PROFESSIONAL SOCIAL MEDIA: DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN YOUR PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SELF

PROFESSIONAL SOCIAL MEDIA: DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN YOUR PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SELF

If you’ve been a member of social media for a good few years, chances are you have a shed load of tagged/uploaded photos that may have seemed like a great idea at the time…but now show moments you’d rather forget. There’s been countless horror stories of great people losing out on great jobs because of one bad post – check out Huffington Post’s list as inspiration – so the importance of making your social self suitable (there’s a tongue twister), is higher than ever before. Here are some quick tips to fix your social presence before your interview:

FACEBOOK

1) GET EDITING

You can edit the privacy settings of any of your posts so that the racy article you gave a more than controversial opinion of - that could very well upset your future employer - can be hidden from the outer-world. Even better, you can go back and delete those posts that may have been relevant last year, but are cringe-worthy today. Yes, this method is time consuming, but it’s actually quite eye-opening to go through your public page and see how you’ve been coming across to strangers of the web.

2) CHANGE YOUR DISPLAY NAME

After university ended, you probably found that a lot of your teacher Facebook Friends started losing their last names – and not because they were taken off the market. It’s very common for people who either a) don’t want to be found by their future colleagues or b) have questionable pasts or interests to change their names so that they can’t be found online. It’s a drastic but quick solution (and will only confuse your great aunt for about 10 months).

3) MAKE A NEW ACCOUNT

This approach is the most time-consuming. You’ll need to add your colleagues, both present and past, all over again (so that it’s not completely obvious you’ve created a decoy account). Good if you want to look squeaky clean, but probably just a waste of time – perfect your LinkedIn instead.

LINKEDIN

LinkedIn is the place to be if you want your employment and achievements to be noticed. It’s the social way to advertise your CV and can make a hell of a difference during your job search. Make sure your profile is up-to-date, contactable and professional – your Facebook page may have been OK to share those holiday snaps by the pool, but LinkedIn is definitely not. Stay classy, San Diego.

 TWITTER

1) CHANGE YOUR SETTINGS

Twitter is a whole new ball park. Whilst not as detailed and image-focused as Facebook, or as professional as LinkedIn, it’s a healthy in-between. If your profile isn’t set to private, your tweets can be seen, favourited and retweeted byanyoneand everyone – scary stuff. One tweet can ruin both your reputation and your chances of landing that high-end role. So, if you don’t want to tone down those intense opinions you need to vent to the world, set your profile to private. It’ll hide scandalous tweets whilst keeping them alive for both your own and your current followers’ eyes.

2) HAVE A TWEET PURGE

Voicing your opinion on your ex’s new love may have seemed valid 3 months ago, but when you look back at it now, you probably feel like you might have slightly overreacted. DELETE IT. In fact, delete anything you’ve said that you know is risqué – it’s not worth the agg. Yes, it’ll probably take a chunk of time to do, but if anything, it’ll teach you a good life lesson about being wary of what you’re sharing with the world.

3) CREATE A PROFESSIONAL ACCOUNT

This option is utilised a lot more often than creating a professional Facebook account, because 1) it only takes about 60 seconds to set up and 2) it’s ridiculously easy to switch from account to account via their app. If you’re a high figure in a company where you’d be using Twitter often and your personal account is way too lengthy to go through, 100% create an alternative account.

INSTAGRAM

Luckily, Instagram is good at ridding of those scandalous snaps before there’s even a chance for it to be seen, so it’s highly unlikely a picture of you within the platform will be career-ending. Be sensible, be appropriate and you’ll be grand.

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