Does your teen know how to safeguard their future by cleaning up their social media? I was recently invited to present at a local National Charity League meeting with high school seniors on the topic, “The Cyber Footprint.” Typically, I speak to parents rather than teens about screen safety. But for this group, I went the extra mile. Today’s GetKidsInternetSafe article is a blueprint for how teens can turn a social media footprint from devastating to standout for college and summer or internship employment opportunities.
A digital footprint can make you look good!
Most of us are aware that social media content can have long-lasting negative effects on reputation. That’s why parents monitor child posts. But what many people don’t realize is that having no digital footprint or a dull virtual self can also be a liability (work against you).
In the professional and college worlds, it is widely assumed that having no cyber footprint reflects a lack of productivity and know-how. Not only is it important to have a positive online presence to avoid being screened out of opportunity, but you must also stand out to be selected.
Do employers and colleges care what you post online?
Yes, they do! Not only do employers recruit via social media, but they also screen out potential hires based on your posts and comments.
A 2016 survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management revealed:
Recruiting via social media is growing, with 84% of corporations using it currently and 9% planning to use it.
44% of HR professionals agreed that a job candidate’s public social media profile can provide information about work-related performance.
36% of organizations have disqualified a job candidate in the past year because of concerning information (e.g., an illegal activity or a discrepancy with an application) found on a public social media profile or through an online search.
When should you start stylizing your cyber footprint?
…as soon as you’re old enough to care about post-high school education and employment – if not sooner! It’s never too early to consider who you don’t and do want to be online and offline. Using social media to showcase special talents, like art, dancing, modeling, and acting can work for you.
Before using social media for publicity, here are some critical points to consider for safety.
STEP ONE: Cleanse your social media profiles and cyber footprint of content that doesn’t make you look good.
Google yourself and track down and delete unwanted content.
If you’re lucky, you don’t have years of unflattering comments or images to track down, but you won’t know what employers may find until you Google your name first.
Back up your old profile data before you delete your account.
Expect that it may take a few weeks for your chosen social media platform to delete your old profile and allow you to create a new one.
Cleanse all social media profiles, even those set to private.
In some states, it’s legal for employers and college application counselors to ask for social media usernames and passwords. Refusing to do so may cost you. That means it’s necessary to delete inappropriate images, comments, and shares such as those involving drugs, alcohol, sexuality, profanity, cyberbullying, poor spelling/grammar, political affiliations, and off-color jokes.
Social media platforms purposely make it difficult to have more than one personal account or delete your old accounts and start over. Not only does Facebook require you to use a new email address and phone number to create a new profile, but you will lose all of your friends, favorites, photos, messages, comments, and games.
They don’t want you to delete your old profile because they lose ownership over your content. The more metadata they collect about your online activities such as likes and dislikes, the more profit they can make saturating your online time with targeted ads. Since we now select what we want to view rather than being captive television and commercial watchers, advertisers are hungry to capture every opportunity to get our attention. That means we are blitzed with 5,000 ads a day in contrast to 500 ads in the 1970s.
Are you ready to reveal an impressive school or job candidate who is searchable for the right people? Recreating your best virtual self isn’t easy!
STEP TWO: Create an irresistible virtual you!
Choose two or three popular social media platforms.
Quality is more important than quantity. Rather than do a poor job on several platforms, focus on doing a great job with a few.
LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter are currently the most popular social media platforms. Get familiar with them to take advantage of useful features. For example, set appropriate privacy settings and avoid default responses in favor of your own words.
Visualize your perfect virtual self and plan before you tackle the project.
Search out those who are doing it right and create a swipe file (think Pinterest). A swipe file is a digital folder where you store your favorite examples of content and style. Keep your eyes open for catchy headlines and titles, image ideas, and potential networking connections. Incorporating multimedia, like colorful and unique images and videos, attracts attention and effectively communicates concepts.
Be strategic, concise, and innovative.
Your online profile is not as formal as a résumé. Be fun and creative while displaying your ideas, research, products, and activities. Proofread. Delete any extra words and avoid big blocks of text by using bullet points and breaking up content into titled sections. Include keywords for search engine optimization.
Blogs can be highly effective, as storytelling is an awesome way to stand out and show rather than tell. Become an author and illustrator. Be the clever, positive, well-rounded person you’d want to work with.
Friend and join influential others.
Every opportunity I’ve ever gotten was the result of good relationships. Not only are your productivity skills critical to success, but so is networking.
Use social media as it’s intended, to connect with like-minded others who fuel and enrich your creativity and protect your confidence. That includes clubs, organizations, special interest groups, and corporations as well as impressive individuals. Don’t friend people you don’t know or haven’t reached out to personally.
Stimulate online engagement and stay active.
Attracting interesting others is one thing but keeping them warmly engaged with valuable content is key to longevity. Just as you do with your friends, be available and share interesting articles you know your online contacts will like. Creating reciprocity will keep others interested in you and generous with potentially valuable invitations and introductions.
6 WAYS TO MAKE YOUR ONLINE PROFILE A COLLEGE/EMPLOYER MAGNET
Switch from teen personal to adult professional with a first-person tone that is warm and welcoming. Make certain any content that a future employer may see as inappropriate or silly has been deleted.
