A Social Media Primer for Professionals

Introduction

Social media has become increasingly popular in the United States with participation of online adult users increasing from 8% to 72% since 2005 (Breener & Smith, 2013). Terry (2009) defined social media as “. . . user-generated content utilizing Internet-based publishing technologies, distinct from traditional . . . media.” It is used to communicate and stay connected to family, friends, and colleagues (Terry, 2009), and for fun and entertainment. Social media is now a tool for practitioners to share information, promote health behaviors, reach diverse audiences, and foster engagement (Neiger et al., 2012).

Social media also has great potential for professional development (Abdulla, Marsden, Wilson, & Parker, 2013; George, Rovniak, & Krashnewski, 2013; LaGarde & Whitehead, 2012), or for professional damage when used inappropriately (George et al., 2013). Positive professional affects of social media can include professional network development, expertise and reputation enhancement, and increased knowledge and awareness of news, discoveries, and opportunities. This commentary explores the strengths and challenges of using social media for professional development and presents “digital dos and don’ts.” We focus on the three most popular social networking sites in the United States—Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter—although recommendations offered are also relevant for other social media.

Crosscutting Considerations

First impressions are often lasting, and similar challenges and opportunities apply to impressions formed through social media. Your appearance in social media communicates information about your personality, priorities, and values. This impression is based on all aspects of your social media profile, including photos, nicknames, updates you post, comments you like and share, and all of the friends, causes, organizations, games, and media you follow. Because it is common for most social media users to be connected to overlapping networks of friends and family along with professional colleagues, remember that your professional reputation is shaped as much by what you share online as by what you do at work. Therefore, we recommend users design all their sites and profiles in a professional manner. Being creative can positively reflect your personality and interests, but do not put information or images on your site that you would not display at work for your supervisor and coworkers to see, because they will likely see it anyway. Try to view your profile as others will see it, including those not in your network. Make adjustments to ensure it appears professional and remove any questionable content. When posting comments in any social media platform, be sure to carefully consider how a current or future employer or coworker may react to your perspective. A simple rule of thumb is to not share anything in social media that you would not want to be read—now or someday in the future—by your parent, child, or boss.

Some social media users attempt to separate their personal and professional sites by creating separate accounts on social media platforms. Although this idea seems sound in principle, it is very difficult to implement in practice, and nearly impossible if you have already allowed overlapping personal and professional contacts. Once you allow any professional contacts into your personal network, your shared information is available to their entire network, including other colleagues to whom you otherwise would not have linked. In addition, removing people from your network (“unfriending”) may result in hurt feelings or bruised egos. We recommend being selective of those you accept into your network, using the settings within the social media site to uniquely label different relationships, and only sharing information appropriate to each respective group. If you are willing to verbally share selected personal information with coworkers, students, or others, then you may be comfortable allowing them into your social network. If you are more private and discreet with personal information, you may want to select which social media sites to use and/or strictly limit members of your social networks. If you already have friends, acquaintances, and strangers in your network, you should tag or label the strangers and use privacy settings to limit their access to your content and isolate them from the rest of your network.

New and inexperienced social media users should become familiar with the account and privacy settings associated with each site. Returning users should recheck account and privacy settings three to four times per year, as social networks often update or change their privacy settings and policies. Social media sites offer a wide range of privacy settings and options. Many sites allow users to select who can view their profile, shared comments and posts, likes and activities, and photos and videos, as well as who can message them or search for them. The more “open” your settings, the greater the number of people who will find you, follow you, and seek to connect, including many coworkers and people from your recent and distant past. Conversely, narrow privacy and sharing settings prevent others from finding or following you and inhibit growth of your professional network. We recommend setting your account and privacy settings in a way that enables expanding your network while limiting exposure of your profile to people outside your network.

