Use social media as part of your plan for career progression

Thought-Leadership can be a great way to develop your reputation and form a large part of your plan for progression. One tactic that we mentioned briefly is the use of social media to help raise your profile.

If you use social media, it is also important to use platforms such as Twitter and LinkedIn to network and connect with others and to publically showcase your expertise.

To maximise your social media efforts you should plan out your social media.

01. Set Goals

Set yourself some goals for your social media activities and the investment of time. Using the Social Media Planner you can plan out your social media goals. The FULL edition of the social media planner includes Social Media Goals Pages. This includes a progress tracker and strategy page for each goal. The FULL Edition also includes extra notes pages for each goal.

For example, you might be looking to demonstrate your expertise in a particular niche. To help you do this you will want to be “known” for this particular niche and your social media goals and activities can help you with this. This may include:

• Write an Article a Week on [Niche Topic] and share on LinkedIn.
• Run a Twitter Chat on [Niche Topic]
• Speak at an event or conference on [niche topic].
• Get quoted talking about [Niche Topic]. Engage in comments and conversations on Social Media to help demonstrate your expertise. Share links to posts and articles where you are quoted.

Once you have set your goals and worked out a strategy for achieving those goals. You can then work on a content plan.

02. Plan your Content

The Social Media Planner includes a flexible double page layout for each week. This is designed to be flexible so that you can use it how suits you best. However, one of the things that it is great for is for simultaneously planning out two accounts.

For boosting your career development why not use one page for your LinkedIn activities and the other for your professional twitter account (or split between whatever accounts you are using) and to plan out your content. For example, you might be:

• posting content that you or one of your colleagues have produced or written to showcase your work and the work of your company;
• promotion of upcoming events that you are involved with and to interlink your online/offline networking efforts.
• Posting updates and insights into daily life, my work etc.
• Retweeting and sharing content from friends, colleagues and contacts and organisations that you are a part of.

Social media can be used to engage with connections and colleagues that you meet offline and can fuse together your online/offline networking into an easy space where you can do things in your own time.

03. Draft your Content

As well as planning out your Social Media content you may also want to draft out your content as well. If you struggle with thinking up professional commentary spontanously planning out content, and keeping examples of drafting comments in your social media planner can help you post more effectively.

04. Promote to a wider audience with a targeted Social Media Campaign

You can use social media to showcase products or projects that you are particularly proud of or that you are trying to generate interest in. You could also use a campaign to promote a particular service or whitepaper or piece of research or to drum up business.

Pick a campaign that aligns with your goals and have a go at running a social media campaign to generate momentum. The Social Media Planner contains a section just for planning out social media campaigns.

05. Use Social Media at Events and Conferences

You might use social media (LinkedIn and Twitter) to keep an eye out for opportunities and to follow along with events and conferences on the topic and to participate in these discussions to demonstrate thought-leadership.

As we keep mentioning Social Media can be a great way to network. Use social media at any networking events including conferences that you attend to engage with other attendees, speakers and people who are interested in a particular industry or niche topics.

The events don’t have to be offline events, you can also join in and host online events, and regular get-togethers such as Twitter chats in an online space. The Social Media Planner includes a section for planning events, conferences and twitter chats.

These are just a few ways that social media can help you in your plan for building your reputation and your expertise as part of your plan for progression so why not take some time in your career journal to plan out what ways social media could help you personally with your career (and your career plan).

Need help setting your social media campaign goals and planning your social media content? Why not support our Social Media Planner on Kickstarter.