Have you ever followed a potential employer on Facebook or Twitter and engaged in conversations? According to Maximum Employment Marketing Group, their new survey introduced an objective and fact-based tool to measure effectiveness of employers’ reach to candidates on social media, better known as the Social Recruitment Monitor. The survey revealed top companies utilizing social media and in turn, explained how the monitor works.

Taco Bell and Northrop Grumman topped the list out of 109 U.S. companies because they were most effective in generating likes/follows, engagement and community interaction with their audiences. The SRM is currently free to use whereby employers can determine the impact of their social media campaigns on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. Read more

According to our friends at ERE.net, LinkedIn made two announcements at its conference this week in Sydney, Australia.

First up? CheckIn. Here’s how it works: At an event, let’s say you stop by an employer booth and give your name and email address to a recruiter. Although this is technically from a recruiter’s vantage point, the talent acquisition professional can send follow up messages to you through the site. As of July, we hear this will be fully up and running.

As for the other new enhancement, LinkedIn is changing their social campaign. Again, this is from a recruiters standpoint but it’s still good to know the inside scoop. Previously, recruiters could send updates to company followers via their company page. Well, they’ll be able to do it from “Recruiter” going forward and will be able to track responses.

It’s been a busy week for the professional networking site. Earlier this week, they announced an enhancement to LinkedIn Today by introducing multiple channels. Associate product manager Kevin Gu wrote in his blog post on the site, “Through channels you can follow broader topic areas that cross multiple industries and professional sectors. By following channels you will have access to timely and relevant professional news and insights that can help you stay one step ahead and be in the know on what’s trending in your professional network.”

He added, “Channels represent a more comprehensive way to discover, share, and engage with high-quality Influencer posts, top news sources, and SlideShare content — all in one place.”

As an intern, maybe you fetched your share of coffee for colleagues but this story is quite unusual…

Our friends at AOL Jobs mentioned the Weather Channel interns are involved with a simulated tornado on camera as part of “Tornado Week.” No worries though, the @TornadoWeek Twitter feed indicated, “No interns were harmed in the making of this in office tornado.”

Aspiring employees take turns sitting in an office with electric fans. Get this — as they get more and more tweets, the tornado becomes stronger and stronger. They’re still doing their work at their desks, huddled in hoodies and continue with a business as usual mindset.

LinkedIn is an incredible resource for lead generation, networking, and career development. Discover how to become a power user and enhance your current career or job search in Mediabistro’s LinkedIn: Job Search and Networking course starting May 14, 2013. Over six weeks, instructor Delia Camasca, a recruiter for NBC Universal, Disney ABC Media Networks, and Lifetime Networks, will show you how to:

• Build a strategic profile on LinkedIn that is rich in keywords and SEO tags
• Research companies and build relationships with new contacts
• Start, join, and partake in LinkedIn Group discussions
• Develop a comprehensive LinkedIn Company Page for your business or brand

This new course starts on May 14, 2013 and early registrations prior to May 13 will save $50. Use the code LINKEDIN50 to redeem. Limited seating is available, so don’t wait! Register today and start building your professional relationships.

Business executives at the director level and above prefer LinkedIn as their go-to social media site, as Forbes mentioned a recent study conducted by DHR International and Modern Survey.

Although execs revealed they still frequently use Twitter (27%) and Facebook (44%), LinkedIn got top billing. The second tier encompassed blogs, Pinterest and Google+.

A similar study was conducted three years ago and over the years LinkedIn has increased its lead to surpass other Web sites. In addition to the sites logged onto most frequently, the study showed that executives engage in social media only one hour or less per week. And although they’re not avid users, they are daily users.

Executives revealed in the survey they would be engaged more online if they were actively searching for a new career opportunity, if they better understood the benefits and if the items learned were consistently high value.

Remember when the Macarena was a big hit back in the mid-’90s? On second thought, let’s not go there.

Hasn’t the Harlem Shake had it’s 15 minutes of fame already? But alas…we need to talk about a recent situation which brings up fodder for social media conversations and how they relate to your employer.

You see, two Atlanta actors created a Harlem Shake video early last month in a Wells Fargo lobby with several of its employees. Here’s the kicker: The Associated Press reports bank officials indicated they did not approve it ahead of time. That said, employees participated in the filming on their own time. Read more

We caught up with Peter Shankman, founder of HARO, entrepreneur and soon-to-be-father, regarding his new book, Nice Companies Finish First. The principle hits close to home for Shankman; after all, he makes it his business to be nice. Literally.

He told MediaJobsDaily in an exclusive phone interview, “I’m starting a new company with someone — a very high level person at a PR firm – a start-up and we’re going to create a company that teaches companies how to create these moments of niceness that can actually generate some revenue and cut their marketing budget by half.”

Planning to launch by June 1 at the latest, Shankman already has five clients lined up. The name is yet to be announced but in the meantime, he’ll include updates on his blog. “It’s going to be a lot of fun,” he said.

Okay, as for being nice itself, think about the impact being nice can do. Not only is it about the sake of being nice for being nice, being cordial and respectful bodes you and your company well.

“It’s not just a book about business. This is life altering,” he explained.  ”It can not only get you the good employees and the good bonus, it can also get you the good car upgrade at the rental car, the best table at the restaurant, the girl.” Read more

You’re looking for work, but you can’t figure out who you really need to talk to. “Score That Job” can help.

In this episode of “Score That Job,” career expert, author and mediabistro editor Vicki Salemi sat down with Lori Rubinson of Lippe Taylor, a New York agency with clients like IKEA and Elizabeth Arden that focuses on women through public relations, advertising and social marketing.

>You may remember Lippe Taylor from an episode of “Cubes”: Cubes: Office Tour of PR Agency Lippe Taylor

Find out why they’re looking for someone who is creative, not “boring” nice and how you can “Score That Job.”

You can view our other MediabistroTV productions on our YouTube Channel.

Ah, apps. We live in a day and age were we certainly can’t live without ‘em once we discover good ones. The following list is no exception.

According to our friends at Brazen Careerist, there are a few apps that can expand your network, help host effective calls and manage post-meeting work.

1. Rapportive. Google schmoogle. Seriously. This app helps you learn about someone from the comfort of your Gmail inbox. Instead of searching on Google, when you hover over an email and the contact’s photo, all sorts of goodness emerges. That is, the person’s most recent tweets, Facebook and LinkedIn profiles and more appears in the sidebar. As for the details, Rapportive is free! It’s an add-on perk available for Chrome, Firefox as well as Safari.  Read more

Here’s a conundrum: You’re management, you’ve just laid off a group of employees but oops! You forgot one of them, a community manager, still has access to your Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Enter HMV. Last week the British entertainment retailer let go 190 employees, one of whom was Poppy Rose, the community manager.  You can guess what happened next: Rose started live tweeting about the lay offs.

Read more