Facebook

Facebook is the most popular social media site, commanding the use of about 67% of online adults in the United States (Rainie, Smith, & Duggan, 2013). Although Facebook began as an exclusively social and personal sharing site, it has grown into many other areas, including delivery of advertising, commerce, news, and entertainment as well as updates from organizations and causes. Facebook can be an effective tool for professional development, allowing users to build and expand their professional networks, create and cultivate connections to influential organizations and individuals, share information and updates that improve their reputation and perceived expertise, and gather information and intelligence on organizations and individuals allowing informed decisions and career advancement. Conversely, Facebook activity can also undermine or even destroy one’s career, primarily by sharing offensive or inappropriate information or revealing personal information that may be professionally damaging.

Facebook allows users to create lists of different types of friends, such as “Coworkers,” “College Friends,” and “Family,” which can be used to share select comments and updates with specific friend segments rather than one’s entire network. Additionally, Facebook has two default lists (“close friend” and “acquaintance”) used to tag friends and limit exposure to comments and content. Once lists have been created, they can each be set for limited access to different types of content in the privacy settings.

Many professionals use Facebook to promote themselves by sharing professional updates, accomplishments, and insights to their network. Sharing interesting stories and news can provide a valued service as a curator of content and can increase your reputation as an informed and knowledgeable expert. However, posting too frequently or sharing controversial or highly opinionated information may prompt some of your network members to ignore or “hide” future posts. Try targeting posts to individual network segments with personal updates going only to “close friends” and professional updates going to “acquaintances.”

Many professional organizations use Facebook to disseminate information and communicate with members. To become more involved with organizations in your field, you should identify and “like” professional groups or pages in your areas of professional interest and monitor their regular posts to keep abreast of the field. Keep in mind that the pages and groups you view and join is often public information within Facebook, so other users, including people outside your network, may be aware of your online likes and preferences.

The tagging feature within Facebook can be great a tool for connecting people with content and comments. However, this function is potentially harmful if you are tagged in photos, videos, check-ins, or comments that may be seen as inappropriate or unprofessional. We recommend that you set your account so you must approve all new tags and wall postings before they can be displayed on your profile timeline. If you are tagged in other people’s photos and posts and do not wish to be, you need to manually go to the photo or comment and “untag” yourself.

In summary, as a social network, Facebook has the potential to help increase your awareness of opportunities, improve your reputation, expand your professional network, and connect to influential people and organizations, but it also carries unintended risks. Using Facebook’s built in, but underutilized, features (e.g., strict privacy and approval settings, assigning friends to lists, and targeting posts) can reduce your risks and help facilitate professional development, growth, and networking.

Linkedin

LinkedIn is the largest social network focused exclusively on professional networking and development. There are more than 84 million users in the United States who have used LinkedIn to connect to professionals and organizations, share professional updates, and explore career development opportunities (LinkedIn Corporation, 2013). LinkedIn is designed for users to promote themselves professionally. The profile page serves as a virtual resume or electronic curriculum vitae. In addition to listing work experience, education, and contact information, users can also share professional recommendations, work samples, publications, presentations, courses, languages, organizations, projects, and many other examples of professional accomplishments. To increase your professional reputation, we recommend that users completely populate their LinkedIn profile, use a professional profile photo, and share examples of work where possible (e.g., links to talks or papers). It is important to make sure that the information is completely accurate, just as on a resume, but be sure to take full credit for your professional awards, accomplishments, and accolades. Recommenda-tions and endorsements that appear on your profile page are valuable additions to your profile, especially when seeking career opportunities, but only request recommendations from close mentors and collaborators so as not to put professionals in the uncomfortable position of having to refuse to provide, or worse, offering a lukewarm endorsement for your work.

The greatest power of LinkedIn is creating a digital version of your professional network and strategically growing the network by linking to key people and organizations. A good way to start building your LinkedIn network is to allow the site to search for possible connections using your e-mail account and by suggesting people you may know based on your current profile and current connections. When inviting people to link to you, LinkedIn offers the option of using either a generic invitation or personalizing it. The latter is a good idea when requesting to connect with senior professionals, such as those you heard speak at a conference. Many users of LinkedIn are open to connecting with people they do not personally know provided they are not likely to burden them with many requests, messages, or sales calls.

