I wasn’t allowed to have IM while in grade school, I got a MySpace account secretly behind my parents’ backs, and while in high school, my friend and I pretended we were college-aged in order to get Facebook accounts. I may have started slowly, but today I am constantly connected, whether awake or asleep. I woke up today to a few Snapchats, a new LinkedIn request, four Facebook notifications, and one new tweet of mine that was favorited. I currently have four Twitter accounts connected to my phone, in addition to apps for a variety of social media accounts that I check regularly. Somewhere along the way, I became a social media expert. I just understand it innately and it’s now a part of my life.
I owe my social media expertise to my uncle, Andy. During the summer after freshman year, I interned at my uncle’s marketing firm (nepotism at its best—but to be fair, his firm was a startup so I volunteered my services free of charge). Though at the time I believed I was destined for a career in advertising, I reluctantly agreed to get to know his field, marketing, since he insisted it was better. Little did I know, his firm’s niche was social media marketing, helping companies create their online presence and begin using blogs for content marketing. The world of marketing was brand new to me, but as was this concept social media. My first assignment from Andy was to “get on everything now”: he gave me a list of almost 20 social media accounts that I needed to immediately sign up for, as well as about 10 blogs that I had to begin following. I looked at the list of unrecognizable names, like WordPress, Delicious, Reddit… and I definitely rolled my eyes when I saw Twitter.
I spent the next hour creating accounts, recording my various passwords, and beginning to read bloggers like Seth Godin. I reported back when I was ready for my next task. He explained to me just how important social media is, how it’s also a way for me to market myself to the world. He told me he receives hundreds of resumes each day—and his process for deciding which resumes to look at? He types their name into Google, and “If I can’t find them, their resume is tossed.” He told me I needed to create an online presence, brand myself, and put myself out there. That summer, I realized my absolute passion for marketing, and began using social media as a daily part of my life.
Since I am now so connected through so many channels, I now almost judge people when they jokingly ask how to make a “tweeter.” But I’ve seen the pattern so many times that it’s too predictable at this point. Someone reluctantly gets a Twitter account because their friends insisted, they have what I call “First Tweet Syndrome” where they are ridiculously self-conscious of what their first tweet should be, and then within a few weeks, they are tweeting every detail that goes through their head. Some people still make fun of social media or they have their claims that it’s ruining communication and relationships. I’ll wait for the research on these claims since personally, I enjoy making Pinterest boards and scrolling through my friends’ Instagram photos. But whether people like social media or not, I believe it’s where we are going and everyone better get on board or be left behind.
Almost every industry, company, event, and personality is now on some form of social media. Whether you don’t personally want to tweet, I think you need to understand social media in order to stay competitive and marketable. Everyone needs a job, and even if your job isn’t specifically related to using social media, you should be on social media following your own company, as well as your competitors and industry. I believe this so strongly that I even wrote an article for it on Her Campus BC last year while I was on staff: “You Really Still Don’t Have a Twitter?!” I’ve been interning for a consulting firm for the past two years running their social media accounts, but through this course, I hope to continue learning about social media in business in order to fine tune my skills and better understand its scope and influence.
So I say to you—whether you like social media or not—get on everything now.
This was a very interesting blog. I especially found interesting how the company would google applicant names to see if they are present on social media sites. I think this is very important. Social media is such a great tool and for someone to work in the social media branch of a company, he/she should be active on Twitter, Facebook, etc.. Also, I know so many people who have deleted facebook accounts because they do not want future employers to “look them up.” I have always stressed to my friends that this is not the best idea.I have heard of companies purposefully checking to see if an applicant has a Facebook. Not having a facebook in today’s society seems out of place, especially for the younger generation. Many companies want those who are knowledgeable with social media and the latest technology.Yet, on the other side of the argument, having a Facebook that is not in line with a company’s mission/culture may also affect one’s chances.
