Whether you’re actively job seeking or not, building your professional profile using social media will extend your professional reach beyond your immediate circle. This could increase the potential career opportunities coming your way.
Social media is the term used for an online platform such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook or any other community discussion board, where individuals can post information, exchange ideas and comment. Here are some of the key social media components that you should consider as part of your career management strategy:
LinkedIn is relevant for all professionals, regardless of whether you work in business, the public sector, charities or the media. Even if your industry tends to recruit using job boards or personal recommendations, LinkedIn provides an easy way to keep in touch with your network and publish your expertise.
Describe yourself on LinkedIn in a way that’s relevant to kind of role you’re looking for next, rather than just reflecting where you’ve been. Focus on achievements — don’t just list factual information about dates and duties.
Use relevant terminology and keywords so that when recruiters or potential employers search these terms, they’ll find you.
Your profile is in the public domain so all factual information must be accurate. Prospective employers will check for discrepancies between your CV and LinkedIn profile.
Include a photo but make sure that it is business appropriate.
Personal recommendations add credibility so ask your contacts — including manager and customers — to write about your capabilities.
Include any other materials that illustrate your skills and achievements, such as videos, PowerPoint presentations, creative portfolios, links to your website, articles and blogs. This is useful for creative professionals.
Build your connections online so that you can swap information, ideas and updates. If you’re interested in a particular company, search through LinkedIn to see if you know anyone working there who can make an introduction for you.
Use activity updates to remind people about you and what you offer. For instance, share news about any business successes, events or feedback. You can also send out comments or questions on topics to encourage a dialogue with people in your network.
Join LinkedIn groups that are relevant to you and participate in discussions where you feel you can add a useful perspective and/or want to engage with users. Recruiters, employers and managers will be members of these groups so this will help increase your visibility.
Use Twitter to interact with people or organisations you find interesting or useful. Twitter is more informal than LinkedIn but it’s still a great opportunity to promote yourself to potential employers and business contacts.
As with LinkedIn, you can use Twitter as part of a personal PR campaign to remind people of your expertise, share successes and encourage people to look at your online CV or website.
You can follow companies or individuals that you’d like to work for and send them messages to start a dialogue.
Increasing numbers of jobs are posted via Twitter. You can apply to these directly or by following the link provided.
You can have multiple Twitter accounts but reserve a professionally-oriented one for career purposes. All tweets are public so if you don’t want your personal tweets to be read by a prospective employer then use a pseudonym, and be careful about what you send into cyberspace.
This is increasingly being used by organisations to communicate with staff, customers and the wider public. Some companies are also using it to recruit and vet potential candidates. On Facebook, the boundaries between the personal and the professional can be very blurred, so make sure of what information about you can accessed and by whom.
Use Facebook to tell your friends and family exactly what you do for a living and ask them for information and advice about your career or job search.
Company pages on Facebook tend to be a great information resource for news, features and asking questions. Use this to find out more about companies you are interested in.
Other social media sites
Many professional institutes, educational establishments and media organisations provide an array of online communities for niche audiences to exchange information, advice and opinions. You can also use YouTube to upload video content or produce a blog to share your commentary on hot topics.
Keep an eye on developments as this is a very fast-moving area and new social media applications, such as Google+, are likely to grow in importance. — The Guardian