LinkedIn allows users to share status updates that go out to their network, who can add their likes and comments. When sharing status updates, remember that this is a strictly professional network and that updates should focus on items of broad general interest rather than self-serving requests or perspectives. LinkedIn also allows users to join groups and follow organizations and companies, which enables you to keep up to date on new findings and reports, as well as career opportunities. LinkedIn is a great place for like-minded professionals to come together and participate in valuable discussion topics. To advance your awareness of professional trends and opportunities, we recommend joining groups related to your field and actively contributing to online discussions. This is a constructive way to meet and engage with other professionals in your field and to demonstrate your expertise and credibility.

Twitter

Twitter is the most open of these social media platforms with the greatest value for professional development. An estimated 18% of adult Internet users now use Twitter to send and receive short (≤140 characters) text-based messages called “tweets” (Breener & Smith, 2013). Photos, videos, and/or links may be included within tweets. Although Twitter is perhaps best known as a place where the most popular celebrities share regular updates with tens of millions of followers, it is increasingly used as an essential tool for sharing and disseminating timely professional updates, such as the release of new reports, findings, and opportunities.

Similar to other social networks, Twitter users should be professional when creating their username and profile, and in writing and sharing their tweets, because virtually anyone can be followed and have their tweets shared (“retweeted”) through countless other networks. It is important to carefully proofread and self-censor your tweets before sending them to avoid typos and/or sharing information that may be perceived as unprofessional or inappropriate. Growing your Twitter following results from (a) sharing interesting, informative, and quotable tweets that are retweeted through other people’s networks and (b) including your Twitter name on all your presentation slides, papers, and websites while sharing highly “tweetable” information.

Because Twitter is an open platform, who follows whom is public. Users can follow both organizations and individuals on Twitter. Consider following organizations in your field and well-known professionals to keep up to date on the latest news and discoveries. When following leaders in your field, use “snowball sampling” to see who they follow and consider following those individuals yourself. Be careful and selective who you follow because anyone, including your coworkers and prospective employers, can access your Twitter profile and see the people, organizations, causes, and celebrities you follow and draw professional and personal conclusions about you. Some users may chose to create two or more Twitter accounts for separating their personal tweets and follows from their professional tweets and follows; however, this division only works if your professional contacts have no awareness of or engagement with your personal account.

Among the greatest strengths of Twitter is the use of hashtags to make topics easily searchable and retrievable. Hashtags are keywords, phrases, or abbreviations preceded with a pound or hash sign (e.g., #digitalhealth, #healthed) within the tweet. Users can search in real time through the entire stream of all tweets being sent for the presence of tweets containing a hashtag to find tweets of particular interest. It has become common for hashtags to be used to “live tweet” televisions shows, live events, and scientific conferences, which creates a secondary real-time conversation running simultaneous to the event.

It can be overwhelming to follow and organize all of the tweets people receive from their followers, so many Twitter users create lists of followers organized by topic or category to organize their incoming tweets into groups for selective reading and reviewing. Another powerful strategy is the use of other programs or applications (“apps”) to help organize one’s Twitter feed. Both Hootsuite and Tweetdeck, for example, allow users to organize their feed into distinct columns organized by hashtags, topics, lists, or other meaningful distinctions. Because it is such an open platform, there are countless free and low cost apps and tools that make Twitter better and easier. We strongly encourage all health promotion professionals to sign up and use Twitter for professional productivity and advancement.

Conclusion

Using social media sites has become a popular online activity and this trend is continuing as online use shifts from desktop and laptop computers to tablets and smart phones. When used unwisely and imprudently, there is the potential to delay, damage, or even destroy one’s professional and personal life. However, when used wisely and prudently, social media sites and platforms offer great potential for professional development by building and cultivating professional networks, as well as sharing information to increase one’s recognition and improve one’s reputation. They also provide a medium for increasing one’s knowledge and awareness of timely news and trends by following important organizations, opinion leaders, and influential professionals. We believe that the strengths and benefits of social media far outweigh the risks for professional advancement and development, and we encourage professionals to leverage these platforms.