This
guest post is from my good friend Tara Ross, whose brand new book just
came out last week. Her book is a must-read for all online instructors.
If
you’re anything like me, just the title above makes you queasy. The idea of self-promotion seems antithetical
to our teaching craft of helping others. However, in the new era of the
unattached, non-salaried, non-tenured, contract-to-contract workers, we must
take care of ourselves. What does this mean? Self-promotion.
The
good news is that self-promotion in the age of social media is first centered
on what we do best: helping others.
How can these two things exist simultaneously? Read on!
First, you have to accept that you need to self-promote
Even
if you don’t like it,
you
have to promote yourself.
Teachers
are universally horrible at being entrepreneurs. I’m sorry to say this, but
it’s true. I’m a teacher, I’m the daughter of two teachers, I spend my life
hanging around with friends who are teachers, I’m in several networking groups
with teachers, and let me tell you what I hear A LOT:
“I
need to find an online teaching job, but I don’t know what to do.”
The
problem is that finding an online teaching job in 2013 is nothing like it was
in 2000. Or 2007. Or even 2011. The industry has changed considerably in 2
years.
So once people
recognize that it’s no easy feat to find an online teaching job, and that they
are going to have to market themselves, they retreat to the next thing I hear a
lot:
“If
I wanted to learn how to market myself, I would have gotten my degree in
marketing.”
Actually, it’s not
exactly those words, but several variations:
“I
just want to teach; I don’t want to sell myself.”
“I
don’t have time to hunt for jobs.”
“I
shouldn’t have to jump through all these hoops.”
These
are followed by applying for a few teaching jobs a week with no response from
the schools. Surprise! Schools are
not really looking at your applications. They are weeding you out. With 600 to
2000 applications received for every teaching job advertised in online
education, schools don’t have to look too hard; they just have to be effective
at separating the serious from the half-hearted.
Demands
for official transcripts to even be considered for a teaching job can clear out
a lot of applicants due to the expense. Not having the right ‘keywords’ on a CV
(and who knows what keywords they are looking for?), and not filling out the
application correctly can weed out a majority of applicants as well.
Resiliency
and creativity are critical.
What’s the answer
to this system?
Making personal
connections by helping people.
It
used to be that you would connect with people at conferences, at networking
events, or by calling Human Resources. While conferences can still be an
extremely effective way to meet hiring administrators at institutions, it is
expensive and not available as an easy strategy for most people.
Today,
social media has upended much of how we conduct the business of networking. Facebook,
Twitter, LinkedIn, and communities within Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+
provide professionals with the ability to connect with hiring managers directly
– an impossible coup in the years prior to the advent of social media.
The
key is to find a valuable social media community (such as a group on Facebook
or LinkedIn) and then establish yourself within that community as a helper and
an expert in your field. Yes, this takes time, but it is effective. Building relationships with people in
your industry via social media helps you to gain access to institutions,
administrators, and decision makers. You promote yourself by helping others.
You share your knowledge and wisdom freely. And here is what most businesses
forget that is so critical to building those relationships:
Social media is not
broadcast advertising like TV, radio, or print. It’s a two-way relationship
where each party seeks to gain exposure while helping the other.
Simple,
right? Well, the idea is simple, but few do this effectively. Why? Because you
have to present yourself very well on social media, and you have to know which
platforms to be on relative to your goals.
Second, build your social media profile fully.
I
still have friends and family who are not on social media. In most cases, they
are not ones trying to expand their careers. If you want to work in online
education or you want to build a business online, you must build your social
media profile robustly. This does not
mean sharing your private life broadly. You control the information flow. But I
highly recommend you build it in a way that allows people to create a
connection with you.
Here
are some tips:
· Upload a profile
picture across your social media accounts. I know this sounds obvious, but I
know too many people who want to teach online who refuse to upload their
picture. Here’s the thing: people will not connect with you professionally if
they cannot see you. If they get to know you over a long period of time, that
may be an exception. But hiring members popping in and out of online groups, or
scanning their newsfeed, are not going to connect with you emotionally or
professionally without seeing you.
