No posts, no traffic

Blogging on hiatus

I’ve been too busy to blog for a long time and it really shows – see the stats of the About page below!

I made some updates on the page to explain the situation, but I can see the irony between my social media blog topic and the execution.

 

Exploring the photo world

On summer vacation I’ve revived my photo hobby and also explored some photo product sites like Crated, Fine Art America, Redbubble and Society6. Have a look if you’d find eg a card, print, mug, T-shirt, pencil skirt or a shower curtain of your liking :)

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Statistics on Google url shortener https://goo.gl/B5M4TA+

Metropolia in Twitter

President shows example

The President of our school, Ms Riitta Konkola, has recently started to tweet (@RiittaKonkola). That gave me the idea to have a look at the current Twitter accounts of Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences. 

Accounts of various functions

Below are the accounts I found by the Twitter search using “metro” and few other accounts I know are maintained by Metropolia staff.

Metropolia Twitter accounts 6.2.2014

Activity varies

The activity of the accounts varies e.g. according to the resources invested in it. Some accounts have more people producing content than others.

Some projects in Metropolia have used Twitter and when the project finish, the account gets silent. The same may happen, if an active member leaves a Twitter production team.

Depending on the profile of the account, it takes more or less time to produce tweets on a regular basis. You may

• tweet your own messages and links
• re-tweets from other accounts
• automated tweets from e.g. Facebook or Paper.li

Apart from the automated tweets from Paper.li, it takes time both to construct own tweets and find tweets worth re-tweeting. Even the automated tweets from Facebook have to be created first – of course it may be another team doing that.

Continuity – case @MetroCareer

While working for the Career Services I launched @MetroCareer in 2010. I collected accounts on few lists to showcase job searching and recruiting related tweets, made two digipapers out of the tweets @MetroCareer followed by Paper.li and re-tweeted about job searching and recruiting. 

@MetroCareer is still the second followed account of the school, even if it was silent for almost 3 months after the termination of my work contract in last October.

When I came back to Metropolia in last November, I got a new interest in @MetroCareer eventhough my position is no longer in Career Services. At the moment we are three interested metropolians “unofficially helping out”: Ms Louise Stansfield from Business School (@Finnfield), Ms Milla Hakkarainen from Alumni Relations (@Millalaa) and yours truly. 

It’d be great to see @MetroCareer continue with proper resources – Twitter is great add to the customer service palette.

Twitter, @MetroCareer 6.2.2014

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Related:

@MetroCareer

@Finnfield
@Millalaa
@RiittaKonkola

Paper.li: The Metropolia Career Daily
Paper.li: The Jobs in Finland Daily

Metropolia: Management Group

On Second Thought: How To Network Using Twitter And Facebook?
On Second Thought: Social Media On University Homepages In Finland
On Second Thought: Fired! What Does A Social Media Enthusiast Do? 

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Statistics on Google url shortener http://goo.gl/iB1KvJ+

Fired! What Does A Social Media Enthusiast Do?

Photo: Office décor. Leppävaara, Espoo, Finland 30.9.2013
(Edited with G+ Edit & ipiccy,
CC BY Tiina M Niskanen)

First hand experience

I can’t say about what other people would do, but here’s some first hand experience from few months ago.

My contract at the Career Services was terminated last October after 15 years of service as the result of general co-operation negotiations in the Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences.

Openness: theory and practice

I had been pondering a good deal about privacy issues when entering the social media sphere – both on personal and professional level.

I had also got familiar with the idea of openness as a part of work processes, as a way to achieve enriching encounters with colleagues and beyond.

I had fallen in love with concepts like serendipity, iterative processes and agile development.

The only way I could think of handling the pink slip, was to tell openly about the situation and hope it leads to new openings.

Walk the talk – online and in real life

Pretty soon after I got the news that I won’t be needed at the workplace anymore, I started to inform all relevant parties both online and in real life. Below is quite a long list – I wonder if I’ve still forgotten something.

On duty

• social media
  • Facebook
  • Google+
  • Twitter
  • xTune
  • Yammer: Metropolia, Finnish Universities and a project network
• other
  • colleagues on phone and face to face
  • automatic replies to email: personal & team 
  • emails to network connections: Finnish Career Services Network, steering group of the nationwide Jobstep.net 
  • removing eg my name and contact info from the company website – sort of negative informing

Off duty

• social media
  • Facebook
  • Google+
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
• other
  • family, friends, acquaintances on phone and face to face

Results

I got a heart warming amount of kindness, support and job tips after I came out with my situation.

Can’t say it’s all due to my openness, but in less than two months I was back at work.

Funnily enough, I got a 10 months fixed term contract from my former employer as a Programme Coordinator for the Faculty of Welfare and Human Functioning.

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Related:

Metropolia: Career Services
Metropolia: Faculty of Welfare & Human Functioning

xTune
Yammer

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