How are you? The question that everyone is asking one another as we all get used to staying within our homes and not being able to see or work with anyone in real life. Although I can usually be found inside a building, even I am finding it a challenge to not be able to go to my favourite coffee shops or out shopping for bits and bobs. It’s also difficult as someone who has problems with forming and maintaining relationships and who is partial to constantly lurking and liking rather than making a comment.
I’ve been wanting to write a blog post on social media for a while but I feel that it’s even more important to post this now rather than at a later date. As everyone has now begun to work and play from home due to the horror that is Covid-19, we all need connection more than ever. One way in which we can keep in contact is through social media, something that I have used and loved since my early teens. This post is about my love for the medium and my tips for how to utilise it for developing a career.
Why I Love It
As I noted in my last blog post, I find it easier to talk online and hold the belief that making friends through social media is beneficial and can be similar to real world friendships. It is also a way that I can talk about my favourite things, particularly popular culture. I’ve been able to meet and talk to people who have the same interests that I do without having to go out of my bedroom door. It’s something I love so much that I now want to utilise the skills I have in it as part of my real life work, but to do that I know that I have to be even more active on the platforms than I already am.
The Binaries
Online versus offline, public against private, interaction and participation or consumption and voyeurism. These linguistic oppositions about the digital landscape are called binaries, influenced by the work of Claude Levi-Strauss, structuralism and semiotics. There has been plenty of arguments both for and against the internet being a real space but I have always been in the for camp and I think this is the opinion we all need to be in right now.
Though they were originally websites, through being an app accessible on a portable device, whether a tablet or mobile phone, social networks are never completely spatially ‘online’ or ‘offline’ due to being an extension of the real. Even twentieth century French philosopher Giles Deleuze in his 1968 book Difference and Repetition argued that ‘the virtual is opposed not to the real but to the actual. The virtual is fully real in so far as it is virtual.’ I don’t think we can ever and will never call the online realm unreal.
My Socials
The platform I am most fond of, use as much as possible and was even the medium for which my masters’ dissertation research was done through. Defined by Christian Fuchs in his 2017 book Social Media: A Critical Introduction, it is ‘a microblog’ where ‘one shares short messages with the public and each user has a contact list of persons who are following these messages’. I like to keep my posting to one original, three retweets and am trying to post more often.
One of the first networking platforms I ever used, it is now a place where I very rarely post content to anymore and just use it to keep up to date with my family and friends’ personal lives. It is also one of the two platforms that I use and manage for my volunteer work with my church.
Owned by Facebook, this is another network that I use frequently but post on less often than I do on Twitter. This may be because of how visual the platform is and how I only share photos if and when I feel like it. There is a sense of perfectionism and that you only see a small element of someone’s life on it. I do like to use it to see what famous people are up to though.
Although I joined this platform in 2015 whilst doing my undergraduate degree on the basis of being told by my lecturers to use it, I’ve only been actively using it since last year. It’s a great way to connect with those who already work in the industry you want to become a part of and finding out what is happening in the business world more generally. It can also act as an online version of your CV.
Another platform that I discussed in an academic essay during my master’s degree and use for inspiration is Pinterest. Neil Alperstein defined it in his 2015 paper as ‘a social bookmarking site’ that ‘is a highly visual environment’. The site has mass popularity with women and I use it primarily as like a categorised online mood board. As it is public even to outsiders, I’ve been using it in a way to further my career development recently which can be seen on my Life board.
Tips on How to Use Socials Professionally
Try to use the same profile picture, header and bio on all social media accounts that you are using.
You don’t have to sign up to and use every single social network platform known to us. Pick and choose which ones are going to be useful for you and your career development.
If you are pursuing a career in a more professional field or want to break up your personal life and your smarter business look then create new accounts or only use certain networks for developing your career and have others that you use ONLY for personal use.
If you are looking into a career in a more creative or art field then you can use your profiles for both professional and personal use. However, always be wary of what you do choose to post and share and set your privacy settings wisely.
Learn how to use social media graphic creating tools such as Canva, PicMonkey, BeFunky, Pablo by Buffer and, if you have access to or the money to buy them, Adobe software. (I use Canva personally.)
Keep up to date with what people are talking about by looking up and using hashtags.
Stalking people and companies is fine, but DO NOT hassle them. Talk to them once but do not @ them every minute of every day.
Learn how to measure results by looking at your analytics and keep records of them in a spreadsheet.
Stuck for what to post? Create a content plan! (This is a tip which I have now implemented into my blog but have yet to work out how to work it into my social posts.)
Hope you’ve enjoyed reading this blog post about how I use social media and my tips on how to use it for developing careers. Stay safe and keep on keeping on.
Beth x