While reading this post I thought the same thing as you and therefore figured I’d respond to you as well. I have friends who deleted their Facebook pages in fear of their crazy pictures from weekends or study abroad-or anything really- ruining their chances at top jobs. Some of them got jobs, some of them didn’t. I never thought of it on the flip side where if you are NOT present, they might not even consider you. My thoughts were always if you have a lot of things online giving you AN image, like Facebook pictures, it’s better off to have none. However, thinking about it now, the thought did go through my mind to delete my Facebook account but I refrained. I think that I refrained because yes, I had some probably mildly crazy/out there pictures from college, from studying abroad in Australia, and just from me being me, but at the end of the day I trusted my judgment and my representation of myself online to show who I am to employers. I think it is important to show you’re actually a person and not just the jobs on your resume and grades on your transcript, and it says a lot about you if you’re confident of your appearance online and allowing others to see that as an accurate representation of yourself. Having funny pictures-as long as you’re tactful- shows your personality and I would think helps employers align the right people with the right jobs.
Thanks for both of your comments about having a Facebook profile. To clarify, when he said he looks to “find them online,” he was not referring to Facebook pages. He meant he wants to be able to Google an applicant’s name and find some form of personal online website/profile that shows they are trying to brand themselves and have a presence. He wants to be able to find them on LinkedIn or have some information about the person come up in a Google search. If he can’t find someone – and especially in his field of marketing – he believes for his company and his employer needs that that person is not qualified for the job. I do think individuals should be aware of how they come across in their Facebook profile. I don’t think you have to be non-existent online besides professionally, but you should be aware of how you are portraying yourself and your character. In the case of no Facebook profile or a profile with sloppy photos, I think an employer would prefer they found no Facebook.
I agree. I currently teach a practicum course for Masters students in the Higher Education program here and just this year I decided to add a lesson to the syllabus on “branding” yourself online and as a professional. I think this is an important competency area for any professional to get a handle on. Building a brand and a presence takes time and needs to be constantly honed and curated.
It is interesting to think that not being represented online, through social media, would be a reason to throw out a resume. So much of the work we currently do is not on social media. It seems almost unfair to make this a necessity, but I assume this depends on the type of field an individual plains to go into.
I agree on the importance of knowing and understanding how social media works, especially if you are planning to go into marketing, advertising, and/or business in general. Even if you do not want to actively engage in “snapchat” or “Facebook” you should have an understanding of what is available and the insight into what these social media outlets look like. Because social media has such an impact on today’s business, I am actually surprised that social media courses are not prevalent in the core curriculum at the business school. It will be interesting to see if in future years we have more courses dealing directly with social media, and “how-to courses” as well. For example, “How to make a blog” or “How to engage with customers through social media platforms,” and if in fact these types of courses will be mandatory in years to come.
With that said, I agree with your point- “whether you like social media or not—get on everything now.” Even if you’re not an active participant, I think having an understanding of what is available and what is new in social media will be most important for current businesses and for candidates looking for jobs moving forward.
The whole part about throwing out a resume for not being represented online definitely caught my attention too. I know that I keep most of my Facebook information private from non-friends, so I find myself wondering if simply seeing that I have an account suffices for his criteria or whether or not he wants to actually view content relating to my social media presence.
Regardless, it has definitely made me more aware of how potential employers may or may not use social media as a component of the hiring process.
Very good points throughout though – social media and the ability to thoroughly understand it is becoming more and more important for potential employers as the world continues to shift in that direction. As a young person coming out of college, it seems that a lot of companies are almost expecting a high-level understanding of the technologies regardless of background. Luckily, if we don’t already have it, we will after finishing up this course
Interesting. I will be interested to hear in your last blogpost whether – in hindsight – you would have considered yourself a social media expert at this point. You certainly may be, because it sounds like you have far more experience than the average college-student user who uses Twitter primarily for interacting with their friends. On the other hand, this class looks at many of the principles and concepts underlying social media tools. It may be that your current experience has led you to a deep procedural understanding of how to use the tools, but you have little strategic or conceptual understanding. Only time will tell. Regardless, I’m glad you talked me into letting you into class :). One critique, a picture or two might help break up the content of your blog in the future.
I, too, was very wary of social media, especially Twitter, when it all started to become popular. However, I certainly agree with your uncle in the respect that social media is incredibly important for businesses. More importantly, it’s not going to go away. The problem that a lot of brands and businesses are facing right now is how to keep up, and how to choose which new platforms to test out among all of the new ones.