Using Social Media as a Professional
To be or not to be on social media as a professional… is not a matter of questioning. What is the best way to use social media for your career? — that is the question.
Professional use of social media has become a necessity. Whether you like sharing pictures of your dinner, summer vacation, and crazy birthday party on your profiles is a matter of personal preference. But maintaining a professional presence online has become inevitable for many professions.
How to manage your social media accounts for professional use? Which platforms suit you best? What type of posts? How often? You don’t need a full-fledged strategy and a content calendar (unless this is your job), but some guidance could help.
Here are my recommendations for professional use of social media in 2023.
If you need to choose one platform, make it LinkedIn.
When it comes to professional social media, LinkedIn is a must.
The platform keeps growing steadily having 922.3 million members as of April 2023. It offers tangible benefits such as finding a job, hiring, B2B, expanding your professional network, showcasing your expertise, creating new business opportunities, or promoting your products, services, events, reports, etc.
In comparison to other social media, the number of fake accounts is significantly lower. The overall tone of voice is relatively positive, encourages achievement, and sticks to professional language. As an employment-focused social media platform, the main topics revolve around career development, business, and anything related to professional life.
Think of your LinkedIn profile as an interactive public CV.
What would you like to share with a future employer, a colleague, a university classmate, a potential client and the world in general?
Of course, you can control the level of details through the privacy settings. However, it is better to keep your main sections open (including name, position, profile picture, experience, education, skills, languages, recommendations, and activity). The goal is to present yourself in the best possible light and connect with others. Having a very restricted profile or incomplete information makes it look shady, which is probably not the impression you want to give.
Don’t be afraid to take the first step and reach out.
Social media is a two-way street. The fastest way to grow your presence is to be active and approach the people with whom you want to connect. Follow relevant organisations and experts in your field. Following hashtags with keywords linked to your job is also a good strategy to get relevant posts in your feed.
The more time you spend on the platform, the better outcomes you will get. Social media demands attention. Once you create your account, you need to maintain it. A well-maintained profile on LinkedIn means that your information is up to date, you respond to messages and invitations, interact with other people’s content, and post regularly. Unlike other platforms, content can live for a long time on users’ feeds, so quality over quantity matters here.
Consider upgrading to a Premium account.
LinkedIn, like all platforms, is constantly evolving and developing new features. To make the most out of it, it is good to follow what’s new. LinkedIn has a very elaborate learning centre and tools to help you navigate the business and marketing functions of the platform.
If you consider more advanced use for business purposes, it is worth exploring the different Premium account options. When it comes to advertising, LinkedIn is not cheap, but it offers access to a precisely targeted audience and a variety of ad pricing models.
Depending on your goals, you can decide whether you need a paid account or the free one is sufficient.
Twitter/X — yes, no, or how much longer?
Elon Musk — Let that sink in.
Ever since Elon Musk bought Twitter, the platform has gone through several changes. Some of them — successful, others — not so much. The most recent rebranding and repurposing of Twitter into X is practically the end of Twitter as we know it.
From being THE platform for micro-blogging on news, global trends, political campaigns, and the exchange of ideas, lately, Twitter/X experiences a decline in traffic. Whether it is still relevant for your goals depends on many factors. But I would not disregard Twitter/X completely (yet) for two reasons:
(1) None of the alternatives (such as Mastodon and BlueSky) managed to pick up speed to replace it. Whether Threads will manage is to be seen.
(2) It is simply too big to fail. Twitter/X still has a loyal audience of about 237.8 million daily active users and a total of 353.9 million users globally.
How to go on, once there?
If you already have a profile with a certain number of followers, better keep it. As with other platforms, maintaining your account professionally includes regular interaction, up-to-date details, and a professional tone of voice. Twitter/X is a news-centric platform, which means that tweets have a short span and daily tweeting is the norm.
Refrain from expressing strong controversial opinions, engaging in confrontational threads or retweeting content from questionable sources. Tagging people and organisations directly works well, as well as adding visuals and personal touch to your posts.
New kid on the block? Think twice.
If you consider creating a new profile, evaluate carefully whether this is the best channel for your goals. It has become quite difficult to grow a Twitter/X account organically and the conditions to use the platform keep changing in favour of paid features. All recent experiments, restrictions of essential features, and limitations for free accounts are making the platform less attractive for free use only.
