Choosing Between Professional, Social Networking

If you have ever been put in a situation where you needed to be able to do your professional social networking separate from your purely social networking, you aren't alone. Many people find that they enjoy the various freedoms that one experiences when they network separately for their careers and their own personal interests. In no small part, that is likely because when you are thinking of your career and your professional standing, there are plenty of things you might hesitate about putting out there.

Now, it is important to remember that even if you do belong to a professional networking website where you do all of your career related networking, and a social networking website where you do all your social networking, the two are not invisible to one another. Any potential (or current) employer can go looking for you online and come up with any and all of your profiles on these sites. If they find that you're hardcore into parachuting, or working out, or making lolcats, or something like this, they may be surprised, but not offended. On the other hand, if they discover your social networking website profile is full of pictures of you drunkenly hanging out in bars and falling down in the snow, they may be less inclined to believe that you're together enough to hire, promote, or keep on board for any extended period of time.

Of course, another benefit of keeping your presence strong on a professional networking website, rather than relying on a social networking website to do both for you, is that you can focus your energy on making sure that you present a strong and clear image of yourself in the professional world. You can network within your field, forming connections that will be valuable along the way. Some connections may end up being purely social, but others may, over the years, result in jobs, referrals, references, and other opportunities. Once upon a time, social networking was all about who you knew, and what parties or events you were seen at. Today, this is still the case, but has been greatly altered by the fact that you can now network via the Internet and all the professional/social networking sites that are out there. It also connects a much larger population than could gather in person, or could actually be introduced to one another at an event. While you'd be a fool to stay at home and never attend career-related events, you'd also be missing out if you didn't create an online presence for yourself.
Written by Penelope Holiday. Professional social networking website that provides a forum for a social networking website. MyCrew.biz is a professional networking website for media and arts.