When people think about social media, their minds might immediately fill with improper images of hard partying ways and social networks you may want to keep private.
The common belief is that social media can hurt your reputation and a lot of people strive to keep their photos, information and postings under wraps. But today, we’re going to take a look at how social media platforms and your career can work hand in hand.
1. Social Media Can Showcase Your Abilities
Instead of advertising that you are the person to go to for wild parties, why not broadcast your expertise and skills on your social media? Potential employers looking to hire you may be impressed by what they see.
Many think social media and career opportunities clash, but in reality it could work in your favor. List all the skills you have acquired over painstaking hours of hitting the books.
Investing your time and money in your skills may be a good sign for your future employer. Announcing second language learning at Preply or completing an in-depth course on Udemy or EdX on your LinkedIn profile will convey that you are an avid learner and work hard towards bettering yourself whether it’s for professional purposes or general interest.
2. Link Up with Like-Minded People
Through many platforms you are able to find people in the same circles or with the same interests. This is beneficial because it can put you in connection with people who could help advance your career. As they say, it’s all about who you know these days.
Maybe your last day in the military is fast approaching and coming back to your home soil and entering the workforce can be daunting. Depending on which platform you use, they link you up with people with similar backgrounds. This will help you feel less overwhelmed when facing new opportunities.
3. Locating Opportunities
You can enhance your social networking career by using social media to help you locate companies in your industry. This will allow you to reach out to these companies and prove you’re proactive.
Social media and your career are linked in the sense that all it takes sometimes is the right person to notice you. Put your best foot forward while seeking out potential opportunities on your own.
Since social media is so widely utilized, companies now even use these platforms to find the right candidates. With the right social media profile, this could be you!
4. Follow the Right People
Keep your finger on the pulse of all the latest discussions and advancements in your industry. Following the right influencers and publications related to your industry can do just that.
Participate in the discussions and do your best to interact with authority figures in your line of work. This could not only further develop your skills, but also increase the chances of getting noticed.
It’s all in the interaction. Share other people’s content, don’t hesitate to provide insight and opinions and offer opposing views. Support those in your field and in turn garner support for yourself.
5. Choose the Right Social Media Platforms
If you’re living in Asia where Twitter is less dominant, you wouldn’t want to set up a professional profile using tweets. Figure out which platforms are most popular in your field of work and where you live.
In what way do you plan to market yourself? Instagram has become more commercial but great lengths have gone into returning Instagram to a more personal platform. Facebook is mostly used for friends while LinkedIn is more professional. Once you have a strategy, you can better decide the outlet.
What do others in your profession tend to lean more towards? There is also nothing standing in the way of you taking on 2 or more social media platforms.
6. Which Strategy Do You Plan to Use?
This next part depends on your values and what your end goal is. If you want to take the “what you see is what you get approach”, then the open strategy is more up your alley.
People who adopt the audience strategy will keep their personal and professional lives separate. You can also bundle it all together into the content strategy, and instead of filtering out people who have access to your posts, you filter the content you post.
The last one is the custom strategy, which means you post different content to different lists or circles, each carefully curating the image you want to put forth. An article from the Harvard Business Review first came out with these four strategies and we quite agree with them.
Conclusion
Which strategy is for you? Once you have identified how you plan to organize your content, you can then choose the proper platform and get started with networking.
Social media and career opportunities are greatly linked. Whether it is in a positive or negative way is dependent on you and the impression you want to make.
We believe it’s high time social media is used with more positive intent, and that can start from a professional standpoint. Your online presence is in a sense, there forever, and how you change, cultivate and shape it is up to you.