10 ways to use Social Media to increase your profile

Posted by Bearing on Wednesday, July 8, 2009

There has been a lot of media coverage dedicated to the subject of blogging and social media recently. And rightly so: it’s a fascinating subject and a constantly changing landscape. There is new etiquette evolving around the way in which we communicate via social media. This includes new faux-pas, new ways to entertain and be entertained. It also means that there are new ways to increase your candidature for an alternative job and conversely, novel ways to ensure you certainly don’t get that dream job you’ve been aspiring to.

We at Bearing Partnership have put together a list of things you need to consider when putting together your social media profile during the search process.

Getting Started: Should I utilise Social Media if I’m looking for a new role?

When asked by both junior and senior candidates if social media can be an effective instrument in their job hunt or improve their chances of securing a better role, the answer is an emphatic ‘yes, most definitely’. But as much as it can improve your candidature, it can also present serious potential pitfalls over your cultural fit with the company looking to hire. It may be unfair, unjustified and totally subjective, but information held on social media networks or blogs is most definitely used by recruiters and hiring managers alike in aiding their hiring decisions.

In many ways, the professionals in the Digital market who are most accustomed to this sort of open scrutiny to their public profile are web designers. For many years it has been almost compulsory for a credible web designer to have an online portfolio that clients and recruiters can assess for suitability. In today’s world, everyone who blogs or is active on social media networks is putting themselves up for judgement to a potential employer, so one needs to start thinking about the consequences of the information you are posting on the web.

With the prevalence of Wordpress blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, there now exists a double-edged sword for your public profile. On one side, great profile building and the ability to be seen as an expert within your field. On the other, there is the potential to highlight oneself as inappropriate to a prospective employer on account of your views and/or questionable decision making.

There is an old adage that springs to mind when thinking of social media: ‘Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt’. There are some very good examples of people who, in hindsight, might liked to have stayed silent rather than speaking out through social media networks. The story of the headmaster who was fired for posting risqué photos of himself on Facebook springs to mind, as does the Waitrose worker who wrote deriding comments about his employer – also fired.

But it doesn’t have to be such an overtly stupid act that can have a negative influence on your candidature to a potential employer. It can be as simple as using the wrong sort of profile picture, the dates on your LinkedIn profile not matching up, or in some cases, even being on a certain type of network that can have a harmful impact. The latter point being quite a tenuous example but worth mentioning to exemplify the social media snobbery associated with where you ‘hang out’ online. There is no question that MySpace is generally seen as a more ‘alternative’ network than Facebook, a more popular and ‘conservative’ site. As a recruiter, we would be very curious about a senior executive who had a MySpace page, purely based on the fact they were on MySpace.

On the other side of the coin, social networks can be a superb way of representing yourself in a very positive light. Just look at how effective digital media was for President Obama during his election campaign!

1 – A word about your profile picture

This largely depends on what role you have and which social media platform you are on, but if you are looking to build your profile for professional reasons, we suggest you avoid using ‘humorous’ photos. We’re not boring, and nor are the hiring managers who will be prospectively looking up your profile – but humour, especially when it comes to profile pictures, is totally subjective. This means that it can, and generally will, be misunderstood or taken out of context by at least one person. The aim is to develop your professional profile whilst remaining inoffensive to as many people as possible. The worse possible scenario is if you are seen as ‘trying’ to be funny but are not found to be achieving it. Unless you’re on a level with Stephen Fry, just stick to a ’nice’ photo.

2 – A Health Warning about tone. Dan Schawbel, self proclaimed leader in self publicity, suggests that your social profile, including your CV should be written in the third person as it will ‘appear more professional’. If you are British or seeking work in the UK, we would strongly advise not writing in the third person, unless you are a novelist of course. It is a pet hate of recruiters to read profiles or CVs written in the third person. Your LinkedIn profile should be written exactly the same as you would your CV – avoiding the 1^st and 3^rd person pronoun at all costs – a good example of what I mean by avoiding pronouns can be found here.

3 – LinkedIn

Profile Everyone, especially in Digital Media and Ecommerce, should have a profile on LinkedIn, regardless of whether they’re looking for a job or not. It’s free and it’s easy to join the ‘groups’ with professionals who have common interests on your preferred subject matter. If you don’t have a profile already, you’ll be surprised at how many of your colleagues are on there and as a recruiter, it is one place we always look to indentify talent. LinkedIn forms part of the ‘long game’ of job hunting – collecting contacts for future reference.

