Tip of the Day Tuesday

7 Ways to Use Social Media to Help Your Job Search

To use social media effectively for your job search, you need to understand that social media isn’t about you. It’s about the community and what you can do to add value to the collective whole. Here are seven tips to help you use social media for your job search:

1. Become part of a community on Twitter or another more targeted social media platform. Engage with people and companies that you’re interested in. Follow their employees. Retweet and respond to their tweets. Show that you’re interested. This doesn’t mean constantly tweeting “Can I have a job?” or stalking them. Rather, tweet their content and show that you’re interested.
2. Connect on LinkedIn. Often considered a job hunter’s ghetto, LinkedIn is useful for meeting like-minded individuals. It is a good idea to actively engage by sharing links, joining groups and answering questions.
3. Learn who your friends are. Become more active on Facebook. Re-connect with people from your past. Of course, this is helpful to do before you need this safety net. Remember people use Facebook in different ways—for some it’s about being social and for others it’s about business.
4. Find out about your target audience. "Want to connect with me? Spend some time on my blog and learn about me." Leave a comment to start a conversation. Bear in mind that very few readers take the effort to comment. Therefore, you’ll stand out. Isn’t that what you want to accomplish?
5. Join the conversation. Participate in one or more Twitter Chats. This is a good way to make contacts with other people. Understand that like other forms of social media, you have to build your relationships over time. Therefore, you may not leave every chat with new leads but you’ll be able to start building new relationships that can help you long term.
6. Get out and meet people. Depending on your area of expertise, find offline meetings where you can get out and connect with people in real life. Also, use real life events to connect with others in your industry such as conferences and other local events.
7. Share your knowledge. Start your own blog to support the community around your area of expertise. The benefit is that your content is a strong example of your ability to build a community around your work.
   

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