- Fill out all sections of your LinkedIn profile. Don’t skimp on this. You need to display why people should hire you. Plus, you need to allow them to find something about you that is familiar. In a recent case, a hiring manager chose one qualified applicant over other qualified applicants because the one applicant volunteered at an animal shelter and listed that on their LinkedIn profile. The hiring manager, who loved animals, felt a connection. Remember, too, that your LinkedIn profile is not your resume. You do not need to keep it brief. Fill out every section possible. Use relevant keywords for your field in the heading and in your top section so that recruiters looking for candidates like you can find you easily.
· Allocate time every
day to be on social media. You cannot be an effective networker if you only get
on social media once a week. Even if it’s just 10 minutes a day, make it a
habit. Be purposeful, too: get in those groups and start sharing frequently. Don’t
just talk about yourself; answer questions that others have. Share links to
interesting articles you read. Refer people that you meet to others you think
they need to connect with for career purposes. Build up some good karma.
· Once you have made
some connections within groups, seek individual connections by sending a friend
request on Facebook, or requesting a connection on LinkedIn. This is how you
start a conversation about your goals and that person’s goals. These
conversations help you jump-start your career search – your connections and
your friends encourage you to apply and are on the lookout for your
application.
Third, align your career goals with the appropriate social media channels
Establish
your goals and then decide which platforms to be on.
I
don’t recommend that you try to be on every social media channel or even all of
the main ones. Decide what your particular goals are. For example,
· Do you want to find online teaching jobs? Consider Facebook
and LinkedIn groups for interacting with others and Google+ for writing about
your field and posting it on the net where it will be found. Google+ is indexed
by Google and posting on Google’s social networking platform can fast track your
content on Google’s search engine. You gain exposure and develop your perceived
authority in your field.
· Do you want to connect with other online instructors
for camaraderie, or potential research opportunities? Consider LinkedIn
and Academia.edu. LinkedIn will help you find groups of professionals in your
industry and Academia.edu can help you find researchers and their projects that
may resonate with your goals. Don’t just join adjunct teaching groups, though.
Be creative: find groups where key people in your industry may be hanging out
and engage there purposefully.
· Do you want to develop multiple income streams so that
online education is not your only gig? Consider setting up a blog to promote your
content, joining membership groups of like-minded individuals who want to learn
how to make money online, and being active on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and
YouTube.
The bottom line is
that social media is altruistic: your goal is to help others more than you
help yourself. When you do that, you benefit through increased exposure and
relationship building.
I
provide step-by-step guidance in my book, Daily
Actions for Social Media Mastery: 75 Daily Challenges to Help you Expand your
Reach, Build your Platform, and Establish your Online Authority. It is
available for immediate download on Amazon Kindle (you don’t have to own a
kindle to read it), and it offers an up-to-date guide on how to leverage
specific social media platforms to advance your specific career goals. It was
written for a group of online professors, and the daily challenges included in
the book were among the most popular in our group.
Remember:
self-promote by helping others. Build relationships to meet your goals.
Cheers!
~Tara
About the author:
Tara
Ross is an educator who teaches about how to maximize your potential on social
media, empower your goal setting, and develop strategies to achieve location
independence. She writes about traveling, social media, and being a digital
nomad at EdJourneys.com, and travels globally to demonstrate that location
independence is not only viable but also necessary to your happiness.
She
is a college professor of Political Science and Education, having taught in the
online environment since 2000. She holds a PhD in Educational Leadership, and an
MA in International Affairs. She enjoys traveling with her husband, Stan,
bringing her laptop, and teaching while exploring.
Together
with her husband and two sons, she own Ross and Sons Publishing, an independent
book publishing company dedicated to working with authors to help them share
their words with the world.
For
more information about Tara, please join her over at http://edjourneys.com/
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