Social Media goes “Professional”

Say the words “Social Media” and you get reactions ranging from “Oh yeah, I love Facebook!” to “Can you recommend me on LinkedIn?” to “What’s that?” For many of us who spend hours every day on the computer for our jobs, social media is a ‘must have’ for our professional lives, and it’s how we build our personal brands online. But for many, social media can be a scary thing.

Our GoGirl Academy class on Social Media aimed to take away the mystery, and show our students how easy it can be to ‘Shine Online’ in ten minutes a day (or less), while at the same time, growing their networks and building their brand online. Ten minutes, you say? Yes, it can be done, and often faster once you get the hang of it.

Monica Guzman Preston graciously stepped in to give our women a taste of her life online, and how it’s evolved into a new job for her (even though she can’t say exactly what it is yet) after leaving the Seattle PI and The Big Blog. Monica is one of the pioneers in using Twitter to communicate with people from all walks of life. Our own Jenni Hogan is another master at Twitter, with her Best Twitter Friends reaching upwards of 20,000. Jenni has put together her own army of followers, and showed the rest of us how to do so.

Not everyone needs to make use of an army, but Facebook and LinkedIn can be useful in our professional lives, especially LinkedIn. It’s another place to connect with colleagues in your industry, and grow your network. And the ultimate — you can build your own website! How cool is that? We also learned, from Kathy Nelson and Jenn Donogh of Ovaleye Web Solutions, how easy it is to buy our own domain name, and start to build create our presence online. Social media isn’t scary — it’s just one more way for our GoGirls to connect!

 Margo Myers, Executive Director