The Benefits of Using Twitter Professionally: A Student's Perspective

Initially when I joined Twitter, I used it to keep up to date with my friends and family as I moved to Bangor to start University. Gradually I started to follow my favourite celebrities but part way through second year I was sat looking at my 'Following' and 'Followers' list and realised that I was now following a lot of my lecturers, researchers who were doing things that I am interested in, organisations and companies that I might like to work for someday; the interesting thing is that not only was I following these people and companies, a lot of them were also following me. This means that every drunken tweet or rant about how much work I had to do was being seen by people that I had followed because I admired them and might possibly like to work with or for someday. In the same way that employers often check out your Facebook profile before hiring you, the same is now true of Twitter. Being aware of who was following me has made me use Twitter in a much more professional manner and I have definitely seen the benefits, here are my top 3:

1. Networking: The old saying 'Its not what you know, but rather who you know' is still relevant today, however the platform needed to know people has changed, it is no longer necessary to meet someone face to face to be able to consider them a contact, an on-line relationship is often just as valuable.

2. Quick Feedback: In first year when doing some additional reading, I emailed several researchers asking them questions about their paper and never got a single response, when I did the same in second year, but tweeted instead of emailing I often got a response the same day.

3. Opportunities: When I sent out a tweet saying how much my Filofax had helped me stay organised during second year, I was sent a money off voucher. I have also been approached by the Guardian newspaper to answer questions about how I used social media to help me pick which University I wanted to go to. All very small things, but there is definitely an opportunity to use the platform of Twitter to help you progress your career and make contact with people and brands that you wouldn't otherwise have the opportunity for.

Being in my final year of University, I am very aware of how I come across on-line and the things that potential employers may have access to. However I don't think it is ever too early in your University career to start making contacts and tweeting about the things that you are interested on both a personal and professional level.

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Make sure you're following the Twitter page for the module to keep up to date with the latest goings on: not only with the module and university, but also within the wider scientific community!