Apart from the usual updating of status, posting comments, and uploading pictures, what else have you been able to use social media for? Obviously the primary motive behind the inception of these media platforms was to help us hook up with friends and family.
In today’s competitive marketplace however, the use of social media has transcended just hooking up with friends and family to something more concrete and tangible. In this article, we will take a look at how we can effectively put social media to good use. Let’s take a look at them now.
1. Build a personal reputation
With an interest to speak positive words into people’s lives, and to challenge them to do better than they could naturally do, I turned my Facebook page from a contact platform into a personal reputation building one. I often updated my status with excerpts of books and audios of renowned writers and speakers that I thought would serve my readers well.
In less than two months, the producer of Nash Radio, one of the most influential online-only radio station in Moscow, Russia, contacted me and expressed his admiration for my status updates; that was the beginning of my journey to becoming the host of the station’s flagship motivational radio talk show dubbed, ‘Motivational Arena’.
What reputation are you building for yourself? Are your statuses reflective of a purposeful intent to building a reputation or because Facebook will normally ask, “What’s on your mind”? If we’re to review your statuses over the past three months, what trend are they going to follow?
A real but rare opportunity is here, let’s use it wisely!
2. Find a job
In recent times, other social media platforms such as LinkedIn are monitored 24/7 by employers to find prospective job seekers.
According to a research by the Society for Human Resource Management in April, 2013, the number of employers who use social media and social networking websites to recruit job candidates continues to rise. According to the research, 77% of the respondents said they currently use social networking for job recruitment.
This is a clarion call for all prospective job seekers. Apart from uploading your CVs or resumes, your statuses must be in a certain taste to attract employers to you. Will you ever want to employ someone on whose social media page you find sexually-explicit content? Absolutely not!
3. Showcase your talent and establish yourself as an expert
Is it not amazing that people keep complaining now more than ever before that they have found no platform via which to display a talent, yet they’re very active members of social media?
I have seen a few people who have effectively utilised their Facebook pages to display their talents by way of publishing articles, poems, and uploading videos of their songs. Others have pictures of their artefacts also posted for friends to see and know what they are about. There is always a way to display what you have to offer the world, but until that is done, no one will come to you for what you have.
4. Enhance your business contacts
I have lost count of the number of people who keep telling me they struck a business deal with someone they first met on a social media platform. Personally, I have been involved in a few consulting works for organisations and individuals alike on subjects they thought I could help them in.
In this day and age, you don’t have to be in physical contact with a would-be business partner to strike a deal. You can be separated by several thousands of kilometres but the power of social media brings us all to one common platform.
No one will consult with you when your statuses do not portray a certain level of quality and excellence. If you want to change your fortunes, change your statuses!
5. Share information with like-minded people
There are many groups created on Facebook especially, for one reason or the other. A few of them offer very timely and helpful information for their members. These groups also offer like-minded people the opportunity to share information and their life experiences with one another.
I have been very active in some of such groups, paramount among them is the Springboard Virtual Creative Writing Academy where like-minded people with the passion to write come together to brainstorm. This is the place where my writing has tremendously improved over the period.
Don’t just join any group or ‘like’ any page for the fun of it. Do so with the intent to have good information and to improve your life.
Social media has come to stay, as far as we can see into the foreseeable future. The mandate is ours to transform these platforms into more tangible avenues through which we can do great things. Updating your status, liking and commenting, and uploading your images are good, but there’s something better you can use these platforms for. Find them, and use these platforms the very best way you can!
