Ask Roseanne Barr. Ask Kevin Hart. Ask Blake Shelton, several times. Your online past can and will come back to haunt you, celebrity or not. Our college years are a formative experience in our lives, but making regrettable social media posts now, as we’ve all seen, can cause significant problems years down the line. As we transition into the adult world, it’s important for students to set guidelines for our social media, to make sure we’re not presenting a bad image that can come back to bite.
I’m sure I don’t need to tell you the generic “anything you post online is basically there forever” spiel. But there’s more to it than just that. Social media is powerful and dangerous. Businesses and individuals alike can smartly utilize the strength of social media. But know what you’re doing, and not just because you could potentially ruin your life because of some stupid, bigoted tweet, but because it’s just as much your chance to push your brand as it for everyone else, so get competitive.
Start by creating a ruleset for yourself and your online behavior. Laying the foundation should be easy: don’t post illegal content, don’t steal someone else’s content and be especially careful with your language and what kind of content you’re posting if people like your family or your boss can see it.
But don’t stop there. I’m confident most of us would agree that the internet can be a place of groan-inducing feuds, but it really just leaves both parties reeling and your followers, at the very least, walking away with a bit less respect in your self-control and maturity. Be cordial online, because everyone can watch you fight, and possibly see you lose.
But as workers in the digital age, our social media is more than a potential source of shame: It’s a place to build your brand for your professional life.
One useful guideline I found from business.com, is the 5:3:2 rule. It says you should maintain a ratio of five posts about things you’ve found that could be cool to your audience, three posts about things you’ve done or made and two posts that “humanizes your brand.”
You might think this tip is only useful if you’re behind the social media account of some mega-corporation, but it’s just as applicable, perhaps even more so, to individuals as well: don’t be that guy on your feed that you hate because they only post the same few things over and over.
On a similar note, and a tip that anyone who’s taken a communications class will tell you, audience-centered communication is king. And if you don’t want to put too much thought into this and want to just use social media for fun, then do all the “take it or leave it” posting you want. But if you want to build a brand or influence, you have to know who your followers are and what they want, then meet that need, regardless of if you’re being paid for it.
Social media is a tool and a curse. We’re taught in public relations just how powerful it can be, but it can also be where everything comes crashing down. And while some spontaneity is good, don’t just wing it 24/7. Build a plan, limit what you do and don’t say and figure out who’s paying attention and how to reward them. Laying a solid groundwork now for your social media presence can pay dividends throughout the rest of your career.