LinkedIn – Recommendations. The site itself says you are much more likely to be found in a LinkedIn search if you are recommended. Either way, recommendations are an important part of looking credible as a professional in your field. Therefore, you should think carefully about whom you want to recommend you and what that says about your profile.

LinkedIn – Number of Contacts. Users on LinkedIn can certainly benefit from building their level of contacts. However, like anything on the internet which allows large-scale contact, you can accumulate – if you so desired – thousands of contacts. Unless you are a professional networker (and there are people on LinkedIn who specifically say that is their job title) we would suggest you treat the number of contacts just as you would any other social networks – keeping it to the people you know or those that you have been referred or recommended to. If you have fewer, quality contacts, it will help you get the best out of them when looking to raise your profile.

4 – Twitter. For Digital and Ecommerce professionals, the jury is still out on whether or how Twitter can help with actually generating revenue. However everyone is agreed that it can become a time sink if not managed in the right way. In terms of your profile, Twitter is the most accessible social network on the web. Generally people do not use any privacy settings whatsoever and therefore anyone contributing, or ‘Tweeting,’ is providing a stream of consciousness that a recruiter or hiring manager can make a quick judgement on. In this respect, you need to make a decision as to what you wish to do with your Twitter account. Is it going to be for business use or personal use? If it will be used for business or candidate profile building, the posts will need to be sanitised so as not to offend and be relevant to your profession. If it’s going to be for personal use – be advised that recruiters and hiring managers will not know that before they look you up – so they’re still likely to make a judgement based on what you are posting.

5 – Letters to the Online Editor.

For the more advanced Self Publicist, send letters to the online editor at relevant sites. As a reader ‘at the digital coalface’ they’ll often welcome your contribution. It will help demonstrate to potential employers that you’re involved in the Digital conversation and it will also improve your search engine visibility. A quick way of getting similar results is to comment on news articles on websites such as Brand Republic, the Guardian or New Media Age. Brand Republic also allows you to create a user profile which can also be useful to exploit if you’re in Digital marketing.

6 – Blogs

An excellent way for raising your profile is to have a blog that documents your professional thoughts and views. Here are some examples of the highest profile bloggers in their respective areas. Some have become famous before they started blogging, others became famous because of their blogging:

Seth Godin

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2005/10/understanding_t.html

The Naked CTO

http://www.harbott.com/

Scobelizer – the ultimate self publicist

http://scobleizer.com/

7 – Volunteer for being on the Panel. Using your time on the panel of an industry talk, university lectures or conferences will assist others identifying and recognising your profile. Not only will your profile generally be marketed by the event organisers, it also increases your networking opportunity at the event itself. These events get a lot of digital exposure and your views will often be published online, which increases your presence in the search engines and associates you with your subject matter expertise. An event which I recently attended provides a good example of how you can easily increase your profile as the event organisers are keen to publicly release the panellists’ experience.

8 – Slideshare. Taking a presentation that you have written (that isn’t commercially sensitive) and publishing it on Slideshare is an extremely valuable way of raising your profile. Just publishing a presentation isn’t enough; it ideally needs to have had some traction with the online community. We can talk from experience that a recent Ecommerce Report which we published on Slideshare, whilst relevant, didn’t get any views; the reason? We didn’t actively tell people about it being on Slideshare and people rarely just ‘find it’. However if you have had the time to write it, you should drop the link into forums aligned to the subject matter. My colleagues and I are always impressed by candidates who have Slideshare presentations and I often find myself learning a thing or two whilst reading them. The best ones get a lot of views, spark debate and comments and the impact on the Digital community certainly improves your credibility when seen by potential employers.

9 – Being quoted in industry publications or national press. Again, one should always take the opportunity to form relationships with

Aryn Hurst-Clark

industry journalists. They will often quote your opinion on various matters, especially if you are successfully raising your profile in the ways already mentioned, as you will no doubt already be starting to appear as a thought leader in your field. Industry news and national press publications also mirror their stories online, which of course aids your search engine visibility.

10 – Publish a book – online. Still the most effective way of raising your profile into the stratosphere is publishing a book. It’s hard to achieve but provides you with the ultimate kudos. If you’re not quite at the stage of being picked up by a literary agent – you can always go in for a bit of ‘Vanity Publishing’ using tools such as Writers’ World or Selfpublishing.co.uk.

If you would like any further advice on how you can use social media to help increase your profile and candidature, drop Bearing Partnership a line, we will be delighted to hear from you.