project management." The notices then encourage you to do the same for everyone in your network, citing dozens of common attributes found in the Skills & Expertise section of people's profiles.
While the endorsement function seems, at first, to be a simple tool for hiring managers to identify skills, the action required takes almost no thought. There is no way to explain, in just one click, why this person is being endorsed or the degree to which the person has honed that skill. Critics have complained that these quickie endorsements have degraded the value of LinkedIn by encouraging endorsements from people who may not be close contacts — in effect, making the serious and professional LinkedIn look too much like the casual free-for-all on Facebook.
Eventually, LinkedIn says it plans to weigh these endorsements in search algorithms, so that the more endorsements you receive, the more often you'll appear in search results. For the moment, though, the comments on some of the LinkedIn discussion pages have not been kind to the new feature.
So what are your experiences so far? Has LinkedIn's new endorsement feature had any affect on your job search? Let us know!
Randy Woods writes about job-search tools, networking techniques and other tips to help you land your dream job.
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Karen Burns is the author of The Amazing Adventures of Working Girl, a career guide based on her 59 jobs over 40 years in 22 cities.
Lisa Quast is a certified career coach, mentor, business consultant, former corporate executive and author based in the Seattle area.
Randy Woods writes about job-search tools, networking techniques and other tips to help you land your dream job.
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Matt Youngquist is the president of Career Horizons, a career counseling firm.
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Michelle Goodman is the author of "My So-Called Freelance Life" and "The Anti 9-to-5 Guide."
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HI ! Likes, follows, endorsements are meaningful or we can say that they are most important in today's world specially for social media. Meaning of LIKE is totally changed or become very casual.