Size matters when it comes to salary negotiations
The larger your social network, the higher paid you’re likely to be. According to Anderson Analytics, the $200k+ crowd is spectacularly outgoing, at least from behind their laptops.
Most contact involves complete strangers, since the outside limit on real friends might be as high as 50 and probably closer to five, per Fast Company. Your worth in the job market may depend on your ability to engage the 57,562 people in your LinkedIn Innovative Marketers group – or whatever mega church (metaphorically speaking) that is the place of worship for your industry or occupation.
In Sunday’s New York Times, Cisco CEO John Chambers admits social media is key to his mega-salaried job, even though he characterizes himself as a “command and control” kind of guy, who was pushed from below to engage with all 67,000 people who work for him. A new and true believer, he won’t hire anyone who isn’t “naturally inclined toward collaboration,” in the Web 2.0 kind of way.
How do you prove just how collaborative you are, and hence what you’re worth?
Like a Topps athlete’s trading card, stats about the sheer number of Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn friends, followers and connections are just a starting point, especially with the current cap on Twitter. What traders will pay largely comes down to your perceived value. That cascades from what you do to attract and engage followers, just like a business or celebrity.
Surprisingly, most of the highest earning athletes don’t post the biggest numbers on the playing field. They get paid a base, plus performance bonuses from their teams. But, where do these folks make the majority of their income? Personality-driven sponsorships deals.
According to Forbes magazine, “This explains why Dale Earnhardt Jr. was the highest earner (among NASCAR drivers) at $35 million … despite winning only one race…. Earnhardt’s endorsements and licensing royalties made him $23 million… His salary and race winnings accounted for (just) $12 million.”
Employers aren’t buying you. They are buying your trading card, your perceived value. What’s a fair price and how can you influence it?
Tips for increasing compensation offers
1. Improve your social media metrics, the quantity of friends and followers you have, but avoid black hat techniques or you’ll be labeled a cheater.
2. Improve the quality of your social media actions. Your posts, tweets and invites are the often over-looked quality metric that takes more work. “Going for coffee” is over. Re-tweeting your industry guru is better. Linking to an online industry article you’ve written: very valuable because it may draw the following that leads to higher compensation.
3. Google or Bing yourself, more often than you check your credit report. Learn what recruiters know about you, before they do.
Author:
Nance Rosen is the author of Speak Up! & Succeed. She speaks to business audiences around the world and is a resource for press, including print, broadcast and online journalists and bloggers covering social media and careers. Read more at NanceRosenBlog. Twitter name: nancerosen.
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As a founder of an Internet marketing company, I agree that with your article in that my partners and I are looking to see the social reach-ability of an individual when considering an employee for hire. . . this might sound cliche but YOU are the most important brand that exists and as such you should spend a good amount of time working on your own percieved brand value.
Thanks Nance.
[...] Be the kind of networker employers pay big bucks for [...]
This is a great message. My present employer made Social Media skills a big deal in my present gig. Its definitely a necessity to make sure your profiles are clean to the point. Your own brand is everything.
One of the biggest mistakes I made in my 12-year career of running business operations for very rapidly growing startups is that, while I lived in Chicago, I did very little networking. I did not have to. I had people calling me day in and day out, so if I needed something, I just looked through my contacts.
Than I moved to Boston for family reasons. My Chicago “rolodex” was almost worthless. New guy in a market I knew no one in and no one knew about me. I had to work very hard to build my “rolodex” and social media was HUGE help. LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc. are many tools I use and I am starting to have people recognize me at events who I never met before in person. It takes hard work, but you have to do it.
Great article. I often see that you should google/bing yourself – but what if your name is sort of generic? Unless I include my middle name, I can’t find myself for several pages in! Any tips on how to differentiate myself?
[...] bloggers and media who brought the story to a gob-smacking amount of sites. Read the full article Employers Reward Savvy Networkers Who Don’t Fear Strangers on [...]
“The larger your social network, the higher paid you’re likely to be. According to Anderson Analytics, the $200k+ crowd is spectacularly outgoing, at least from behind their laptops.”
Is this correlation, or causation? Isn’t it possible that the top earners are in that position because they have proven effectiveness and are of good character, which is also the reason people want to know them and be part of their social network?
Networking and providing education to my associates are the only ways that I have been able to grow my company. This article once again illustrates that people who produce relevant knowledge will cause the market to flourish … you provided in-depth research that took time and is useful for employers.
Also, I really like the sports analogy. Did you know that white baseball players with similar stats to Hispanic baseball players are paid more! I think it is because they are more marketable (greater network) .