Whether you are looking for a job or just staying connected to your professional community, social media is extremely important to your image. Social Media is your new online resume. According to Jobvite's Social Recruiting Survey, 89% of US companies will use Social Networking for recruiting. And, 58% of these companies recruit passive candidates, so even if you aren't looking, they are! Will they find you? How can you use social media for your career advancement? First things first, check your online reputation because others are. Google yourself and see if what comes up is appropriate. Google has tips for you if you find something that needs to be removed. Use Reppler.com to help keep your Facebook page clean and safe. It reads your posts and rates how positive you are plus gives you tips on creating a more secure page.

Of the companies surveyed by Jobvite, 87% use LinkedIn and 2/3 use two or more networks for recruiting.

LinkedIn is really only useful if you build a robust profile and make it public so people can find you. Include detail and be keyword savvy by selecting words that are used in the industry.

Photo - add a professional head shot
Headline - slogan for your personal brand
Summary - highlight your unique skills and specialties
Experience - this should read like your resume
Groups - be a joiner and contribute questions and answers, create your own group, you can edit the visibility of each group for more privacy
Public Profile - claim your public profile URL and make it public then use address on cards, blogs, email sig
Make connections - add your business cards, search by company, schools, association, add the app to your phone
Ask for Introductions - write it up and then ask your contact to pass it on
Ask for recommendations
Add your company website, blog and Twitter account

Once you have your LinkedIn info added, you can use Re.vu to make a visual resume. A cool infographic of your work experience will really grab the hiring manager's attention.

Since recruiters also use Facebook and Twitter you need to make sure you have a professional presence there:

Add the Branch Out app to turn your Facebook friends into professional connections
Set up a professional account for Twitter
Update your bio and link to your resume
Learn to use Hash tags add keywords
Twitter job search sites: TwitJobSearch, TweetMyJobs, jobshouts
Follow people--OneDayOneJob has a nice list of 50 Twitter Users to Follow for Your Job Search

Glassdoor has free salary information by title and company. There are also company reviews. If you sign up and provide your salary information, you get access to all the salaries and reviews. You can also see if your Facebook friends have any company connections.

If you need help reworking or updating your resume, check out these resume guidelines from the Career Design Center of the College of Natural Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin.

Social Media for Career Advancement on Prezi

You've probably got a LinkedIn page for connecting with your professional contacts, but what about tapping your friend network when you're in the market for a new job? BranchOut is a new service that turns your Facebook page into a professional networking page by carving out only your professional information to make a business profile via Facebook that only includes information about where you and your friends (and their friends) work and leaves out non-job-obtaining information like the fact that you totally heart Twilight and that you've recently found a cow wandering on your farm. It will also automatically import your resume information from LinkedIn. Once it's set up, you can see how many degrees you are from the place you want to work by checking out not only where your friends work, but also where their friends work. I'll admit that at first I wondered why anyone would need this when we've already got LinkedIn but I can see how it would be especially helpful if you've got more contacts on Facebook than LinkedIn assuming you don't necessarily add all your friends to your professional contacts via LinkedIn. The video below is a pretty good explanation of how BranchOut works.