Top 5 Tips For Maintaining a Professional Social Media Presence

Employers are now using the digital landscape to search for new talent in the careers world, not just by reading bundles of hard-copy CV’s.  First impressions online are now important more than ever and by using social media effectively you can boost your chances of your dream job, as well as dashing your chances too.

An inappropriate photo or post can spoil your chances of getting hired. Managing your social media profiles should always be a huge priority and you should take as much care as you do in creating your hard-copy CV.

A study researched by Jobvite found that 90% of employers use LinkedIn as part of their talent search. This percentage is hardly surprising considering the format is career focused, but what is surprising is that two third of employers admit to checking your Facebook. Over half (54%) admitted to checking your tweets.

These results lead to questioning whether your social media networks are secure, private and away from your professional networks.

Here are our top five tips to giving the right impression on your social media channels, in order to maximise your chances of attracting the perfect potential employers.

Make your social networks private

According to The Safe Shop, 66% of social media uses don’t have maximum privacy settings in use on their social media. By adopting maximum security you can stop potential employers checking out your private life and you can also stop unwanted people from adding or following you.

Perhaps create a Twitter account for personal use and another for use in the workplace. This will help you to build up professional authenticity and become an influencer in your industry, without any potential worry of unwanted content.

The main downside to LinkedIn is you may be inundated with recruiters adding you which can limit your degree of privacy.

Don’t discuss work related matters

There is a huge risk in discussing work related topics online. It can be very easy to misconstrue a comment or photo on social media and this can be passed on to a colleague or employer. There may even be a non-disclosure clause in your work contract.

Do no discuss a previous employer as this is something that potential employers and recruiters can easily pick up on.

Hide inappropriate content

Never put any religious, political and sexual content on your social media profiles and begin the clean-up process by going deleting these posts immediately. Use Facebook’s review feature which allows you to hide, delete and monitor privacy settings for who can see your content.

Think before you post

If you are posting on open social media platforms such as Twitter which have a global audience, make sure that your self-sensor your posts. Potentially your post or comment can last on the internet even if your original post has been edited or deleted.

Join industry groups and interact

By joining and interacting with industry groups you can highlight to recruiters that you care about the industry that you want to pursue. According to Time Magazine, four out of five recruiters like to see membership or affiliations with professional organisations so be active and show that you have experience.

What are your tips for keeping your social media professional?  Comment and let us know!

Joseph Hill is a Content and PR Executive at Search Laboratory – a locally-based digital marketing company with global reach. You can connect with Search Laboratory on Twitter at @searchlabs.