The Social Media Professional
Doesn't that title seem like an oxymoron? When I joined Facebook, after the Hi5 wave, it was solely for social purposes and at that time that meant talking to friends, uploading pictures of yourself or your friends when you hung out at the movies or other random places. In our limited use of this social media website, we didn't think of how much Facebook and other websites of similar nature would change the occupational landscape.
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Just an FYI moment: hi5 still exists and "revamped" their website offerings in 2009, although I won't attempt going back on this particular social network (also MySpace... I will never go back on MySpace), I think this is pretty cool - that they didn't back out of the marketplace. You can even sign up with your Facebook account now (is this the convergence we learnt about in school?).
This old logo was changed to this:
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Anyway back to regular programming, We didn't see how it would evolve into a point of reference for future employers, act as a resume and pretty much earn you a job.
How does the younger generation transition from a "rae rae" Facebook page to a more professional one. To one that, if needs be, allows you to get a job above another person or can be a point of reference for you to showcase your work? We see now how many clothing stores, accessory stores and even food places have become popular via Facebook.
One of my favourite lecturers was addressing a group recently and he is pretty much on every social network, he listed accounts for:
- Blackberry Messenger
- Facetime
- Skype
- Foursquare
In addition to this he also had the traditional landline telephone number, and cellular numbers for calls and text messaging. If teaching and other occupations in the professional world have come to this, then we need to PROFESSIONALIZE (I just made this up lol) our accounts.
I am not the kind to bother with this sort of thing. While I appreciate my antics in high school and university (especially first year carnival), but some of the pictures from high school just seemed unnecessary... like an album of my friend and I making faces, that's it just making faces. Yeah, I deleted that. It seemed cool at the time, but now it's plain foolish.
Now, don't be disappointed in some of the comments and photos you have on these websites, everyone was young and stupid at some point. Delete what's unnecessary, fix those inappropriate comments, correct inconsistencies on your profile and perhaps you're ready to shamelessly have a complete stranger/ future boss peruse your profile.
FACEBOOK
The magic of limited profiles and selecting specific privacy settings can limit strangers and more specifically your boss or a family member from seeing a number of things on your Facebook profile. However, if you're like me...I really cannot be bothered to adjust settings for everyone so I just know that I've reached a level of maturity where pictures will be taken of me that even my mother will be able to see and be proud (she still can't see those first year of university carnival pics though).
I believe any inappropriate Facebook posts your boss found from high school or way back when Facebook just started for us regular folk, he/she was really digging up for it. Because those would have been WAY WAY WAAAAAY back on your profile since Facebook posts everything to your profile these days.
But I really have not changed my Facebook updates to showcase my "post graduate", "professional" life. However, older folks that join Facebook, join it solely for professional purposes or to re-connect with their old friends. So they already have this 'professional' approach to how they want to set up their profile.
TWITTER
When I joined twitter four years ago (in a few days it will be EXACTLY four years) I used to tweet a lot of crap, basically to myself since I didn't have any followers when I just joined lol. So I used to and still do tweet what comes to my mind. I try to use less "foul language" though because I represent some corporate entities now that it probably wouldn't look good for if I have such a filthy mouth (or finger rather).
People who only tweet about their job, especially about their social media jobs, annoy me. Perhaps that's why I'm not sitting on Twitter so much these days and quite frankly I got shit to do (oops that may not have been professional). Why would you spend your time writing about your job only? We know what you do and your job description is in your bio (yeah, we definitely asked for that) so why the need to talk about it CONSTANTLY? They're OVER-PROFESSIONALIZING lol.
Funny how terms like 'social media expert', 'social media consultant' etc... came pretty much out of nowhere and if you are confident in your abilities for your title above then why do you need to tell us about it all the time. I know Twitter asks "what's on your mind"...but there ain't nothing else on your mind?
Anywhoo... This therefore leads into... Is there such a thing as a Social Media Professional and how do we define it? Is it someone who makes a living from social media or someone who is already successful in their career and adds a social media component to ensure they are on top of the game?
So many grey areas here... I know them all - the stay at home social media strategist, the corporate social media content advisor and the non-government agency social media developer. There are lots of different strands of this social media infection.
Are you a social media professional? Who exactly is a social media prefessional?
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