Leveraging Social Media to Boost Your Career and Business Growth

Have you ever felt intimidated by social media? Have you spent time thinking about what you should post?

Social media and its different platforms have transformed itself over the past 20 years from being a fringe technology used by the tech savvy and by college students to being a critical part of the way people from different walks of life communicate and work.

From its origins as a way to communicate with friends and family, it has been adopted by many businesses as a way to reach out to their customers because it is a popular communication method.

Two of the most common social media platforms used in the work setting are LinkedIn and Facebook. Now you may think that the buck stops in just creating profiles on platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook. IT DOES NOT! It pays to polish your profiles and here are the reasons why:

• LinkedIn

LinkedIn has grown to be known as a personal branding tool and there has never been a more important time to build and maintain an excellent LinkedIn Profile.

With over 645 million users worldwide according to the LinkedIn website, it is the largest professional network. Any professional who’s built up their own personal brand knows there are opportunities to grow both their career and business.

When a potential client or employer googles you, your LinkedIn profile will probably show in the first or second in the results page. This means that your profile allows you to control what they discover about your strengths and about your personal brand.

LinkedIn also offers a variety of invaluable resources that offer important connections and expertise. For example, do you have problems that can’t be solved by people within you company or maybe you need to hire staff? LinkedIn provides you possible solutions.

• Facebook

Facebook is known as the most popular and influential of the social media platforms. While remains a mainly personal network that allows you to connect with friends and family, more businesses have started adapting to reach out to their customers. Creating a business page can help you connect with people who want to know more about your products or services. Facebook can also help you with potential client and employer leads by letting you leverage your personal network.

As a business owner or professional who is focused on growing their business and client base, it can be difficult to keep your social media profiles up-to-date when you have a lot on your plate. This is why some business owners and professionals hire a virtual assistant to help them manage their social media presence.

If you feel stretched thin by monitoring different social media platforms and coming up with multiple things to post everyday, this might be a great reason why you should get a virtual assistant to help you evaluate your social media marketing strategy and find out which types of posts are suitable for you and your business.

If you would like to know more on how we can help you grow your business, contact us!

Contributor: Martin Ferreria

Source:
Sreenivasan, Sree. “How to Use Social Media in Your Career.” The New York Times, The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/guides/business/social-media-for-career-and-business.