10 Ways Social Media Can Boost Your Career

So many people think that social media is just for time-wasting. It’s not.

Social media can be an invaluable tool when looking for a new job, or even when trying to boost your skills for your current role. Try these ideas and see how you go.

A Visible Resume on LinkedIn

The most obvious way that social media can help your career is by using the social network dedicated to professional networking: LinkedIn. Although, that’s not the only social network that can help you get a job. Wherever you do it, once you’ve put your resume details online, you never really know who might stumble across them and want to hire you.

Get a few great testimonials each year, keep your skills updated and browse the LinkedIn site occasionally to meet new people. Just be sure to use our powerful LinkedIn code while you’re there.

Curating Content For Your Expertise

Whichever social network suits you most, curating content for your expertise is a perfect way to showcase what you know and care about. Pinterest and Twitter are ideal for this, but you may also see great results on other social networks.

The things to keep in mind about curating content are that you’re showcasing what you know, you’re attracting followers who like that sort of information, and you’re positioning yourself as an expert in that knowledge. And what’s more, because you’re reading the latest news regularly, you probably ARE an expert.

Meeting Other Experts In Your Field

Social networking is a two-way street. You might be attracting experts in your field by the things you curate and talk about, but also you might find yourself drawn to other experts in your field by what they post.

It doesn’t really matter how you found each other: what matters is that you build on that, grow acquainted with each other and perhaps even become friends. You’d be surprised what sort of opportunities can come up just because someone you know realizes you could be the right person for the job.

Actively Researching Companies To Work For

LinkedIn is an obvious starting place for a bit of active research on companies you might like to work for. But don’t stop there! Check out Facebook pages, Twitter accounts and more.

Try searching all profiles on all social networks for the name of the company and see which executives and employees are posting publicly. See what you can learn about the company culture from these individuals.

Using Social Networks To Find Jobs

Across all forms of social media, you’ll find job postings. They’re not always that easy to find, since hashtags like #Jobs can get overrun by spammers pretty quickly. But use #Jobs and a related hashtag as a starting point and you’ll soon find the less-popular, higher quality feeds worth following.

Also, check out our awesome system for finding jobs via social media.

Learning About Your Co-Workers

These are the people you work with every day, but what do you know about them? If you want to have something a little more personal than the weather to chat about, try to learn about these people via social media.

For starters, make a Facebook group and a Twitter list for your co-workers and take a look in regularly to see what they’re posting. This is quite a passive way to learn more about them over time.

For a more active approach, try searching Facebook for interesting things like “TV shows liked by people who work at MakeUseOf”. You’ll know exactly which shows to bring up in the coffee room.

Attracting Clients And Employers

All of your regular posts, genuine relationship-building and active curation eventually pull together to create a social profile that shows you’re a skilled, interesting, relatable individual. Potential clients and employers come to appreciate your professionalism, they recognise your face and they remember who you are. Who are they going to hire when they next have work that needs doing? You, if you’re available.

Carving a New Role For Yourself in Your Current Job

So, you’re always tweeting, you run two YouTube channels, use Snapchat every day and have a massive Instagram following? Not only are you probably a millennial, but you’re possibly the most qualified person in your office to handle these forms of social media for the business.

Even if the marketing team want to keep control of the accounts, you could still offer your services as a consultant to the team. Perhaps you could even help by being one of the video personalities for the team — a lot of the older generations are quite camera-shy compared to millennials.

Writing Content to Showcase Your Expertise

This is a little bit beyond just curating the articles you’ve read. What I’m talking about here is actually writing a 500+ word article on the subject matter yourself, offering your own insights and expertise to the readers.

Of course, you could make your own website and do this on your own blog or guest post for a larger blog. But certain social networks offer a built-in editor for longer pieces and they have a ready-made audience awaiting your post. Try writing your article on LinkedIn, Medium or directly on Facebook and see how well it’s received.

Follow Career-Boosting Accounts

There are many great career-boosting tools and blogs dedicated to boosting your career, such as The Muse and Levo. Find your favorites and make Twitter and Facebook lists for their respective social media accounts. Also, follow LinkedIn influencers that discuss job advice.

From then on, once a day you can browse through your feeds and maybe learn something useful you can use to help your career.

How Does Social Media Help Your Career?

How have you used social media to boost your career? Or do you prefer to use video games to change your life? What’s your take?