Blue Helm

Posted by Emory Cook on March 11th, 2010

Over the last few years, two remarkably surprising and unpredictable phenomena have radically changed the way most Americans spend their time and lives. One is the rise of social media. The other is the Great Recession.

First, social media is quickly altering the way humans communicate and interact with one another. Don’t believe me? 95% of employers polled in a recent business survey say they use LinkedIn to attract job candidates. The United States government just eased sanctions on Iran and Cuba to encourage social media use among their citizens. CNN now sees Facebook as a bigger competitor than FOX News. And on and on it goes.

In the mean time, the economic recession has paralyzed millions of businesses, families and nations. It’s harder now for a recent college graduate to find a good job than it’s been in decades.

So what do these two changes have in common? It’s simple: College graduates must use social media to foster personal branding in order to beat the recession. But how?

I was going to spill out a half-dozen suggestions in this blog post today, but my wise business colleague suggested I create a series of posts that address this important issue, step by step. I gladly took his advice, and I’ll focus this morning on the importance of keeping your social networks clean and appropriate.

Clean up your social networks: A study last year revealed that 45% of employers use social networks like Facebook and MySpace to screen potential job candidates. That number is bound to increase as social media becomes even more widely used. What does that mean for you?

• Learn about privacy features on Facebook. I cannot tell you how many people I come across that have no idea that all their Facebook information, including phone numbers, private notes and embarrassing pictures, are public online. Educate yourself and make invisible sensitive information on Facebook.
• If you’re smart, you’ll simply erase any negative or compromising material on Facebook, especially photos. If your friends occasionally post inappropriate comments or pictures on your Facebook wall, see the link in the point above.
• If you have a blog, that is very good. But, like Facebook, make sure your blog is appropriate for all to see, including potential or current employers.
• Make sure spammers aren’t following you on Twitter. Block them. Oftentimes, spammers will use pornographic images in their profile pictures which are visible to someone looking at your Twitter followers.
• Abandon MySpace. It’s filthy and chaotic and ridden with 13-year-olds. It will do little, if anything, to further your career. Say goodbye and walk away.

In short, remember to make your social networks clean and don’t ever post anything online that could come back to embarrass or hurt you.

Over the next couple years, social media will become even more mainstream and will evolve and grow in ways we can’t yet predict. The recession will (hopefully) wither away into oblivion, like the Wicked Witch of the West slowly melting in a pool of oozy water. Those transformations are good, but it highlights the point that the time to use social media to establish your personal brand is now. The world, as it recovers from the economic downturn, will not wait for you to catch up.

Tags: alumni, clean, Personal Branding, recession, Social Media

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 11th, 2010 at 8:38 am and is filed under Branding, How-To, Social Networks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.