Will Social Media Make or Break Your Career Success?

Everybody’s a dreamer
And everybody’s a star
And everybody’s in movies
It doesn’t matter who you are

There are stars in every city
In every house and on every street….

Recognize those lyrics?  They’re from Celluloid Heroes, a Kinks song form 1972.  If you’re not familiar with The Kinks, you should check them out.  They were a great, but very underrated, band of the 60’s and early 70’s.

Those six lines were prescient.  With the advent of social media – Facebook, Facetime, Skype, Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube – we can all be in movies these days.  Social media is fun and entertaining.

However, from a career standpoint, social media can become a nightmare.  Just ask Michael Phelps who posted a photo of himself doing a bong hit.  Or Anthony Weiner who accidently tweeted a photo of his, well wiener.  Or the Chili’s server who was upset with an extremely poor tip and posted an obscene rant on Facebook threatening to spit in a customer’s food if she ever saw him again.  Or the college student who posts videos of some drunken twerking during Spring break.

The point here is that everybody can be in movies these days, you need to think about the consequences that can come from your social media posts.  If your resume passes the initial robot screening, you can be sure that Googling you will be one of the first things a human being who looks at it does.

What do you want these people to see?  In most case, you want them to think of you as a young professional – someone who is serious about his or her life and career.  So, think before you post.

This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have any fun.  On the other hand, you don’t have to let the whole world know the nature and extent of your fun.  Here in Colorado where I live it’s legal to smoke pot.  But that doesn’t mean you should post videos and pictures of yourself doing it.

I tell members of my career mentoring site that creating positive personal impact is an important key to success.  These days, the internet is where most of us create personal impact – positive and negative.

So think twice about what you post on social media.  Ask yourself “would I like a prospective employer to see this?”  If this answer is no, delete the post before it even goes up.

Your career mentor,

Bud

PS: I write this blog to help people create the life and career success they want and deserve. Now I’m going one step further. I’ve created a membership site in which I’ve pulled together my best thoughts on success. And, as a reader of this blog, you can become a member for free. Just go to https://budbilanich.com/join to claim your free membership. You’ll be joining a vibrant and growing community of success minded professionals. I hope to see you there.

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Comments

  1. It is so true that social media can make us or break us.
    It is a double edge sword.
    I have seen people rise to meteoric high and became famous overnight through social media.
    And I have also seen people fell and they never got up again because of social media.
    So use it wise and think before posting. 🙂

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