How to Properly Use Facebook for Job Seekers, Creators, Small Businesses, and Anyone Else Who Wants to Look Like They Know What They’re Doing
(27/365) Social Media Series: How To Properly Use Facebook For Job Seekers, Creators, Small Businesses, and Anyone Else Who Wants to Look Like They Know What They’re Doing
Whether you are trying to find a new job, looking for clients, or seeking to build a following or audience for your work, social media is extremely important and your internet persona can be just as important as the quality of your work. When employers look at your résumé or someone views your work online, they see what you have done. That doesn’t really tell them anything about who you are. People want to know who you are before they hire you. They want to make sure that your values match their values and that you aren’t a lunatic.
The good news about this is that if you understand how and when to use social media, you can not only take advantage of this and create a desirable persona, but you can actually make yourself look a lot cooler online than you are in real life. It does take a good bit of work, know-how, and self awareness, but once you get the hang of it – it starts becoming second nature. So, let’s talk about whether or not you need to use each application, how you should use them, how often, and what you should not do.
1) Facebook Facebook remains the most popular form of social media and the majority of current companies will check a job applicant’s Facebook page when deciding whether or not to hire them.
How to use it: Facebook used to be hip, cool, and young. Facebook is still cool, but now everyone and their grandparents have a Facebook (You can only delay accepting your aunt’s friend request for so long). Facebook also has the worst privacy policy and is the easiest for acquaintances, or even strangers, to access your information. That means that everything you post can be seen by basically anyone and everyone. That is good and bad. I suggest offering a professional, highly polished version of your self here. Keep your friends updated on your big projects and moves, but don’t get too personal and stay away from posts or commenting on politics, religion, or anything that may result in a hostile discussion and shine you in a controversial light. Go ahead and post some pictures of your family vacation, but don’t add 300 photos in an hour. Pick the best of the best, tag the people that are in them, and say “Thank you” when someone tells you that you and your significant other look nice together. Also, if you want to separate your business from your personal life then you may want to consider creating a separate page for your business or work that people can “like” – instead of “friend”. When you get past a certain point, It is a lot easier to build followers than it is friends, anyway.
Facebook can be a great way to market yourself, but don’t overdo it. People will unfriend or block you if you spam them too much. Facebook users mainly want to see well… faces. Take quality, well lit pictures of yourself actually doing things in cool places. These are the kinds of posts that do well here. Learning the basics of photography can really go a long way in bumping up the quality of your online persona. Google isn’t going to hire anyone who takes selfies in their bathroom.
Also, posts of things that you have created or are involved in won’t do as well as you would like. These type of posts take more of a time investment from their audience. The higher the time investment, typically the worse they will do. A picture of yourself is easy; people can look at your face, see where you are, like it and move on. It took them five seconds. If you want everyone to come to a charity event you started, watch a film you made, or read and discuss an interesting article you just read on American foreign policy, don’t set your expectations too high. Those three paragraphs you typed in the “event description” are too much of an investment for most people. Those five minutes of YouTube that you spent months working on are five minutes your audience won’t get back, if they didn’t like it. Maybe they are somewhere where they need headphones to watch it, but they don’t have headphones? There are a million reasons for them not care enough to put in that little, extra effort that they hadn’t anticipated. There exists on the internet an infinite amount of amazing content just a click away that you are battling against for your friends’ or followers’ time.
Although it is important that you market yourself and discuss things that are unique and important to you, do not get disheartened when these type of posts do not do as well as you would like. There exists other platforms that are more specialized and have a different type of audience where these posts will do better. When promoting this type of personal content, remember that it is usually the quality and not the quantity of the people liking your posts. Maybe one of those three people that just liked your post work for a company you want to work for, know someone who is looking for someone with your skill set, or is a wealthy investor looking to taste a risk on a young artist, entrepreneur, creator, etc.?
Just keep creating quality content and crafting the type of persona you want and the type of audience you’re looking for will find you.
Other ways to get more likes on your posts:
- Pay to promote the post. It costs $7 and makes your posts stay on your friends’ feeds longer and typically higher up.
- Massive Liking: Like what other people post. There exists an unwritten code between some people on social media. ‘Like my stuff, I’ll return the favor and like yours back, and together we’ll both look more popular than we actually are’.
- Post when people are actually going to be online. It depends on the average age group of your fans or friends, but typically 8-10pm Monday thru Thursday and after 3pm on the weekends are good times. Around 10pm on Wednesday is the time of the week when, on average, the most people are on Facebook.
- Respond or “like” when people compliment or ask questions in the comments of your posts. When someone comments on a post, it will also show up in their own timeline. You want your posts to show up in as many timelines as possible. Someone is much more likely to comment again in the future, if you respond or, at least, like their post.
Everyone should be using Facebook and, if you utilize a little planning and common sense, you can leverage this popular outlet to your advantage. The most important thing to remember to do is post or share things that people care about. If it’s important to you, talk about it. Be positive, talk about what you love. Don’t complain and remember you can always “untag” photos of yourself that don’t match the persona you are crafting.
How often should you post: Every day! Or every time that you have something of quality to share (whichever one is least).
Final notes: Don’t be afraid to friend people you barely know. You are trying to build an audience, after all. Most people will appreciate that you cared enough to look them up or at least show some bit of interest into what they are up to. Just be prepared and have a good answer to the “Do I know you?” message that may (but probably won’t) follow your request.
You can change the privacy settings on your post so that it shows up for “Only Me”. Do this when you post, make sure it looks the way you want, then change the settings to “Public”.
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