Social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter and MYspace have become an indispensable tool for lots of people. There is no doubt that they are impressive tools to improve professional networking and keep in touch with friends and family. But if your followers or friends are also part of your professional networking, your profile reflects your professional image and any information can be misunderstood.
So, how could you use social network websites in a way to not damage your professional image? Here are some social network tips to consider when using social network websites:
- Sharing information
One of the most interesting aspects of the social networking websites is the facility to share information. But remember that whatever you write can be viewed by lots of people and possibly future co-workers. So, avoid controversial statements. Also, not everything that is online is true and when you share something unreal, not only the author of the text loses credibility, but so do you that shared it.
- Talking about colleges
Never talk about colleges or bosses on social networking. Even if you none of your colleges are your friends or followers, you may have a friend of a friend that knows someone and it can become a very embarrassing situation.
- Extra care if you have a high position
Even though we are talking about your personal profile, if you have a high position on a company, whatever you post on the Internet reflects the image of the company. There are already some cases of people that got fired because of a tweet.
Remember that when it comes to social network websites, just like anywhere else, following social rules are important to keep a professional respected image.
Social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter and MYspace have become an indispensable tool for lots of people. There is no doubt that they are impressive tools to improve professional networking and keep in touch with friends and family. But if your followers or friends are also part of your professional networking, your profile reflects your professional image and any information can be misunderstood.
So, how could you use social network websites in a way to not damage your professional image? Here are some social network tips to consider when using social network websites:
One of the most interesting aspects of the social networking websites is the facility to share information. But remember that whatever you write can be viewed by lots of people and possibly future co-workers. So, avoid controversial statements. Also, not everything that is online is true and when you share something unreal, not only the author of the text loses credibility, but so do you that shared it.
Never talk about colleagues or bosses on social networking. Even if you none of your colleagues are your friends or followers, you may have a friend of a friend that knows someone and it can become a very embarrassing situation.
- Extra care if you have a high position
Even though we are talking about your personal profile, if you have a high position on a company, whatever you post on the Internet reflects the image of the company. There are already some cases of people that got fired because of a tweet.
Remember that when it comes to social network websites, just like anywhere else, following social rules are important to keep a professional respected image.
We had a client come to us recently with some negative news that had been published on a site that is well-regarded in their industry and that carries a lot of weight with the search engines (124,000 pages in Google's index). They had been advised by one of the larger online reputation management firms that removing (or rather replacing) that result would be a 5-figure project involving the publication of many competing content pages. Their approach was basically to beat down the search result by brute force.