Social Media Campfire is for and by Social Media Professionals who come together to discuss Social Media. This is a higher level discussion for people who work in or with Social Media. Think about sitting at a campfire where you have natural conversations, sharing stories and enjoy spending time with friends. That is what our Social Media Campfires are all about.

Lately, Marieke Hensel and Kathi Kruse have been focusing Campfire meetings around a different speaker each month for an open discussion about how the speaker uses social media in their industry. I’ve spoken with the group about the music industry, Kathy’s shared her incredible experience in the automotive world, and tonight Tim Tyrell-Smith dispensed great advice and knowledge on how to use social media to lay the groundwork for a job search and obtain new employment.

Here are just a few bullet points of some of our great, two-hour discussion:

• Tim started building his brand online by blogging (both on his own site and guest blogging), and through speaking engagements.
• His company is Fix, Build & Drive, a company helping business owners grow by better utilizing online marketing. He’s also developing Tim’s Strategy – software to help job seekers. He’s been working with college career centers to help manage their resources, and human resources departments to help soften the blow to employees in the event of layoffs.
• He says that every time to have the opportunity to connect with someone online is an opportunity to communicate who you are and what makes you different from others who do the same thing. You may not see returns on this immediately, but it’s an important investment to make.
• LinkedIn open networkers and open endorsers are not groups he likes. Basically, “open” people on LinkedIn will connect with or endorse anyone for any topic. I couldn’t help but think of the wild old days of Myspace when people thought it meant something that Tila Tequila had the highest number of friends on the platform. At this rate, LinkedIn isn’t far from becoming meaningless and having to do the amount of soul-searching and niching-down as Myspace is doing now.
• That said, if you’re a job seeker, having a 100% complete profile on LinkedIn is key because it’s still an incredibly valuable way to get a warm introduction to someone at a company you’d like to work for, from whom you may not have heard back otherwise.
• Job seekers can use Twitter to find work by following relevant recruiters (easily found by searching “recruiter”) and participating in Twitter chats like #ResuChat.

One of the things that resonated with me most was Tim’s belief that the most key point of networking, blogging, or public speaking is having the courage to be yourself. Having spent many years working with heavy metal bands, I felt like I had to split my Twitter use into two accounts geared towards music (from a fan’s perspective) and online marketing / web development, respectively. Though I’m not sure I’m being 100% authentic since I’m peeling off these layers of my personality and having them live separately from one another, it makes sense to deliver to those separate audiences the content they’re interested in. He also emphasized how important it is to know what you want and build from there. If you’re focused on one goal, it’s easier to take meaningful action.

Follow Tim on Twitter at @timsstrategy and @FixBuildnDrive.