Your location matters.
Depending on where you are, Twitter/X might be a good idea or completely irrelevant. The platform is most used in the USA, where the platform has 77.75 million active users, followed by Japan, India, Brazil and the UK. On the other side, Twitter/X access is blocked in some countries such as China, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Russia, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. There are also some areas in the world, where Twitter/X is not among the most popular platforms, such as Eastern Europe for example.
Live tweeting and hashtags.
Are hashtags a thing of the past? Perhaps. Lately, the platform is advising against hashtags not to divert people from your content. But there are still a couple of good uses for hashtags, such as live tweeting during conferences. Depending on the setup of the event, you can also ask questions via hashtags. But overall, the popularity of hashtags is less relevant than it used to be.
Meta — Is everything everywhere all at once a good strategy?
Is the good old Facebook good for you?
Facebook is currently the largest social media platform with nearly 3 billion people using it monthly or around 37% of the world’s population. But it is also the least effective when it comes to results. The average Facebook page post engagement rate is 0,07%, which means that organic reach is not likely to take you far.
For many businesses, Facebook is the right platform. But is it a good idea to develop a profile for professional use? It depends on your goal, field, target audience, location, etc. Just make sure to keep a strict separation between your personal and professional profile or page. You might not want a potential client or your future boss to read sweet comments from your grandma or see your wild party pictures from college.
Instagram — blending personal and professional life
With Facebook losing its appeal among younger generations, Instagram is on the rise, surpassing 1 billion monthly users. The importance of the platform is growing beyond just a lifestyle platform for influencers, artists and heavily-filtered content, popular among millennials.
Instagram is developing in the direction of combining personal and professional life. According to Global Media Consumer Research Study, Platforms by Ipsos Marketing, Instagram is the number 1 platform for people to connect with brands.
It is expected to surpass TikTok and become the fastest-growing platform with 1.5 billion users by 2027. The fierce competition between the two platforms featuring short video formats, initially introduced by TikTok, has changed the way we use social media. The growing video trend is here to stay. Reels are favoured by the algorithm and are currently the best way to grow an Instagram channel organically.
In comparison with other platforms, the audience of Instagram is more demanding and it is normal to also lose followers. It is important to plan well your content and strike the right balance between consistent curated feed and authentic spontaneous content.
All eyes on Threads.
It is too early to comment on Threads, especially since the platform is not even available in Europe yet. But after the hype around it, it is worth following how it will develop.
What other platforms are on the menu?
YouTube — Not a must, but an asset.
If you have a passion for video content and the time to create it, starting a YouTube channel could be very beneficial and profitable. But don’t bother with YouTube, if this is not the case. Publishing a sloppy video every couple of months is not recommended.
TikTok — Professional use is overrated.
The rapidly growing number of users of TikTok, especially among Gen Z, created hype around the platform. But maintaining a TikTok presence as a professional is quite overrated. The platform’s main purpose is entertainment and there are no signs that this will change. Furthermore, TikTok is being restricted in several countries and organisations.
If you need TikTok for your business though, make sure to adapt your content for the platform and post daily.
Messaging platforms with social media features.
Lately, messaging platforms are developing functionality similar to social media, e.g. Telegram channels, Viber channels, WhatsApp status and communities, Signal stories, etc.
Messaging platforms are some of those tools that we sometimes forget to align with our professional branding. But technically anyone who has your phone number could also see your profile on those apps. Make sure to have an appropriate picture and name.
To sum up
I hope these tips were useful for your professional social media presence. As in real life, being successful online requires thorough research, planning, and dedication. Before launching your professional profiles, check out the latest social media trends in the below resources.
Social Media Today: What social media marketers need to win in 2023
SproutSocial: Best times to post on social media in 2023
Hootsuite: Social Media Trends 2023
Smart Insights: Global Social Media Statistics 2023
Forbes: Social Media Statistics 2023
CNN: Social Media: What the platforms are for and how they work
We Are Social: Digital 2023 Global Overview Report
Thank you for reading up until here!
Your feedback and opinions on how to use social media as a professional are welcome in the comments section below.
