Social media connects me to the world; on Instagram I see my best friend Jaden living her student life on Vancouver Island, on Facebook I recently bought a sewing machine that is now my new favourite hobby, on Snapchat I receive photos of what my friends are doing in their day to day lives, on TikTok my long-distance boyfriend and I send funny videos to each other that helps keep us connected.
Moving from a student life into a professional one can pose many challenges: what will I do with my career? Where will I live? How much money will I make? How is my social media going to affect all of it? And more importantly—how can I use social media to help me in my career?
Networking is an amazing tool that can happen many ways on social media. I will be graduating from UVIC in December of 2022 with a BFA in Creative Writing and Digital Media. This past year, I was able to work on a short film set for a student film; this experience was amazing and after it, my dreams of pursuing a career in the industry seemed much more tangible than I previously thought. Especially after I posted some of the pictures from the weekend on my Instagram, and a couple of days later I had an interesting direct message.
It was from the great Aunt of one of the girls who worked on set with me—I had tagged her in a picture, and she had tagged me, obviously her Aunt had seen it and gave me a follow. At first, I was confused by the unfamiliar name, but after reading her message I came to discover that she worked for CBC—they had a program running called The Creator Network, which was meant to support emerging filmmakers and storytellers who had interesting stories to tell, with an opportunity to get funding and published. At the time I was swamped with the end of semester homework and the application process seemed daunting, so I didn’t take her up on the opportunity. Nonetheless, I thanked her for reaching out and asked her to continue letting me know about similar opportunities in the future (when I’m not drowning in academic papers).
A great example of how networking can work on social media; I managed to get the interest of someone I didn’t even know because I posted some film pictures of a set I was working on. Wild. Imagine the opportunity if I was intentionally using my social media to network, to create connections in my field of interest.
This is professional networking without the goal of a long-term tie—I didn’t pursue the CBC opportunity at the time, but now that I know more about it, and I have a point of contact within the company, it could really benefit me if I decide to pursue a career or job within that industry. I do not know this person well, it is merely a short texting conversation that was had, but now she might recognize my name, and I will recognize hers, so there is a connection there. Weak ties such as this can play a big role in advancing an individual in their career (Rajagopal et al., 2012).
I now also need to think about what I post on social media. Before this interaction I was using social media as a personal tool to document my life and share it with friends, and now the focus of my Instagram account has changed slightly. Since this conversation via Instagram, I have censored the content I am posting (not that I was posting anything inappropriate before but remaining more professional than I previously had). While it is a personal tool, it is now a professional tool for me as well.
My digital identity, or my presence online and how I interact with and other people on it, represents me on the web. If I showcase who I am on Instagram in a positive, professional light, that could be extremely beneficial to my career; as potential employers look at my profile, they could get a sense of who I am and what I do. And if the opposite were true, that might hurt me as I move into a professional career (Stroller, 2016).
Brinke D., Bruggen J., Rajagopal K., Sloep B., (2012, January 2). Understanding personal learning networks: Their structure, content and the networking skills needed to optimally use them. First Monday. https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3559/3131
Stroller, E. [University of Derby]. (2016, Nov 25). Eric Stroller -What is Digital Identity?. [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0RryRbJza0
Hi Sarah,
I really enjoyed your introduction, pinpointing which apps you use that benefit you and especially I love how you connected it with your career growth experience. We live in a time and day where it really depends on whom you choose to connect with to create great networking system. Wishing you the best of luck in creating relations with people that can help you grow in your career even further. What a great first step for you!
Hi Sarah! I love how you used a personal example to connect to this blog topic. Best of luck in finding future opportunities and connections!