It’s the morning after a wild night out in Chapel Hill, and of course, the evidence slowly begins to show up on your social media pages like Facebook and Twitter. Your pages get bombarded by all the friends that think it is necessary to post memories on your wall, tag you in photos, and tweet at you about every embarrassing thing that happened.
Well, it’s all innocent fun, right? That depends on who has access to your social media sites. College students must be aware of who can see their profiles, photos, and anything else that would affect their reputations with family, potential employers, and any contacts that are of importance.
That is why many college students have begun using a website called Socioclean. It is a program that will scan your social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, You Tube) and assign a letter grade to your specific page according to the content available for people to see, including inappropriate language, mentions of sex or alcohol, and similar content. The site provides a complete report of everything that is scanned, and it is very useful in helping you to clean up your page. It scans not only what you post on your social media sites, but also what your friends mention or tag you in. Socioclean is a simple and easy way to receive feedback on how to clean up social media sites, thus enabling you to make them more appealing and appropriate for the world to see. For a quick scan and breakdown of your report, go to www.socioclean.com and register for a free account. It was a great way for me to become aware of how people view my Facebook and Twitter, and I got the easiest “A” that I will ever get in college, especially at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Why is it so important to make your social media sites appear polished and professional to the rest of the world? Below are just four of the many examples of how it can shape your future and your reputation.
Privacy settings don’t matter.
Many people believe that because you have your social media sites set to private, or because you block specific people, that you are safe from unwanted viewers having access. That is a myth, especially when referring to employers. After working closely with an IT department last summer, I learned how simple it is for professionals to get past privacy settings when scanning social media sites for potential employees. There are tricks, and employers know them.
Fake identities
As we all know, it isn’t difficult to create an identity and be any person you want on social media sites. Professionals, parents, and even law enforcement officers are able to use it to their advantage with the click of a button. Fake Twitter names and bogus Facebook accounts are easy ways to watch what is happening and to gather evidence, and they are becoming more popular among professionals. Be sure that you know someone before you give them access to your personal pages.
It is becoming more common to interact with companies, potential employers, and people of influence on social media sites, especially Facebook. This means that you must be aware of how they will view you after doing some research. Facebook is such an easy way to connect with people, so use it to your advantage because it definitely worked for me. I connected with a wouldn’t want to see the content on them.
Networking can go a long way.
Be aware of the advantage of networking on social media sites, and clean them up in order to land a great contact or even an internship!
Avoid embarrassment.
One last thing that people always seem to forget is that some of the content that is posted on social media sites is just embarrassing, and it is available to friends, family, and other contacts you may forget you have. When you look back in a month or two and see that drunken status, embarrassing photo, or something you posted that was “not so classy”, you are going to wish that it had never been posted at all. In the future, just be aware of things you are posting, and think about how you would feel if you saw that on another person’s Facebook or Twitter. It’s the easiest way to avoid problems and embarrassment.
Follow these tips, register with Socioclean, and get an “A” in social media!
Sources:
Social media logos collage (photo): The Merchant Stand: http://merchantstand.com/2012/01/social-media-is-affecting-the-news-media/
Socioclean website logo (photo): Socioclean: www.socioclean.com
Blue and white “A” (photo): Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:A-Caracas.png