Topic 3 Reflective Summary
I have enjoyed reading the variety of approaches taken by UOSM2033 students for this week – it has allowed me to broaden my knowledge of this topic quite a bit. It has been interesting to see the structure of everyone’s blog posts change (not only regarding the content of the text itself but also the creativity in their presentation (see Anna’s effective use of prezi in her blog post, for example).
I chose to focus on LinkedIn for my blog post, but felt that it would be beneficial to read about the other professional networking platforms in other people’s blogs, and discuss them in the comments in order to further these discussions.
I also chose to incorporate a video which concisely summarised important points about LinkedIn in the context of university students – which is clearly very relevant to those taking part in this module. I tweeted the link to my blog post to the creator and he subsequently retweeted, commented and followed me back.
The fact that he specialises in advertising, PR and social networking proves that he knows what he’s talking about so It’s rewarding to know that my post was recognised by him.
My first comment was made on Calum’s blog where I focused on the point he made about the importance of being genuine on our online profiles and how genuine interactions help to build a successful profile. Secondly, I commented on Charlie’s blog and I particularly wanted to interact with him about LinkedIn and how, as university students, we can fully profit from the platform. He gave some good advice about how essential connections are, but also that they need to be relevant in order to reflect your profile well. So I learnt that there needs to be an effective medium between number and quality of connections.
The most important thing I will take away from this topic is the need to consider (long-term) reputation when creating, using and interacting through our professional online profiles.
Sources:
Blank, H. (2013). Why College Students Need to Get Into Linkedin. YouTube.
Calum’s Blog Post: http://mistmanx.wordpress.com/2014/11/08/
Charlie’s Blog Post: http://charliemasonblog.wordpress.com/2014/11/07/developing-your-brand/
