By Elle-Rose Williams

With the rise of social media and the transformation it has initiated in terms of the media landscape, it’s vast range of benefits does not only prove conducive to the fluorishment of business’- social media also goes a long way in building up your professional profile! With sites like LinkedIn, About.me and Twitter, the uses and goals of social media surpass the simple function of communication; social media has adopted the function to allow its users to market themselves!

From what you post, what articles you read, to your profile photo-your level of engagement with social networking sites and particular features of your virtual profile will reflect directly on you, and how appealing you are as a candidate. So the power to manipulate such mediums to produce the result you want is paramount in determining the strength of your professional profile!

Flavors.me: The Digital You takes the same concept as LinkedIn however manifests more on the visual as opposed to the list like style adopted by LinkedIn!
Content is organized from 35 different services-making maintaining a strong online presence a lot easier and simpler. Users can sign up for free with a range of design templates, whilst users can pay $20 a month and receive their own domain name. A Flavour.me page is basically a home page dedicated to you and only you, an opportunity for shameless self-promotion. It gets you out there and shows the extent to your engagement and acknowledgment of new and upcoming social media tools!

LinkedIn is your safest bet; a well-known and established site that has helped its users for years by providing an electronic online resume! With 80 million users, its success speaks for itself! LinkedIn permits you to gather contacts, exchange information and build up links in your desired field. LinkedIn is set out in a very clear, to the point manner, which widens it’s appeal automatically to a variety of different employers. It’s also easy to use, with a simple design!

It would, of course, be incredibly ignorant to ignore the ways in which social media can “break” a career at the same time. By posting controversial content you could be shooting yourself in the foot for opportunities that may arise in the future! Doing background research and check ups on a candidate, often means checking the individual’s links and presence on social networking sites. Controversial content is disparaging to say the least, particularly when your public image is on the line. So think before you type. If you want to separate your personal profile to your professional, there are privacy settings to protect that right! Just make sure you adopt an extremely careful attitude in doing so!

Elle works for No.1 Traveller lounges Gatwick, and Get Me TV Jobs – and is a young ambitious woman in the online community.

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