Here’s an interview I did with the good folks over at PeerIndex. They kindly invited me to an event in London a few months back and we’ve kept in touch since.

My PeerIndex profile (and everyone else’s) is unfortunately frozen so looks a bit dated but they are working on a new layout to presented soon apparently.

You can see the original piece article here: PEERINTERVIEW: Jorgen Sundberg.

1. What attracted you to social media?

I started using social media when I was still a technology recruiter. Historically, recruiters relied on their own database, job adverts and referrals. The calibre of people I was looking for would never apply to jobs, their details on our database would most likely be out of date, so referrals was the main source of finding ‘fresh blood’.

Until of course one day I discovered LinkedIn, luckily ahead of most of the competition. We were able to network on LinkedIn, identify and approach the right candidates, especially the ones who weren’t looking for new roles. So I have social media to thank for a good run in recruitment – and now I am a social media consultant.

2.How do you use social media in your line of work?

In several ways, first of all I use social media to have a professional identity. I know most people will find my LinkedIn and Twitter profiles when they google me. Second, I use it to connect with people I do business with; partners, customers, suppliers and such. Third, I use it for branding; sharing useful updates from our blogs, industry sites, general social media tips ‘n’ tricks. Finally, we also use it to target new clients based on demographics, location, job titles and so on.

3. What five tips can you give on how to be a good influencer?

• Know your purpose – what brings you onto social media in the first place? Is it to get a job, promotion, clients, investors? Have a clear idea of what you want to achieve and try to set some success metrics if possible (e.g. X number of relevant followers by end of Dec).
• Find your voice – you ought to look at what 3-5 things you want to be known for online. The more targeted you can be, the better. Nothing wrong with talking nuclear physics and lol-katz but make sure you get the balance right.
• Find your peers – who will be useful for you to engage with? Who would you love to have read your new blog post or retweet you? Identify the influencers in your space and make sure you get on their radar for the right reasons – apply a non-salesy approach here please.
• Be a leader – retweeting Mashable and TechCrunch all day is not original. Stop looking at what everyone else is doing and do your own thing. People will respect you for having your own opinion and daring to do something different. And you will become a leader in your niche over time.
• And as the question included the word ‘good’, remember that you have influence and you have to use it for good things. Help out with charity campaigns whenever possible, retweet and highlight contributions for less known users and try to be helpful if you have the time. Remember that you are setting an example for lots of new users every day.

4. Where do you see social media going in the next five years?

Finally dropping the word ‘social’? I have a feeling social media will be embedded in everything we do from now on. Humans crave attention from other humans and social media has enabled us to get this wherever we may be (provided there is 3G or WiFi of course).

5. Who is your favourite influential tweeter?

Outside the social recruiting bubble that I operate in, I enjoy tweets from @Queen_UK. Who knew she had such a sense of humour? And adopting technology at that age, well done.

6. Three websites which you would recommend are:

Again outside the recruitment / HR world, I would recommend:

• Social Media Explorer : Nice juicy articles
• Wallblog: For UK related social media
• Guardian Tech: Good writers here

7. If you were an animal what you be and why?

A meerkat, need to sort out car insurance.