The book 7 Habbits of Highly Effective People was written by the author Stephen Covey. This book includes the following habbits:
Be proactive
Begin with the end in mind
Put first things first
Think win/win
Seek first to understand, then be understood
Synergize
Sharpen the saw
The first habit that I can definitely see myself having to begin with the end in mind. Everytime I go to do something, I always tend to think of the end result. When ever the process gets boring, thinking of the end result gives myself motivation to get the job done. I find focusing on the end result stops your mind from being distracted by other things that can stop you from being productive. In my mind, there is no time for a plan B because I am too distracted thinking about plan A.
The next habit I can see in myself is putting first things first. I always like to identify the key roles I want to play in my life. From then on, I prioritize to see which is most important. Right now my priorities are
Family
School
Gym
Work
Girlfriend
I make sure I prioritize my day according to this list.
The last habit I can see in myself is, seek to understand, then seek to be understood. While conversing with anyone, I always try to get a general understanding of that person before I ever even try to give them any information. I find that learning about someone before spilling your guts out to them always helps so you know what that person wants to hear. If you understand that person, you then know what not to say to them that might come off as offensive and you know what you can say that might help benefit that person.
I can apply these habits throughout my education by first, knowing to prioritize my schooling above everything accept family to help ensure the most time possible to help myself get a good grade. Second, I find if I picture myself getting a good mark on this assignment, it betters my chances of that actually happening ;). Third, and most importantly, by seeking to understand in college will give myself the knowledge to hopefully be understood when I get into the workforce.
After going through a fair bit of research I have found many different interesting social media tools that could potentially be incredibly helpful for business professionals. A couple unique tools that really caught my attention were NeedTager, Virally App, and HootSuite, Mention, and Dropbox.
NeedTagger is a search tool used for twitter. Instead of having to waste your time searching through many tweets to find what you are looking for, you can use NeedTager to find conversations worth looking into. Many business professionals use twitter as an outlet for marketing opportunities for their goods and services. Sometimes, professionals have a problem finding the most relevant tweets to use for potential opportunities. This tool is a great, efficient way to fix this problem.
VirallyApp is a great tool for business professionals looking to seek more information about their online customers/viewers. Usually, anyone can access information posted on a businesses website. With VirallyApp, business owners can restrict users from accessing data on their website until the user signs in to their preferred social network (Facebook, Linkedin). With VirallyApp, business professionals can access all users social network data to help give them a much better understanding of their customer.
The most popular tool I have looked into is HootSuite. HootSuite is a very well-known social media tool used for brand management. Many companies such as McDonalds, PepsiCo, and Lamborghini, use Hootsuite to help manage their company brand. HootSuite is a browser-based dashboard that allows companies to keep updated on all of their social media outlets. This tool also allows users to send messages through all of their outlets as efficiently as possible and manage all media settings from the same database.
Another great social media tool used for business is a web-based app called Mention. With Mention, you can scan the internet for any blogs, videos, photos, forums, etc, that are related to your company. This can help business professionals by giving helping them efficiently find feedback on their organization.
Dropbox is a fantastic social media tool for business professionals in today’s society. Dropbox is basically an online cloud in which you can store files. It saves users from ever having to use a USB stick again, and gives them an easy way to access their files from any computer around the world. Once you save a file on your computer, Dropbox automatically saves it into its cloud so you can access it whenever, wherever.
Here are two interesting websites to check out that have information on different social media tools that are great for business:
Business professionals use social media tools for self-promotion/marketing everyday. Professionals use social media as an outlet to advertise goods and services to a mass amount of users. Examples of social media outlets that professionals use are:
Facebook
Twitter
Linkedin
Slideshare
Youtube
The idea of creating a personal, professional brand image through these social media tools is a great way to advertise yourself and help advance your career. You can create a professional brand image through these outlets by posting professional examples of yourself through the different formats provided. Social media tools such as Facebook,Twitter, and Linkedin, only provide you with a format and an audience. How you use these formats to portray yourself for the audience provided is completely up to you, and directly determines whether or not you are in fact portraying a personal, professional brand image. Great ways of using these formats to portray a professional image include posting:
Any impressive work experience
Presentable/professional looking pictures
Volunteer experience
Awards
Job recruiters use social media all the time to help looking for potential employees. Kijiji is a great example of a social media tool used for recruiting employees. Kijiji allows employers to post up ads so interested candidates can reply with their cover letters and resumes. Another great example of tools job recruiters use is Linkedin. With Linkedin, Employers can search through possible candidates by looking at all of their career information already posted on their profiles. This is a great way to filter through to see which candidates are worthy of the needed job position.
Sources:
Fisher, L. (2011). 7 Smart Social Media Tools for Business, . Retrieved from:
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