Write a mission statement detailing what opportunities you are looking for. Avoid buzzwords and lingo. Stick to what’s relevant.
Keep your connections education- and employment-focused. Don’t get frivolous and network with everybody. Be selective and seek out those who may lead to mutual opportunity.
Include an attractive headshot.
Include contact information, an email link, and custom URLs for your website or other social media profiles.
Highlight impressive activities/achievements related to education, employment, & community service. Testimonials and endorsements are powerful. Make sure your online profiles are consistent with the content on your résumé.
My best friend’s mother always said, “It’s just as easy to fall in love with a successful man as a loser.” The same can be said about landing your dream job rather than settling for what’s convenient. On the other hand, you’ve got to start somewhere!
As a teen, I worked for a drug store and learned how to be a responsible employee, cashier, organize and stock, and deal with difficult customers. I also learned this position was not for me long-term. From there I landed jobs in accounting, research, and administration, each providing me with business skills that are still paying off today.
Don’t pressure yourself into thinking today’s profile will immediately lead to your dream job. This is scaffolding. One job will lead to another and so on, ultimately building the very best you. Enjoy the creativity of the journey. Take time to daydream about design elements and all of the ways you can blossom.
Have good ideas of your own to improve a digital footprint? Please share with us in the comment section below.
Even if you are the parent who wants to wait to introduce technology to your child, America’s elementary school system has embraced technology in the classroom. Despite the risks that GetKidsInternetSafe highlight in covering this very important topic, it is irrefutable that technology is an incredibly rich resource when interfaced with traditional teaching methods. Today’s blog is an acknowledgement that when done well, technology’s interface with elementary education is a great thing!
One thing I’ve learned as a business owner, and in life, is the importance of knowing the limitations of my scope of expertise, and to outsource to those who are experts when I have an unanswered question. One of my favorite parts of the GetKidsInternetSafe project is consulting with a multidisciplinary team of experts in order to best inform you about the challenging topic of kids and Internet safety. It’s impossible for one person to be an expert in all of it. So I’m pooling the best there is so you don’t get lost in the search, like my husband and I did at first when trying to get our kids Internet safe.
For the record, I have a doctorate in clinical psychology, not education. All it took to learn my limitations was a few volunteer field trips as a parent when the teachers gave me the little ones who were a “hand-full.” The teachers and I laughed as I thanked them for their everyday expertise. Phew! An hour of clinical session is a WHOLE different ballgame than an hour with 20 little rugrats!
My admiration for educators is one of the reasons I’m so excited to watch my oldest daughter pursue her lifelong dream of being a kindergarten teacher. Although she is still in college and thus still in the exploratory process, she is starting to dive deep now and recently volunteered in a second grade classroom. She was so jazzed by the experience; she told me all about it in an hour-long phone call yesterday. It was inspiring to learn how technology is being resourced in those classrooms where the teacher goes the extra mile. I want to share some of what I’ve learned with you so you too can celebrate what opportunities technology is creating for our kids. Astounding really!
The second-grade class Morgan observed has integrated iPads in their everyday learning. For example, in a lesson about business and finance the teacher tasked her students to come up with a business idea, a product, a budget, and a public relations campaign. Throughout the month they were able to earn dollars for academic tasks that they could spend in a student store during “shopping week.” Morgan said their creativity and enthusiasm was amazing, with one boy selling Lego classes and another girl painting nails. She said the variety of products was awesome and the kids were super into it. She particularly loved how the dollars were kept in a pile on the teacher’s desk and the children would simply walk up and collect their dollar for each task with total accountability. That day, she observed the kids had each made a sales page collage and emailed the product to their teacher for grading. All on the iPad!! Second grade!!
Another task Morgan observed was language arts and reading comprehension. Each day the teacher would read a book aloud to her students. For those who preferred to read alone or with a partner, they simply left the room and went into the library to check out a book at their reading level on their individual iPad. After completing the story, they would answer five reading comprehension questions from the book. The next story, customized to their reading level, would then be made available for checkout. That means each child was reading and tracking at their individual reading level with independence. Morgan was amazed to see children that ranged from first grade reading level to eighth grade reading level all engaged in the task. No kids left behind indeed!
And the third task I wanted to share doesn’t even involve technology, but simply good citizenship. Morgan was delighted to see how the teacher provided facilitation, but required the kids to do their own social problem solving. The example she shared was when one boy left a game for his friend to cleanup, the teacher simply brought the boys together and challenged them to negotiate a solution. Morgan said the teacher didn’t lead them, but would simply reinforce skills with comments like, “That’s excellent sharing from your heart Johnnie,” and “Now what can Michael do to make it up to you so you’re not resentful and your friendship can be as good as ever?” Morgan said the boys worked it out and left with a clear and mutually agreed upon solution. Oh my gosh! As parents we can take a page from this teacher’s playbook for sure.
In closing, I wanted to sprinkle some positives into this week. Just remember when you get discouraged about the dangers of technology use, don’t forget that the benefits are transformative as well. Black and white thinking is not the answer to a complex problem. Please join the dialogue with comments after this blog and on our GetKidsInternetSafe Facebook page! How has technology helped your students in the classroom?
Thanks for your support and, as always, please share this blog link with anybody else you think has an opinion about kids and Internet safety.
I’m the mom psychologist who will help you GetYourKidsInternetSafe.
