Social media isn’t just for Instagrammable food anymore—people have cottoned on to the fact that it’s become an integral part of our lives. There’s an old adage that goes, “It’s not about what you know, it’s about who you know.” Well, your social media network is a measure of who you know—and who knows about you. Of course, that isn’t to say you’ll be using Facebook to wiggle yourself into a position for which you’re unqualified. What you can do with social media is get more eyes on you and your unique set of skills.
Companies are also increasingly social-media savvy—of course, anything posted by an employee (or potential employee) could reflect upon the company and the brand, whether for good or for ill. So the first order of business before even attempting to use social media as a career booster is to ensure that your social media profiles are spotless. This doesn’t mean that you should only have milquetoast opinions and pictures of food. It means you need to ensure that your profiles have content that’s in line with the professional and personal image that you feel best represents you. In this regard, show off those seminars, corporate podcasts, and extra classes you attend to show how much you value growth and knowledge.
Get your best whiteboard, notepad, or note-taking app ready because we are going to share some incredibly helpful social media tips that can give your career a boost.
Dra. Eva López-Rivera knows to put the most important info in her Instagram bio, plus a link to more information and resources about her.
Create a compartmentalized profile
You’ll generally want your profiles to be visible to as many people as possible, so setting your profile to private or restricted isn’t going to be a great idea. What you can do is use the available social media network tools to ensure that private or sensitive content is only visible to trusted contacts or friends, while your professional posts can go out to a wider audience. We understand that the line separating personal life and career has gotten increasingly blurry in the past decade or so, but being able to compartmentalize this way will mean that your social media presence is neat while still allowing you to have fun with your close contacts.
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Find new connections—both personal and professional
The core idea behind social networks hasn’t changed—that of reaching out, engaging, and making new connections with people. It’s still incredibly useful for that purpose, but now with the added benefit of it having a positive effect on your career. Instead of catching up with your high school friends, you could be chatting with influential members of your industry. This is especially easy on platforms such as Twitter, where engage, engage, engage is the name of the game.
Coming out with a controversial take can be risky, but it does spark conversations.
Being part of public discussions is a great way to make your name more recognizable, but if you really want to make connections, you can take things to direct messages. If you’ve already been conversing with people publicly and they’ve responded positively, there’s no harm in sending them a private message to continue the conversation.
While you’re more likely to get quick engagement on faster-moving social media networks, deeper and more meaningful discussion is going to be found on places such as LinkedIn. This is why it’s essential to optimize your LinkedIn profile for future career opportunities. Of course, the barrier to entry for LinkedIn connections is going to be much higher—you’ll need to actually be in the same circles as the people you want to talk to and to connect with on Linkedin.
Become a thought leader
Why would you want to spend time talking to people about work during your free time, you may ask? Well, it’s part of becoming a thought leader in your chosen field. A thought leader has to be trusted—a source of informed opinion and expertise. And that can’t happen if nobody knows what your opinions are, much less whether or not they’re actually informed opinions.
To get to that status, you need to put your ideas out there to be tested by other thought leaders. And the best way to do that is to talk to them directly. Then there’s the matter of actually laying the groundwork of becoming a thought leader—you need to have proven success in your field. Not just that, you need to be able to show that you can consistently deliver success. Yes, you could spend the next 5 to 10 years doing that. Yes, it’s a difficult thing to pull off. But what can make it easier is actually learning from the people who have done it before, and almost all of them are posting on their own social media networks. They’re a resource—don’t be afraid to tap into them.
Associating with other thought leaders and creating or sharing content people want to see is one step to become a thought leader yourself.
Truthfully, all of this is just one part of becoming a thought leader, but it is an important one. Building a base of advocates through the sharing and refining of ideas on social media is one of the best things you can do for your career.
Don’t forget the basics
We can use social media to improve our careers—there are tons of opportunities to make meaningful connections and showcase your experience. But since we’re individuals and not brands with marketing budgets, we can afford to focus more on the message we’re sending instead of our image. Devote more time to polishing up your writing—ensure proper grammar and spelling before you hit the post button. Don’t forget to also use tools like plagiarism checkers to ensure that your marketing content is 100% original and plagiarism free to avoid getting flagged by Google. This goes doubly so for direct messages—there’s a higher likelihood of someone reading something sent directly to them, so you must make a great first impression.
Of course, that doesn’t mean you can afford to be sloppy with your visual content, either. Master at least the basics of composition, color theory, and layouts for your pictures and videos —if necessary, there are tons of third-party apps, and mobile app programs that can help you make killer visual content. Designing logos is an equally important skill to master, all brands need one for their brand identity. You can use online free logo makers to assist you in creating eye-catching logos.
Along with mastering the basics, consider upskilling yourself in social media marketing right from scratch up to advanced levels for a successful start to your career, especially if you plan on pursuing a role in a digital marketing company.
Additional resource: How to write a CV in 8 simple steps
Wrapping Up
As a last note, all these tips are simply a means to an end. The goal is to be exposed to great people, great ideas, and great conversations—and to turn all of that into knowledge that you can use to further your career. No, you don’t need to be on social media all day, every day. Give yourself time to digest ideas you’ve heard and conversations you’ve had. Quality will always trump quantity, especially if everything you say is saved on social media for potential employers to see. Apply our tips wisely, and they’ll bring you a long way toward bettering your career opportunities.