Things 10 and 11 2014: Other online networks

Where Facebook is explicitly geared towards personal use, LinkedIn and Academia.edu focus on professional connections. LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network, and it allows you to build an online profile that features your experience and skills as well as to network with other users in a professional environment, so it provides a great way to connect with contacts from your work world. Academia.edu is essentially a sort of LinkedIn focused on the academic world, so it provides improved features for things like listing publications. Also – going back to our discussions of online presence – LinkedIn and Academia.edu profiles tend to feature high in Google searches, so a well-constructed profile can be a great way to develop your online brand.

Google+ is much more of a social network like Facebook. There’s quite a bit of debate around how heavily it’s used, but it’s clear that Google treats it positively when dealing with search results. If you have a gmail account, you quite possible already have a Google+ page. It’s worth a look, just to make sure it’s not a blank page with no info.

Task
You’re not required to set up an account on either network to finish Things 10 or 11, but you’ll need an account to explore many of the tools’ features, and it’s a good way to improve your professional presence online. Pick one (or sign up for both!) and set up an account. You can always delete it later if you feel the need.

Getting an account on either tool is simple, and you can register from each tool’s home page. Make sure you fill in your profile fully. Think about the search terms you used in Thing 5 and whether you might like to include them here. Remember that these are professional networks, so your photo, taglines and activities should be those you’d be happy with employers and colleagues seeing. LinkedIn allows you to upload your CV straight into your account (with a chance to edit and format, of course!), which offers an easy way to get all your job information in.

Once you’ve signed up, try adding colleagues or other contacts. Successful social media use requires that you actively connect with people and give them something to interact with, rather than just setting up an account and leaving it. If you already have a profile but haven’t used it very much, you might think about these aspects next. You can use your email accounts to find ‘connections’. Don’t be worried about sending requests to contacts; it’s considered fairly normal. Try taking this a step further; rather than just sending a request to connect, send a message with a question or a message.

Specific functionality:

LinkedIn

    • LinkedIn offers groups, which allow you to join others based around a sector, place of work or other interest – for example, University of Oxford Alumni or those in this list of great groups for academics. You can also search for groups.LinkedIn also allows you to see who has viewed your profile, send private messages and give and ask for recommendation and skill endorsements.

Academia

  • Academia.edu has less functionality, but it is geared towards academic activities. You can write update posts on your activities, upload papers and other documents which might include ‘grey’ literature such as conference papers as well as link to your journal articles. It can also tell you how many people have viewed your profile, what keywords they used to find you, and who is following your work. You can also follow the profiles of other scholars, which is useful to keep up to date with people’s publications.

Exploring further

  • Many people find LinkedIn useful as a tool for job searching. Employers can post jobs but, more importantly, your profile can give you the opportunity to ‘sell’ yourself to potential employers. Having endorsements and recommendations can help. Try asking for a recommendation for your current or previous position.

Blog post
As we mentioned, feel free to talk about all of this week’s things in one post, as they lend themselves to comparison and discussion. Did you choose to use one tool over the other? Do you think these tools offer a good way to present your professional profile, or do you prefer something else (a website, blog, etc.)?

If you use Facebook, do you feel that LinkedIn or Academia.edu are a suitable alternative space for professional activities, or do you find Facebook works just as well if not better for what you want to do?

Note that all of these tools can be useful, but they can also take up a lot of time. Is it better to have no profile at all than an out-of-date one?

Tag your post Thing 10 and Thing 11.

Thing 10 2013: Facebook

Facebook is a social network service that builds online communities of people by connecting people who share interests and/or activities. Facebook elicits mixed reactions from groups of people. Some love it; some loathe it. Even those who love it often loathe particular elements. You do not have to sign up to Facebook to complete this Thing, although we suspect many of you have already and we encourage you to do so in order to see what it’s all about. Instead, we’ll ask you to think about Facebook’s purpose and how it might be used.

Facebook is the world’s biggest social network, with over 1 billion active members. Most people use Facebook to socialise with friends and families by sharing photos, updates and news. It is less commonly used by individuals as a professional tool, but it allows you to set up ‘pages’ (rather than personal accounts) for brands, businesses, institutions, and campaigns. Both professional pages and your personal account can be powerful tools for building your online presence and staying up to date; Facebook is now the 2nd most visited website in the UK (after Google), and 60% of the population looks at FB at least once a day (2012 econsultancy Social Media Statistics Compendium). Those are impressive stats!

