For me, Facebook and Twitter are websites I go to when I’m bored or trying to waste time. I used it as a way to keep up-to-date with some of my friends, and connect with people I don’t see on a regular basis. However, as my junior year of college progresses, I’m learning that cites like Facebook, Twitter, and especially LinkedIn can be used to network yourself, and potentially obtain new career opportunities. This applies directly to where I am in my life right now because my career is something I am constantly thinking about because it is in my near future. So, when I realized that these social networks could be used for more than just connecting with friends, I became interested in how I can work towards a career using these resources.
The other day in one of my communications classes, a guest speaker, named Nina, from a hospital in Massachusetts came in to speak to our class about our futures. I fully expected it to be someone who was much older than me who had gone to college many years before me and was going to come in and say they “know what it’s like”. Come on, I’ve heard this a million times before and no one who “knows” has actually given me helpful information that I can actually use. So I think it’s safe to say I was a little bit skeptical.
Despite my previous assumptions, I was definitely proved wrong. The first thing she did was hand out free t-shirts and pens (who doesn’t like free?), all with her company logo on them. Next, she pulled up her company’s website, Facebook, and Twitter and started doodling around on them while the class settled down. I was very confused. Then she began her presentation by explaining that everything we saw on the projector was her every day work. She had created the webpage with all of the links, blogs, forums, chat rooms, Q&A’s, and much more to provide their customers/patients with the most information possible. She also created the hospital’s Facebook and Twitter, which she updated about 10-15 times a day with a new status. Not only boring statuses, like the hours they were open, but fun and engaging updates like helpful facts, competitions, and more. She explained how this is her job; her goal is to distribute the information she is given out to the customers in the most engaging and interesting way possible.
I was so intrigued! She gets to play around on the Internet all day, coming up with creative ways to catch her customer’s attention. This sounded perfect to me; more importantly, it didn’t sound like work to me. That is what we all want, right? Work that isn’t actually like working. We want to be able to come into the office (or in her case, walk into the next room) and feel like we’re having fun and playing around all day long. This sounded like exactly that, and then some.
She also explained how not only was she her own boss (to a certain extent), but she was able to attend meetings, work in teams, and socialize with their patients to figure out what their wants and needs are directly. So not only was she able to be on Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, etc. all day, but she was also privileged enough not to just sit in her office all day but get out into the environment where she worked to get immediate feedback on her work.
Today, Facebook and Twitter are powerhouses of information. They share information faster than any other source of news release technique ever invented. By utilizing these medias, information about Nina’s workplace was spread at record speeds, allowing her customers to have instant satisfaction of knowledge. How did we get here? And how much further do we have to go?
Personally, I’m thrilled that these social medias are expanding on a daily (even hourly) basis. These outlets are our doors into the future of technologies and electronic environments that can do wonders for our society. The possibilities are endless, don’t you agree??
