CPD23 – Thing 12: Putting the social in social media

I have to admit I have mixed feelings about social media. Part of this is down to my growing Facebook apathy. For a social network it makes it really easy to be anti-social. I’ve missed friends’ important news because I didn’t see it announced on Facebook. Now it’s even easier to communicate it seems as though we stay touch less. I’ve never used Facebook for professional networking and can imagine that I will continue to keep it separate in this way. Mainly because I find Twitter and LinkedIn much more suitable for professional use.

As a social-professional network Twitter is ideal. It is the most suitable platform for adopting the ‘profersonal’ approach that Jo wrote about in her post for Thing 3. However, I think there is a balance to be found when using Twitter as a professional networking tool. It’s important not to cross the line into being too personal .Tina pointed this out more articulately than I am managing in her post for this thing – well worth a read. As with any written communication, and particularly when limited to a short number of characters where there is no space for explanation, it is important that our words can’t be misinterpreted in a way that may cause offence.

Having said all this, I still really like Twitter. It enables professionals to share knowledge with a large number of peers, more than could ever be possible through face to face interaction alone; it enables collaboration with that network of peers; building an online network on Twitter leads to ‘real life’ networks…the possibilities are endless. As with many things you will benefit more if you contribute more. I feel slightly hypocritical saying this as I’m often reluctant to contribute myself – both through anxiety over having anything valuable to add to a professional conversation and finding it difficult to interact with others if I don’t know them in real life (rather than merely ‘knowing’ them online) – but whenever I have contributed I’ve found my Twitter network to be a group of enthusiastic, friendly and extremely helpful professionals. For me, this shows how  Twitter combines the social and the professional and is one way in which social networking can foster a sense of community.

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