Task
If you’d like to join Facebook and haven’t yet, it’s fairly easy to sign up from the homepage and create a profile. You might want to take some time to explore Facebook’s privacy policies, as they’re an area of concern for some. You’ll also want to make yourself aware of the ways in which you can limit access to your posts and account (or not, depending on the purpose of your Facebook use). You can use your privacy settings to ensure that only friends or only particular people see what you put up. This is useful – and highly recommended – if you’re using Facebook in a purely personal way.

As mentioned, Facebook has both personal ‘profiles’ and organisational/institutional ‘pages’. If you’re new to Facebook, take some time to find contacts and play with its features. Facebook’s Help Center is quite good and can help explain things like the Timeline.

Whether you’re new or a seasoned user, go to the Engage: Social Media Michaelmas page and ‘Like’ it. To find our page, do a simple search in the search box at the top. When you like a page, information posted on it will appear in your news feed on your Facebook home page. The same is true of those you are friends with.

Other pages (all of which can be viewed with or without Facebook membership) that you might be interested in are:

Exploring further
If you’re really interested in creating a page for an institutional department, or in taking your Facebook use further, feel free to take a look through this presentation by Liz McCarthy of the Bodleian Libraries on ‘Facebook pages that work’ (note: Edgerank is no longer is use – ignore that slide!).


Blog post

Feel free to talk about all of this week’s things in one post, as they lend themselves to comparison and discussion. Do you think Facebook is useful or not, and why? If you use it, how do you use it, and what do you get out of it? If you don’t want to use it, why not?

Thing 10: Facebook

Facebook is a social network service that builds online communities of people by connecting people who share interests and/or activities. Facebook elicits mixed reactions from groups of people. Some love it, some loathe it. Even those who love it often loathe particular elements. You do not have to sign up to Facebook to complete this Thing, although we suspect many of you have already and we encourage you to do so in order to see what it’s all about. Instead, we’ll ask you to think about Facebook’s purpose and how it might be used.

Facebook is the world’s biggest social network, with over 1 billion active members. Most people use Facebook to socialise with friends and families by sharing photos, updates and news. It is less commonly used by individuals as a professional tool, but it allows you to set up ‘pages’ (rather than personal accounts) for brands, businesses, institutions, and campaigns. Both professional pages and your personal account can be powerful tools for building your online presence and staying up to date; Facebook is now the 2nd most visited website in the UK (after Google), and 60% of the population looks at FB at least once a day (2012 econsultancy Social Media Statistics Compendium). Those are impressive stats!

Task
If you’d like to join Facebook and haven’t yet, it’s fairly easy to sign up from the homepage and create a profile. You might want to take some time to explore Facebook’s privacy policies, as they’re an area of concern for some. You’ll also want to make yourself aware of the ways in which you can limit access to your posts and account (or not, depending on the purpose of your Facebook use). You can use your privacy settings to ensure that only friends or only particular people see what you put up. This is useful – and highly recommended – if you’re using Facebook in a purely personal way.

As mentioned, Facebook has both personal ‘profiles’ and organisational/institutional ‘pages’. If you’re new to Facebook, take some time to find contacts and play with its features. Facebook’s Help Center is quite good and can help explain things like the Timeline.

Whether you’re new or a seasoned user, go to the Engage: Social Media Michaelmas page and ‘Like’ it. To find our page, do a simple search in the search box at the top. When you like a page, information posted on it will appear in your news feed on your Facebook home page. The same is true of those you are friends with.

Other pages (all of which can be viewed with or without Facebook membership) that you might be interested in are:

Exploring further
If you’re really interested in creating a page for an institutional department, or in taking your Facebook use further, feel free to take a look through this presentation by Liz McCarthy of the Bodleian Libraries on ‘Facebook pages that work’ (note: if you’re signed up for Liz’s Facebook course on 1 November, this should give you an overview of the content).


Blog post

Again, feel free to talk about all of this week’s things in one post, as they lend themselves to comparison and discussion. Do you think Facebook is useful or not, and why? If you use it, how do you use it, and what do you get out of it? If you don’t want to use it, why not?