HOW SOCIAL MEDIA can derail a career!

FIRST IMPRESSIONS COUNT

EXPERTS REVEAL THE IMPORTANCE YOUR ONLINE PROFILE HAS ON BUILDING YOUR REPUTATION

An ill-timed comment, a thoughtless response or voicing an opinion you may change later is easy to gloss over when it happens in the spur of the moment. But when it takes place on your social media profile, this can have a serious effect on your career. According to workplace expert and author Michelle Gibbings, these actions can be difficult to erase in a digital era, and may cause serious regret further down the track.

“Adults are often quick to advise their children to be careful about what they post on social media, but are they applying the same standard to their actions?” she asks.

Here, Michelle explains the importance of curating your accounts and the best ways to go about it.

In a face-to-face context, when we meet someone for the first time, we very quickly make an assessment as to whether we like them, trust them, want to work with them or want to do business with them. Research highlights we have somewhere between seven to 15 seconds to make a first impression. This is based on what is known as ‘thin slicing’. Professor Frank Bernieri of Oregon State University has found we assess people relatively quickly, without a lot of data. This assessment is made on a raft of factors. It might be a glance, their handshake, what they wear, their demeanour, whether they maintain eye contact and how they smile.

With much of our lives now playing out on social media, the same holds true there as well

– albeit in a different way. A statement, a comment or liking an article, which only takes a few seconds to post, will be attached to your reputation forever. While that action may not represent your whole perspective on an issue, it will shape

how people see you, and how they assess your character and reputation.

ONE YOU, ONE BRAND

It was business management expert Tom Peters who said: “All of us need to understand the importance of branding. We are the CEOS of our own companies: Me Inc.

To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You.” In a digital world there is no separation between a personal brand and your professional brand. What you post in your personal life on a private Facebook or Instagram page will impact how you are seen professionally. Your reputation is one of your most important career assets, so it pays to treat it as such. You may invest in building up your educational qualifications and your leadership skills, and yet not consider the attention that needs to be given to how you develop and maintain a social media profile that enhances your career.

KNOW WHAT YOU STAND FOR

To do that effectively goes beyond just taking care of what you say and do online. It’s important to know your values and what you stand for, so you actively take charge of your online

reputation and make sure it aligns with what you want to be known for. When you own your reputation, you actively seek to understand how others see you, and how you see yourself. This includes identifying where there are gaps between your desired and actual reputation, and then setting about consciously constructing a reputation that works for you in the long-term, by being positively and sustainably developed. Maintaining this requires work – daily – and it isn’t something you can take for granted.

THINK LONG-TERM

With rapid changes in the workforce now and into the future, a person’s career can go in many different directions. For example, those entering the workforce now are likely to have at least 17 different employers, and five different careers during their lifetime.

Consequently, this heightens the importance of taking a long-term view of your reputation. In an era where you can never be sure where your career will land, you don’t want to find your ambitions thwarted by something you did many years ago when you weren’t paying close attention to your reputation. It’s a vital ingredient in having a long-term, successful and sustainable career, and so it pays dividends to treat it carefully.

Michelle Gibbings is a workplace expert and author. Learn more at michellegibbings.com

Your social accounts can make as much of an impression as your face-to-face behaviour. Make sure anything you post online accurately reflects who you are.