Be professional in your postings - a guide to better relationships through social media communicatio

Graphic by Taylor Gorr

As for the do’s and don’ts of using social media in a professional way:

Do: Use social media! Being professional doesn’t mean you have to cut off your social networks, it just means you have to adjust your content to be suitable for the workplace. Get involved on LinkedIn, which is designed to be a professional social media outlet, and don’t be afraid to advertise your accomplishments, interests and personality traits that also make you an excellent employee.

Do: Spell check your posts! Grammar and spelling mistakes make it look like you don’t pay attention to detail or don’t take your time to finish work efficiently. Use complete sentences and stay away from too many texting abbreviations - it will make you seem mature and set you apart from other candidates.

Do: Monitor your social media accounts for professional content. It’s more than just the things you post, you will also need to check up on your friends, likes, old photo albums and much more. It sounds a bit overwhelming, but the easiest way to manage all this is to make these aspects of your profile private. It’s also acceptable to make personal social media accounts private and professional accounts that are available for the public to see.

Don’t: Never post anything that may be considered inappropriate or offensive. This includes swearing, nudity, vulgar jokes or language in any sense, provocative images, remarks against certain groups of people, etc. The list goes on and on but to sum it up, if you wouldn’t say it to your boss’s face, don’t post it on social media.

Don’t: Never complain on social media, especially about work or your boss. It will get back to your boss or coworkers and makes you look unprofessional, immature and untrustworthy. Just call your mom and tell her about it instead. She probably misses you and is the only person who doesn’t mind listening to you whine anyway.

Don’t: Stay far away from posting opinions on social media. We all have some thoughts we’d like to share on Donald Trump, whether they’re good or bad, but just don’t. An opinionated person may give off a warning signal that they don’t work well with others to an employer.