6 Tips for Using Social Media to Grow Your Career

Social networks are huge parts of our lives. They allow us to connect with old friends, find new friends, and share our personal views. They also allow us to find new jobs, build our brands, and make great professional connections. Below, we discuss six great ways to use social to boost your career.

1. Leverage LinkedIn

LinkedIn, as you likely know, is a widely-used platform for professionals to find jobs, learn new skills, and expand their networks. LinkedIn has many great features, including allowing you to connect with other people who work in your field through groups and letting you upload your resume for potential employers to browse through. The site also has a LinkedIn Pulse option with which you can publish your own content. This gives you the opportunity to share your work ideas with peers and potential employers. All of this makes the social platform essential you need to be on if you’re looking to grow your career.

2. Create and share a portfolio

A portfolio is a great addition to a resume. It puts on display the type of experience you have, the skills you have, and the work you’ve created (or helped to create). You can adapt your portfolio to the various social networks you’re on, so that as many people as possible see who you are and what you do. This will help to quickly and clearly define the area of your knowledge, and may also be of interest to hiring managers and employers.

3. Search for new connections who can help you

When using your social accounts, try not to just watch and read entertaining content but also look for useful and helpful content—and, even more important, connections who can help boost your career. Search your connections’ connections—maybe one of your friends is connected with someone in your desired field or at your desired employer. And don’t miss the opportunity to do the same for others, helping other people make connections with your connections. That’s one of the great benefits of social—helping each other.

4. Promote your personal brand

Building your brand via social networks is one of the most effective ways to promote yourself as a professional. You can build your brand by sharing articles, news items, updates about your work, updates about your personal life (within reason), and anything else that will highlight your skills, expertise, work, and unique personality. Along with your social accounts, it can also be helpful to use various web business tools to build your brand.

5. Subscribe to thematic groups related to your activities

In order to declare yourself as a specialist, look for thematic groups. In such communities, you can participate in interesting discussions and prove yourself as an excellent specialist. You never know, you might find a future colleague or employer through one of these groups. Also, you can follow companies where you’d like to work and draw their attention to your candidacy with the help of posts, comments, communications, or retweets.

6. Mind your design

Business cards are no longer relevant—well-designed social accounts have replaced them. It’s by looking at your page that someone can immediately determine what kind of person you are, learn about your hobbies and way of life, and get acquainted with your professional activities. So, try to remove everything superfluous. Show your best side so that employers notice only your strongest qualities.

Susan Craig is a freelance writer and blogger. She writes frequently about content development, social media, and brand awareness. In her free time, she likes to read about startups and business development. You can connect with her by email: GuestPostingNinja@gmail.com.