What is a Status Update, anyway?
Status updates on Land Surveyors United can be an important method to employ when building your reputation online. While you can sync your profile to Twitter and Facebook and simultaneously update your status, you can also use this feature to keep track of where you have been, where you're working and the types of surveying you are performing. Status updates on Land Surveyors United appear in the latest activity feed and show up on your LSU profile. They can be updated either from your profile page, on our network's main page and now on the new mobile LSU interface. I realized a while back that surveyors would have little use for this feature until there was a way to archive them and revisit them years later. That time has come!
So What's New With Status?
Since my initial revamp of the network Activity Feed (main page), we've been steadily improving it and adding more based on surveyor requests on the network. One of the biggest requests on networks for other industries has revolved around status updates. For a long time, when someone would post a status update directly in the Activity Feed, it would exist only as long as it remained in the Activity Feed. Once it dropped out of the bottom of the feed, it was nowhere to be found. The reason: the status update had nowhere to "live" — it existed as a temporary item with no place to call home in our network.
This is no longer the case! We're happy to report that each status update now has its own individual page.
Notice in this screenshot above that this page has its own dedicated URL (click the image and you'll see that you can comment and share a status now). This is where this particular status update lives — along with all of the replies that have since followed the status update.
What's visually different with this release?
Now that status updates have been beefed up, you'll notice a link in the Activity Feed whenever you see a Status Update, like so:
This link will lead to your associate's status update page. On that page, you can edit or delete a status post. You can also edit or delete comments on a status post.
As you might expect, commenting on a status post will be reflected in the second location. Comment on someone's status update, and your comment will also show up in the Activity Feed. Comment on someone's status update in the Activity Feed, and your comment will also show up on the individual status update page.
Why Should a Surveyor Care About Status?
If anyone in the world should be focused on their status update, it is a surveyor. Why? Because you're not telling people what you ate for lunch or the fact that you've lost your keys, you are creating a timeline of your work history. You can simply log on to the network or your mobile phone and simply type what type of work you are doing and where and then go about your business. This simple 140 character or less update now lasts forever (on it's own page) and you can go back to it anytime in the future and make remarks. Whether you believe me or not, this type of activity WILL help your reputation online, as long as your updates are positive and eye-catching. Now that you have the ability to comment on status updates, your network will increase and your brand will have more exposure. As long as you sync your social accounts with your profile, your social media work has been cut in half!
I have engineered every aspect of Land Surveyors United in such a way that your social networking activity with your fellow surveyors doubles as marketing for your skills and experience. Using the network to build your reputation online is using it correctly. I hope you enjoy these improvements and create a more enjoyable surveying life for yourself, both on and offline.
Thoughts