Online Portfolio Summary

My main motivation for taking Living & Working on the Web is because I am interested in the marketing/media industry. Having the opportunity to develop my online portfolio was extremely attractive and beneficial for my employability.

For me LinkedIn was a static CV page where my profile was not even complete. As this was a public profile, I learnt that I had to ensure my profile was authentic, with my personality coming through. I have therefore been proactive, in joining groups I am interested in, such as Enactus and the Guardian Social Enterprise Network and commenting in them. I have also actively seeked recommendations, and received 3 recommendations from past colleagues, contributing to my authenticity on my rapidly growing professional network on LinkedIn.

(Example of Recommendation on LinkedIn, Santander UK Corporate & Commercial Internship)

From my completed profile I have now been viewed by a lot more people, many which are from the marketing and communications industry and even a handful of people have viewed my profile before interviews!

On Twitter, my account was protected and I was predominantly using it for my private life. However for this module I decided to use my existing account, so unprotected my account. Using Twitter for both personal and professional reasons has opened up many opportunities as I now follow marketing agencies and influential people in the industry. I now regularly tweet on topics which are current and interesting in Marketing, and through this have gained more followers in the industry. Using Twitter on the professional front has also allowed me to proactively seek jobs!

(Example of my pro-activeness of job searching on Twitter)

Although I had Google+ account (as it was linked to Youtube, I couldn’t delete it). It was neglected and there was no information (not even a photo on it). Realising that it was uninformative and may have a negative impact (2nd link on my Google search), I decided to update it to include a photo (the same as my Twitter photo for coherence) and basic information. However I use it primarily to direct users to my other established public social media accounts.

Although I have not used my blog as much as I would have liked, this module has taught me that it is a great platform to bring together all my online profiles. I will be developing this in the future. However,  I did write a few blog posts, which included a blog about motivation with mention of Ben Hunt Davis (Olympic rowing medalist and author of ‘Will it make the boat go faster’). Unknown to me, over the Easter I had to opportunity to hear him speak at the Enactus UK National Competition. After, using Twitter I tweeted him and directed him to my blog, where a comment was left for me.

 

 (Tweets to Ben Hunt-Davis and his comment on my blog)

From this module, I am now much more aware of privacy and security issues, I have ensured that my Facebook and Instagram accounts are protected as they are for private use. This is to ensure as I am job-hunting, nothing will come back to haunt me on the internet! My online portfolio has come a long way since starting this module, especially the cohesion of all my platforms, with transparency between all my public profiles. For the future, UOSM2008 has taught me to be careful of what I put online, but has opened my mind to all the opportunities that online platforms, especially Twitter and Blogs can present, with authenticity at the forefront of my social media platforms.

Here are the links to my online profiles: Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, AboutMe

Filed under: Topic 6 Tagged: About Me, Employability, GooglePlus, LinkedIn, Online Portfolio, Twitter, UOSM2008