Grow Your Career With A Better Social Media Strategy

There are several ways that social media can be used to facilitate your career growth, and to help you build tremendous success for your company. The power of social media gives you access to an enormous network of people, and by being proactive, you can position yourself for any kind of career changes which might emerge for you.As all marketers are now aware of social media are not just platforms for people to exchange pleasantries and share their thoughts. Social media have become a very powerful engine for boosting career success, because there are so many ways that the individual platforms can be used to your advantage. Here are some of the best ways for you to take advantage of social media to enhance your career.

Audit your different profiles

You should think of each of your social media accounts and profiles as an entirely different landing page. Like any other landing page, it will provide a concise first impression of you to everyone who visits and reads the information there. Even a concise biography of you and your business will convey a great deal of information to readers and let them know what you're all about.

This is in fact, the whole rationale for having a profile or a biography on any of social media in the first place. As a first step in auditing your social media profiles, you should examine each one to see if they can be improved in any way. If there is information contained in the bio which you would prefer others did not see, that should be removed. If you've left out any skills or strengths you have, or if you have acquired any new skills since you created your bio page, those should now be listed.You should pay special attention to your LinkedIn profile, since that platform is the one most closely associated with business activity. Make sure your LinkedIn profile is comprehensive, and that it is completely up-to-date with any recent employment information which is relevant. It's also a good idea to include relevant keywords in your social media profiles.This is especially true if you want them to show up when people use specific keywords and search terms to find appropriate professionals in your field of interest. If you're not sure how to go about this, there are plenty of tools available to help you, such as Google Keyword Planner. A tool like this will help you to identify the appropriate keywords and search terms, so that your company name pops up when users are searching for your kind of services or products.

Determine your strategy

One key part of auditing your social media profiles is determining how you want them to be used. It could be that you prefer to keep your personal contacts and your professional contacts completely separate. You can do this by reserving one social network strictly for business networking, while using the others to maintain contact with friends and family. You need to be aware that if you use the same social media profiles for both business and personal use, there are some inherent dangers to that approach.

You'll have to be extra careful about what you post, because some content may not be appropriate for family and friends, while other content may not be appropriate for business colleagues. Your strategy might involve posting specific content to your different circles of contacts, so professional and personal exchanges can be kept separate.No matter how you choose to use your social media profiles, you should make a conscious decision about that, recognizing the risks involved with inappropriate posts. If you haven't already discovered this, you will eventually recognize that it's very important to monitor content you are sharing, and who you are sharing it with.

Use the right platforms

When considering which social media platforms to use, you should be aware of the primary audience that each of these platforms entertains. LinkedIn and Twitter tend to be more professional in content, and in the kind of audience they engage with. Facebook and Instagram are generally more personal in nature. It's worth your while to take the time to research which of social media platforms your business colleagues spend the most time on.These are the platforms that you should also be spending significant amount of time on, so that you can adequately carry out your networking functions. If most of your colleagues spend their time on Twitter and LinkedIn, that's where you should be also. You can certainly devote time to the other social media platforms if you choose to, but to make the most effective use of your time, and to derive the most benefit from it, you should spend the majority of your time where your colleagues are.

Start making connections

If you're just getting started with social media, the best way to approach it is to try making connections with people you already know. These can include old classmates, co-workers on previous jobs, and possibly even college instructors. Make a habit of following influencers and organizations that you're interested in and be actively involved by sharing and liking posts by other people. Don't be afraid to post your own content, where you have something relevant and interesting to offer.You would be well advised to build your network slowly and carefully by adding people who can legitimately add something to your career. By randomly adding people that you don't know, it can actually harm your career growth, and your efforts to achieve success may backfire. Once you've been involved with a particular social media platform for a while, you should participate in group chats or forums, as a way of meeting and learning about other people.

Use social media for learning

You may not have been aware of this, but you can use a social media to acquire industry-specific skills. Any kind of topic that you're interested in, you might find good information about it on social media. You might be able to acquire information on social media by following thought leaders in your industry, or by looking up related hashtags. You should also feel free to ask relevant questions on any of the platforms, while in forums or simply by using Quora. There are also many individuals who will be happy to provide feedback on interesting questions you might have, and these can be great ways for you to fill in knowledge gaps.