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It's 3am and you're awake, staring into the glow of your laptop computer.

It's been a month since you got the dreaded pink slip. You've had leads, even landed a few job interviews, but no job offers, not yet.

The unemployment rate in the state isn't great at 6.2 percent, and at least we're not auto-industry laden Michigan with its 12.9 percent jobless rate, but still. How to stand out against all those applicants? Isn't there a better way to land a job than to send 400 resumes to nondescript HR post offices boxes? And, by the way, how much do singing telegrams cost these days?

Then, you've got mail--e-mail, that is. It's from your mom. She asks if "this Facebook thing" is populated by ax murderers and child molesters and ice cream men and, if not, maybe it could help you in your job search.

The answer? Of course. How? Indeed.

The best way to learn to best wield Facebook, along with Twitter, LinkedIn and the rest of the social media swamp, is to listen to the experts. So, I sought out the dynamic duo of Tulsa's technorati.

First, there's Bill Handy. Bill, a journalism professor at the home of the Pokes, is one of a handful of social media professors in the world (yes, world). He's a rare bird, for sure, and this thought leader lives right here in T-Town.

Then there's Matt Galloway, the engineer-by-day, social media and marketing hobbyist by night. He can't be missed on Twitter thanks to a sharp wit, an eye for analytics and resourcefulness that puts us traditional media types to shame.

We grabbed some burgers and root beer and sat down to expand on an entry at Handy's blog, BillHandy.com, about what he calls the social media resume.

Q. What's the best way to get started using social media, and what are some reasons for doing it?

Galloway: Before you think about how to leverage this stuff for evil--the future of your career--ask yourself if you already have a presence online. If you do, is it suitable to be seen by a future employer? If not, fix that first.

Handy: At the same time, don't get paranoid about it. More and more when I ask employers when they see a photo on Myspace of an applicant with a beer in his hand if it's a deal breaker, they say no. It just doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

People aren't using social media as much to figure out what's wrong with an applicant. The reality is, all the HR managers in the world that are looking at your Facebook page, they remember when they were in college, and they had photos of themselves sitting on a beach with a beer. They just didn't have the format to put them out en masse. You can't try to hold people to a higher standard than we held ourselves just because there are more people watching. We are who we are. Don't fake it.

Q. Once you have an electronic resume, what's the next step?

Handy: There's so much more to getting a job using social media than just social media. It still comes back to that face-to-face marketing, networking and following up again and again. Social media isn't a springboard; your talent is. Social media is just another tool to get it out. It's not a golden ticket.

Before you put your resume on a social media site, make sure you have a good resume.

Galloway: If social media accelerates and amplifies your voice, make sure what you're saying is high-quality.

Q. Why bother with social media if I could just head to a local, face-to-face networking event?

Galloway: One of the biggest benefits to social media is the ability to meet people you couldn't have met in any other way. You can get an audience with them, and you can build a rapport with them so that when you do need to leverage those relationships, they're built.

Don't let that first interaction be, 'Hey, are you hiring?' That's the worst possible first interaction you could have in social media. It's free, it's easy and it's big, true. But, like anything else, you need to commit time, effort and energy to reap benefits. People often miss that.

Handy: If you're looking for a job, you should have a business plan on finding a job.

Eighty percent of your time spent in social media should be spent listening. If your industry is engineering, use social media to listen to the engineers. If it's marketing, listen to the marketers--go back to school. You can get an enormous education in a brief period of time from the greatest thought leaders in the world in your area of expertise.

Galloway: Understand the trends and topics. Identify the influencers. Also, listen for how that social medium is being used so that when it's time to interact, you're abiding by the social contract of whatever the network. We do this inherently in the real world, but we don't always when we get online.

Q. How can social media help job applicants to stand out?

Galloway: Sometimes people try to be too clever. They look at social media and say, 'I'm going to use this to figure out who the top person is, and I'm going to get through to him or her. I'm going to send a singing telegram, really set myself apart.' But, a company has set processes for hiring. You need to figure out how to stand out within those processes. Otherwise, what you're trying to do will backfire.

Handy: If you want a job, figure out what it's going to take to get that job. Don't assume social media is going to do it for you.

Again, social media is a strategy. So is e-mail. So are written documents like resumes. I'm convinced that, 10 years from now, we're going to look back and say, 'Yes, social media changed the way we communicate. It created a true, two-way, symmetrical communication platform--the whole world gets a voice.' But, e-mail still works great.

Galloway: Global, symmetrical communication platform--wasn't that what we got when we invented the telephone? Now we're all carry them around with us, and if I push in the right numbers, I can be talking with anyone in the world.

Handy: My favorite line about social media: 'It's not revolutionary. It's evolutionary.'

Q. How can a job hunter use social media as a personal branding tool?

Galloway: I hate the phrase, 'personal branding.'

Handy: Yeah. My bullshit meter goes sky-high when I hear that term.

Your brand is your reputation, bottom line. It's not something you create out of nothing. If you try to fake it in the social media world, you will get eaten alive. You might be able to pull it off at a dinner or a meeting with execs, but in the long term, you are who you are.

Galloway: You look at large organizations that are doing social media wrong. We can tell they're misstepping, but then as individuals we turn around and do the exact same thing. The old-school approach to branding is a crafting of a facade designed to be attractive to the consumer, and it's disconnected from who the company actually is. In the age of transparency, that's not going to fly. There is no brand separate from you.

Handy: I'd hate to represent myself as someone I'm not, only to land a job working with individuals who'd prefer to work with this persona I'd created versus work with me. How miserable would that be?

To continue down the rabbit hole, hop on Twitter and follow @billhandy and @mattgalloway. While you're at it, hit up @TulsaWatchdog for up-to-the-minute consumer news for the T-Towner.