Newly Corporate

Generation Y‘s attention is flowing faster and faster away from TV and traditional media towards the internet. We all browse the web for the latest news and information that is relevant to us, whether that is what our friends are doing on Facebook (be careful) or just the latest news and opinions on a wide range of blogs.

The way that we are condensing all this new information into a readable format is through feeds. We read our Facebook feed to keep up with every minute detail of our friends’ actions (especially men) and many of us now read all of our news and blog feeds through RSS readers like Google Reader(you can subscribe to Newly Corporate by RSS or email).

This new format for digesting information through consolidated feeds that we customize rather than fixed feeds managed by the media has changed the way we impact each other on both professional and personal levels. The marketing concept of “share of mind” or market share is becoming “share of feed”. How do you stay ahead of the trend and use this media change to your advantage? Increase your “share of feed”.

Professional “Share of Feed”

Blogs

If your a blogger you probably feel the effects of this already. If you don’t post often enough, you don’t appear often enough in your readers’ feeds and you lose traffic and revenue. Maintaining a good “share of feed” is crucial to your image as a thriving place for people to gain and share insight.

Increase your “share of feed” by: Increasing blog frequency without sacrificing quality

Professional Networking

One of the best ways you can market yourself as a young professional is to join LinkedIn. It helps you connect with those you have worked with throughout your career but, your “Share of Feed” here is crucial as well. You cannot just post your information and leave it or you lose the advantage of the tool. Every time you update something in your profile, make a new connection, add an award you received or even change your picture, you pop up in all of your contacts feeds and their impression of you as and active, motivated young professional increases. It’s not as effective as ADRE like personal calls, email updates or cards but every little bit helps.

Increase your “share of feed” by: Updating your LinkedIn profile, adding awards and connecting with new contacts

Personal “Share of Feed”

Social Networking

  As a young professional doing a rotation away from many of my friends and business peers, the people that remain closest to me are those I converse with via email and phone but, I still feel closer to those who are most active in my Facebook feed. Why? I see their pictures, thoughts and events everyday. The next time I talk to them, I am immediately in sync, I can talk to them about their recent trip to Europe or their new relationship. I have no reference point for those who do not maintain their “share of feed” and therefore they are harder to keep up with socially.

Increase your “share of feed” by: Updating your profile, adding awards and connecting with new contacts, uploading tasteful pictures and sharing relevant links

Pictures

Yes, you can keep all your pictures in Facebook but, they are lower quality and you can’t distribute them easily to your friends outside of the Facebook feed mentioned above. I use Flickr to manage my photos, that way I can set up email delivery for the older, non-feed generation, give my photo RSS feed to my friends for their Google Reader and integrate it into my Facebook with the My Flickr Facebook application. Plus, you can really start to increase your share of feed when you upload pictures directly from your cell phone to your Flickr account where they are distributed to your family via email and to your friends via both RSS feeds and Facebook feeds, automatically!

Increase your “share of feed” by: Setting up Flickr, photo email distribution and sending out your photo RSS address

What if I don’t increase my “share of feed”?

Some people go so far as to call those who don’t use web 2.0 applications Luddites. I am not about to go that far. If you are really good at maintaining all of your relationships manually or have a small group of friends, you’re fine. However, as the web 2.0 world continues to grow with our ever-widening group of contacts, your “share of feed” will become increasingly important. Why not get ahead of the game now?