Her Campus Logo Her Campus Logo
placeholder article
placeholder article

Event Review: Digital Branding for Your Career

Her Campus Placeholder Avatar
Lesley Siu Student Contributor, American University
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at American chapter and does not reflect the views of Her Campus.

On November 8th Her Campus American and the American University Social Media Club (AU-SMCEDU) in correspondence with Alpha Kappa Psi co-sponsored and event discussing social media, networking, and personal digital branding. The knowledgeable presenters gave us tips on using social media outlets like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Linked in, and personal websites to our advantage. Starting with Facebook, they gave us two approaches to using the social site. One way to utilize it on the job hunt is to lock down your page because anything online can and will hurt you. The other way is to keep it open to employers and show a more social approach to your resume, but also being mindful of pages you ‘like’ and pictures for Halloween that you forgot to untag


This school of thought about ‘open’ and ‘locked down’ Facebook profiles also applies to Twitter. Twitter gives you more freedom to show your interests by following people you’re interested in, companies you like, people you aspire to be, and employees of companies. The details you should leave out from your Twitter page are updates about unrelated things to your career like how much you love Sangria or your boyfriend’s tattoo. These mature standards are showcased on Linked-in, the mecca of professional social networking sites. It gives you the ability to interact with respected people and could land you a job or opportunity based on who you reach out to and if they respond. Overall, this workshop was very informative and made me take a second to think about what my online profiles say about myself to an employer. A few ending tips: don’t be overly aggressive, build relationships outside of job searching, keep your profiles up to date, and most importantly share your personality. 

Lesley Siu graduated from American University in May 2013 with a BA in Film and Media Arts and minors in Marketing and International Business. Originally from Hawaii, she loves photography, fashion, travel, social media and everything Parisian. She has interned at GLAMOUR magazine in New York and Washington Life Magazine in DC, but her proudest accomplishment is founding Her Campus American in 2011 while interning in Melbourne, Australia. You can usually find her reading a magazine, enjoying a hazelnut latte or posting a photo on Instagram... and sometimes, all at the same time. Follow her on Twitter: @lesleysiu and visit her blog.