by Keely Blanch
Have you Googled yourself lately? What's your digital footprint? Are the results what you want your department colleagues, your supervisors, your peers, or an employer to see?
While most readers of this blog are immersed in postgraduate study, presumably the hope is one day to put that study to use in a career. Some academics are turning to social media as a way to disseminate their research and to build a research community, all of which may help career prospects. However, perhaps your career is not going to be in academia. Recently, the Grad Guide blog posted a guide titled "5 Ways to smarten up your Facebook Profile for Prospective Employers". Reportedly, some employers check out social media profiles when looking at potential employees, so it makes sense to think about what you present on social media.
With a membership claimed to be at 1.3 billion users worldwide, Facebook is perhaps the best known social media site in New Zealand. In terms of developing a professional online presence, there is also LinkedIn, Academia.edu, Twitter, as well as Google+, blogs, and many others.
Perhaps you think it's easier not to have a social presence? After all there are a lot of stories online about people posting something and inadvertently getting into trouble, and uni students, and staff (!) certainly are not immune to this. For instance, see this story about one institution's response to an academic's tweets. However, it has been argued that having no social media presence is now considered more suspicious than a carefully controlled media presence! Worse still, there's no guarantee that you don't inadvertently have a media presence (as my MA study found), because others have posted, shared and tagged items about you. Rather than avoid all social media, the argument is that if you are present on social media, then you can maximise your control over your information.
Grad Guide argues that you can use Facebook to help your reputation, rather than hinder, by selectively choosing what to present publically on your profile. Similar actions can be taken for other sites. An important part of the process of presenting yourself well online, is knowing how to use security settings so that you are not sharing those private pictures, stories and jokes. A good resource for Facebook security tips is the Facecrooks website, especially the post
Blogs can also be made private if required, but many are written for public consumption. It makes sense, therefore, to consider carefully what you write. Various academic blogs have talked about the process of blogging and consideration of audience. Much like any writing, the key advice is to think about who your audience is and what their expectations might be. Many of the academic blog writers (featured on the sidebar) also promote themselves via Facebook and Twitter as these provide more immediate interaction capabilities. But....this may mean that it is that much harder to retract mistaken postings. Net security sites, such as NZ's Netsafe, emphasise that people should not forget that information on the internet is effectively permanent. It's safest to assume that once it's out there, it's out there forever.
Interested in tweeting? Check out these guidelines in The Ten Commandments of Twitter for Academics
And don't forget to check out your institution's policy on social media use. The University of Otago guidelines are here. Although this policy is aimed at staff, it's a good idea for postgrads to be aware of this policy, especially if you do gain work from time to time at the university. :)
Have you Googled yourself lately? What's your digital footprint? Are the results what you want your department colleagues, your supervisors, your peers, or an employer to see?
While most readers of this blog are immersed in postgraduate study, presumably the hope is one day to put that study to use in a career. Some academics are turning to social media as a way to disseminate their research and to build a research community, all of which may help career prospects. However, perhaps your career is not going to be in academia. Recently, the Grad Guide blog posted a guide titled "5 Ways to smarten up your Facebook Profile for Prospective Employers". Reportedly, some employers check out social media profiles when looking at potential employees, so it makes sense to think about what you present on social media.
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| [Image from http://interviewstream.com/blog/guide-to-social-recruiting/] |
With a membership claimed to be at 1.3 billion users worldwide, Facebook is perhaps the best known social media site in New Zealand. In terms of developing a professional online presence, there is also LinkedIn, Academia.edu, Twitter, as well as Google+, blogs, and many others.
Perhaps you think it's easier not to have a social presence? After all there are a lot of stories online about people posting something and inadvertently getting into trouble, and uni students, and staff (!) certainly are not immune to this. For instance, see this story about one institution's response to an academic's tweets. However, it has been argued that having no social media presence is now considered more suspicious than a carefully controlled media presence! Worse still, there's no guarantee that you don't inadvertently have a media presence (as my MA study found), because others have posted, shared and tagged items about you. Rather than avoid all social media, the argument is that if you are present on social media, then you can maximise your control over your information.
 |
| [Image from http://operationoffersblog.com/linkedin-important-business-branding/] |
"How to Lockdown Your Facebook Account For Maximum Privacy and Security" which offers a step-by-step guide to privacy protection. You can also use the various help guides and FAQs for other social media sites.
Blogs can also be made private if required, but many are written for public consumption. It makes sense, therefore, to consider carefully what you write. Various academic blogs have talked about the process of blogging and consideration of audience. Much like any writing, the key advice is to think about who your audience is and what their expectations might be. Many of the academic blog writers (featured on the sidebar) also promote themselves via Facebook and Twitter as these provide more immediate interaction capabilities. But....this may mean that it is that much harder to retract mistaken postings. Net security sites, such as NZ's Netsafe, emphasise that people should not forget that information on the internet is effectively permanent. It's safest to assume that once it's out there, it's out there forever.
But don't panic - remember you can use your social media presence for your benefit. You may consider giving yourself an online reputation makeover. There are companies you can pay to do this, but basically it boils down to burying those 'bad' Google results by providing more good results instead, as outlined here. Microsoft also offer tips on managing your online reputation here. And more thoughts can be found at HistoryPunk and BishopBlog.
And for some thoughts on academic blogging and academic reputations check out these links -
- from Pat Thomson (patter) https://patthomson.wordpress.com/blogging-paper-in-progress/
- from the Thesis Whisperer (Dr Inger Mewburn) who will be at Otago University for the Graduate research festival in early October http://thesiswhisperer.com/2010/08/31/social-media-and-your-phd/
Interested in tweeting? Check out these guidelines in The Ten Commandments of Twitter for Academics
And don't forget to check out your institution's policy on social media use. The University of Otago guidelines are here. Although this policy is aimed at staff, it's a good idea for postgrads to be aware of this policy, especially if you do gain work from time to time at the university. :)
As someone who has employed people I can say that looking for/at an online presence is certainly something I do, so do take note of this advice!
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