Library guides: Employability and information skills: Social media

Using social media

Social media can be used to help you to create an online profile or to highlight your skills or research interests.

You should distinguish between your personal profile (eg. on Facebook) and your professional image (eg. on Twitter, LinkedIn, a blog). Social media can also be used as a job searching tool as jobs are often advertised on social media sites such as Twitter.

See our Digital and social media guide for further information.

LinkedIn is the world's largest professional network. It allows you to:

create a network of colleagues and professionals in your field from whom you can seek advice
stay in contact with past and present colleagues
discover inside connections when you're looking for a job
recommend and endorse others
receive recommendations from colleagues
list your skills and experience
join groups and participate in discussions.

Twitter

Twitter is a microblogging and social networking service. You can use Twitter to build your networks, follow useful organisations or colleagues in your field of study, develop your online presence and job hunt. You can also search for hashtags to find useful conversations on a particular topic. Some useful links for job hunting:

Blogs

Writing a blog can be a useful way to express your own opinions, promote your skills or research and practise writing for particular audience.

Blogs are also a valuable way to stay up to date with developments in your field of study or research. You can subscribe to blogs by academics or other students or research blogs and see their new postings. Some blogs are interactive and allow comments and discussion.

The City Blogs platform for staff and students to create content about learning, teaching and research or there are many free ones available such as WordPress and Blogger.

Careers blogs such as the ones on jobs.ac.uk may be informative.