LinkedIn Guru; Katie Felten

From tweaking your search-ability to connecting with professionals, LinkedIn guru Katie Felten knows it all. On March 1st, Katie Felten stopped into my PR Tactics II class and gave us some helpful tips on how to stand out in a crowd, use LinkedIn to our professional advantage, and told real life stories on how her LinkedIn, http://www.linkedin.com/in/katiefelten, has positively impacted her company.

She first explained all the different ways we are able to transform LinkedIn from a simple template and throw some personal twist into it. An example of this is when one has a website that is linked to their LinkedIn. Instead of having the bland "my website" she showed us how we are able to personalize this section and instead have our website link say "Sydney's Website" or "check out my website". Another little twist of personalization that she showed our class was with the searchable words in our headliner. By putting words that we are able to be searched by, Katie explained that we are more likely to be found on LinkedIn and therefore the greater possibility of getting recruited for a job.

Katie told my class a time where just being a part of different groups on LinkedIn has landed her very important clients. She said that by connecting with organizations or individuals on a personal level because of their interests is a great way to get to know the "real" person behind the LinkedIn and ultimately creating a personal and professional bridge.

As a promoter and strategist for MKELIVE365, Katie is very well known PR professional in the Greater Milwaukee Area. She extended her knowledge of not only LinkedIn and how it can professionally advance an individual, but just in the short amount of listening to Katie I was able to establish that she has a passion for not only social media but for her job as a whole. Since listening to Katie in my classroom, I have started following her on her twitter and find most her tweets to be quite interesting, entertaining, and informative. Because of her love and drive that she has for the PR field, Katie has inspired me to reach for the stars and start networking with the big wigs- one connection at a time!

The Big Girl World

Well folk, I've officially have gotten over the "What am I going to do with myself after college?" faze and have entered into the realm of "I can not wait to get my butt out of here and get a Big Girl job"...almost.

Last night I attended BMA- Milwaukee's event called Lightening Round Speed Interviewing which was held at Manpower Headquarters in Milwaukee (picture of the headquarters shown above). While at the event I was able to connect with many different professionals, listen in on an great informative seminar presented by Fullhouse, and even had the chance to take part in speed interviewing and resume building sessions.

When at the Fullhouse presentation, @Apiwarun, @haleylandsman, and @stratocasting gave helpful tips on how young professionals or aspiring college students should network by using social media. Of course we have worked with social media in the classroom and even had assignments utilizing social media, but until you hear that you can actually get a job because you send a direct message to the right person at the right time on Twitter- you don't realize the impact social media is having on today's society.

Now when you think of speed interviewing, think of speed dating on steroids. Picture 30+ professionals sitting at individual tables waiting for the next Marketing and PR Wanna Be's to sit down in front of them. Although intimidating at first, after the first handshake I felt right at home. I learned through the speed interviewing that it is best to just stay confident in who you are, prove you deserve to be where you are today because of your experience, maintain a positive attitude, keep smiling, and everything else will fall into place. Sure there may be someone that will criticize how you said something, or possibly give you in site on how to better approach an answer - but in the end isn't that what the event is all about?

Not only do I feel that by going to this BMA event I was able to leave with some great connections, I also feel that by going to this event I am even more confident that I can make it out there in the "real world". I am ready to take the world by storm, one interview at a time.