Networking - social technologies to boost business and self

Though I adore technology, I'm not quite well acquainted with social technologies as I'd like to be. I have a Facebook (as most 20 something year olds do) and I only joined the Instagram community 10 months ago when I succumbed to peer pressure. I had no idea what the use of hash tagging was or why you'd even want to #hashtagallthethings. Oh, I have LinkedIn too, though I haven't updated it since it was created beginning of 2013 and to be honest, I don't even know what it's really used for or why I joined that community.

Onto Social Media, I've always had an interest in using Social Media to 'get out there'. Currently, I am doing an internship as a Social Media Manager - helping to increase the company's business by using Facebook as a free advertising tool. You don't need to do extensive research to see that using Social Media tools for networking, promotion and interaction with customers is a vast part of current marketing trends. You see it everywhere - businesses big or small, freelance designers, artists, bands, Aunt Mildred's dog - all use Social Media as a platform for communicating with people who care.

Have a look at Deloitte's video (and article) on Social Networking to Social Activation. It talks about driving traffic back to your website/business by using the power of customer reviews and feedback. Again, you don't need to do a ton of Google searches to see that reviews are a big advocating tool for businesses (although I did anyway). We look at reviews of products, services, even restaurant reviews performed by previous clients or customers to determine whether these products or places are worthy and what we need. Even Facebook pages have star ratings and a section for testimonials for others to see what all the buzz (or lack there of) is about.

Now, let's get down to how these social technologies and tools can help a student or those about to graduate and looking for a job. As a design student, I looked into free tools to advertise my work and get my presence known in the online world, so that that online presence will be driven back towards me. My best friend and I are collaborating together (for one of her assignments) to get ourselves out there. We've decided to do a market stall, and although this is one form for advertising ourselves and networking with others who come to our stall face-to-face, we can look into expanding our network in a business and customer sense by creating a Facebook page and Instagram page and sharing that amongst our current network, and ask for those to share it around their network. These online page addresses can be placed onto our business cards to direct people towards our little business in that way too, then they can follow and contact either of us in a more 'modern' sense.

So, I don't have Twitter and have never been interested in having it, but I wanted to touch on it briefly to gain more insight into this trend, so for this blog I did have a play and researched it. People (such as bands, celebrities, sporting stars, socialites) use this social tool to engage with their followers. In terms of using this tool for students and job seekers, I personally believe that there are more effective resources out there. Perhaps once a designer gains more interest, then Twitter could be a great way to keep their followers up-to-date. I'd love to hear what you guys think about Twitter?

Lastly, LinkedIn is a great online professional network not only for those seeking jobs, but also for employers looking for fresh talent. There are over 300 million LinkedIn users with two new users joining every second. That's a lot of potential employers and potential opportunities - yay for online networking! With the statistics I found through my research for this week's blog, it has definitely driven me to pay more attention to my current LinkedIn profile and update it like a responsible student, soon-to-be graduate and employee. Not only will this tool be a great way to network and get out there into the real world, but using other platforms of Social Media previously mentioned, I believe, will also be highly beneficial. 

Hopefully this blog has given you some food for thought. I'd love to hear your insights! Thank you for reading!