How to market yourself on social media
Social media has become not only a means for keeping in touch with those friends from primary school – who you always say you’ll meet up with but never do – but also an effective tool for marketing oneself when applying for jobs and seeking new opportunities. Let’s take a look at how best to conduct yourself on those social media platforms:
The biggest culprit when it comes to social media mishaps, ‘Facebookers’ need to be careful about how much information they reveal about their everyday activities and sometimes controversial personal opinions. Created with the intention of keeping people connected the site has spiraled into a platform for soapbox protestors and far too many photo albums of baby pictures.
Keep your Facebook activity neutral, use it to share fun and interesting articles and news stories with friends. Share what you’re happy about and refrain from tagging yourself in discriminating photos from a night out.
Whether you’re applying for a teacher position or looking through caterer jobs, sensible activity on Facebook will help you avoid any blunders and rejection from employers.
You might think it would be difficult to look ridiculous with only 140 characters to play with, but you’d be amazed just how bad someone can make themselves look with one tweet – like these guys.
Think carefully about spelling and grammar when sending out tweets. If a potential employer decides to scroll through your Twitter feed they want to see what you enjoy discussing, who you follow and what you get up to.
Poor grammar and spelling and mundane tweets about what you had for breakfast won’t inspire them. Use your Twitter as a way of sharing the great things you’ve done, if you write a blog be sure to share links to it via your profile and if you can feature some examples of work you’ve done in previous employment that’s great too.
Probably the best social media platform to use when it comes to marketing yourself, LinkedIn is essentially an online networking site and no matter how much the word networking makes you shudder it’s important you have an up to date profile on there.
You don’t need to go about adding every person you’ve ever worked with on the site but it’s a good idea to follow some relevant thought leaders to demonstrate how clued up on your industry you are, as well as connecting with some important business leaders.
Use your profile like a CV, fill out each section in detail – but it’s good idea to avoid these words – and try to include examples of work you have done for each role. Reach out to previous colleagues for references that you can feature on your profile. In some cases employers like applicants to apply for roles using their LinkedIn so it’s a good idea to keep this in order as much as you can.
With these tips on the three main social media platforms you should impress those potential employers who are savvy enough to check you out online before calling you in for an interview or offering you a job.
Category: Business and Politics
