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Building Social Media Profiles

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Strategies for making social media work for you

Vancouver, BC - March 12, 2010 - Often the first step one takes when stepping out into social media is building a network. At first, this may seem like a no-brainer. Ask your friends and upload your e-mail address book into Twitter and Facebook and away you go.

For media and communications professionals, that's a good opening move, but more and more are finding out that a patchwork network is not effective in helping get their message out or learn valuable information for their jobs.

Building a network is one of the most strategic moves a media pro should make. Since social media is such a powerful platform for listening, communication and connecting, you want to be sure that the people you follow - and who follow you back - bring you value.

So once you have added your friends and work colleagues to your social network, stop and ask yourself a few questions.

  • Who do I need to be listening to? These should be peers in your industry, including reporters who cover the same beat in different markets or experts in your field.

  • Where are my sources? Are you following or friending the people you cover? Could monitoring their conversations give you valuable information for story ideas and possibly scoops?

  • Who are the innovators? What about communications pros who are gaining attention for how they write, use the web or promote themselves? Follow them for advice on how to do your job better.

  • Are you missing any other stakeholders? What about potential employers, key members of your audience or professional organizations? If the people you follow then follow you back, you want to make sure the right ones are listening to you.

Building a strategic network keeps you from falling into the trap of mistaking the size of a social media network (fans, followers or friends) with the quality of a network. Everyone you connect with online should have value to you personally, professionally, geographically or occupationally.

For more information on how to start your journalism career, take a look at University Canada West's bachelors degree in Media and Communications!.

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