{"id":8450,"date":"2019-03-21T15:19:26","date_gmt":"2019-03-21T15:19:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/2019\/03\/21\/how-to-be-professional-on-social-media\/"},"modified":"2019-09-23T15:30:44","modified_gmt":"2019-09-23T15:30:44","slug":"how-to-be-professional-on-social-media-whilst-at-university","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/cy\/how-to-be-professional-on-social-media-whilst-at-university\/","title":{"rendered":"How to be professional on social media whilst at university"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Social media is now well and truly part of our everyday lives. I am on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat and Instagram. Of course, I primarily use these to connect with friends and to share things about my day, but since I&#8217;ve been at University (studying for a Journalism and Media degree) I&#8217;ve thought often about how my social media presence might add to or take away from my chances of getting a graduate job.<\/p>\n<p>Using social media is a great way to build professional relationships (especially Twitter and LinkedIn), but it&#8217;s also important to remember that posts made on Facebook and Instagram might be around forever &#8211; and could come back to haunt you!<\/p>\n<p>Therefore, it&#8217;s important to understand your online presence and how it can impact the views that potential employers have of you each time you post. It&#8217;s a good idea to ask yourself how you want to come across on social media and what message you want to give off.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-8456\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/523\/2019\/03\/twitter-292994_1920-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/523\/2019\/03\/twitter-292994_1920-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/523\/2019\/03\/twitter-292994_1920-507x338.jpg 507w, https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/523\/2019\/03\/twitter-292994_1920-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/523\/2019\/03\/twitter-292994_1920-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/523\/2019\/03\/twitter-292994_1920.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I keep my Facebook profile private, sharing personal information with family and friends. However, I choose to keep my Twitter profile open, and I try to use it to build my professional profile, re-tweeting things that are relevant to my chosen career path.<\/p>\n<p>Here are my top tips for staying professional on social media:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Don&#8217;t comment about work online.\u00a0<\/strong>Complaining about work, even if it&#8217;s a part time job, can look really unprofessional<\/li>\n<li><strong>Do use photos of yourself that you consider to be professional.<\/strong> Particularly on LinkedIn, and if you&#8217;re using Twitter in a more professional capacity. LinkedIn is a network that is predominantly used for business, and professionalism is key &#8211; using a social picture on LinkedIn is not the key to a smart profile!<\/li>\n<li><strong>Don&#8217;t post statuses\/comments that you wouldn&#8217;t want sharing with potential employers.\u00a0<\/strong>Don&#8217;t swear and definitely don&#8217;t be offensive! Avoid sharing overly politically charged statements. If you wouldn&#8217;t say something in the workplace, it&#8217;s probably best to avoid saying it online!<\/li>\n<li><strong>Do use correct grammar and spelling.<\/strong> Double check your statuses\/Tweets for mistakes.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Do check the privacy of your Facebook profile.<\/strong>\u00a0Be mindful especially when posting photos and though you might not be able to control what photos your friends tag you in, you can un-tag yourself from or delete any inappropriate photos that potential employers might see.\u00a0<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>&#8230;and<strong> do change your privacy settings from time-to-time.\u00a0<\/strong>Occasionally, if I&#8217;m heading for an interview, I will double check that my Facebook is set to private and I might even put my Twitter profile to private. I&#8217;ll go over my Tweets to double-check that they&#8217;re all professional and delete any that aren&#8217;t and may put off potential employers.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Do get involved with LinkedIn.\u00a0<\/strong>Having attended a LinkedIn workshop as part of the Cardiff Award, I couldn&#8217;t wait to get started and building my profile. LinkedIn is a great way to engage with potential employers and you can connect to those that you&#8217;ve met throughout work experience or through internships and this ensures that they&#8217;re kept updated with where you are professionally. Always send a personalised request on LinkedIn, adding a message reminding the person of where they met you.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>How do you make sure that you look professional on social media? Do you have any tips for standing out for employers online?<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-8505\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/523\/2018\/05\/work-1357001_1920-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/523\/2018\/05\/work-1357001_1920-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/523\/2018\/05\/work-1357001_1920-509x338.jpg 509w, https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/523\/2018\/05\/work-1357001_1920-768x510.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/523\/2018\/05\/work-1357001_1920-1024x681.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/523\/2018\/05\/work-1357001_1920.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Social media is now well and truly part of our everyday lives. I am on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat and Instagram. Of course, I primarily use these to connect with [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":1287,"featured_media":8457,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[244],"tags":[759,760,761,762,763,285,764],"class_list":["post-8450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-jobs-and-work-experience-cy","tag-how-to-be-professional-on-social-media-cy","tag-linkedin-cy","tag-professional-cy","tag-social-media-cy","tag-twitter-cy","tag-work-cy","tag-workplace-cy"],"meta_box":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1287"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8450"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9956,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8450\/revisions\/9956"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}