Protecting Your Professional Image on Social Media

The prevalence of social media has exploded in popularity over the last decade. The idea of monitoring what flows through your Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, or Twitter is something of a new idea. Employers are using social media to screen candidates every day. You may not know it, but at this point you probably have a fairly significant online presence that an employer can use to learn more about you than what they may have gotten out of a resume.

So here are 5 tips to take with you when building your online presence.

1. Value what you are putting out there – What people see on the internet is all they have by which to judge the kind of person you are, before sitting down to talk with you in person, and what we employers see on the internet will make a lasting impression. So leave the people that are looking over your social media with a good impression of who you are.
2. Expand your social media presence – Keeping yourself plugged into social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ and maintaining a respectable presence on your social media will not only be something that employers can look at, but due to the sites notoriety they are likely to be the first thing to show up on a search engine’s results of your name. By keeping the image you yourself have put together on social media there is smaller chance that anything you don’t want to be seen finding its way to the top of the search engine’s results
3. Provide potential employers these sites – Handing out these sites to potential employers speaks volumes to the fact that you don’t have anything to hide and that you are comfortable with people looking into your online background. Doing this may also curb the intensity of a recruiters snooping if they already have a list of places they know they can find out more information about you.
4. Learn where you stand – There are sites out there such as Brand Yourself that will allow you to get a better understanding of how your name does when you are searched on any search engine. This can help you find your problem areas, or areas that do a good job of presenting yourself professionally.
5. Don’t Hide Yourself – Take the time and effort to make this something you can be proud of. Don’t choose not to participate in social media as a way of hiding yourself from potential employers. Not being found can raise its own red flags just as much as having an unprofessional presence.