Social media use can have a great impact on professionals, both positive and negative. Here are some strategies for using it wisely and making the most of the opportunities it offers.

1. The UK’s European university
YourDigitalFootprintandManaging
anAppropriateOnlineIdentity
Dr Fragkiskos Filippaios
Associate Dean (Graduate Studies)
Faculty of SocialSciences

2. Outline
• Popularity of online social networks
• Social capital and career success
• Digital Footprint
• Strategies for building the brand
• Effective online social network strategies
Dr Fragkiskos Filippaios

3. Online social networks are very popular
• LinkedIn dominates the professional social networking
sector with over 400 million registered members
(LinkedIn About Us, 2015)
• Facebook is reportedly one of the top visited websites,
attracting over a billion daily active users world-wide
(Facebook, 2015)
• Twitter rapidly gained worldwide social networking and
microblogging recognition with over 320 million daily
active users (Twitter, 2012)
• The increased popularity of social networking is largely
due to the proliferation of smart/mobile devices and the
intuitive nature of social technologies (Croitoru, Crooks,
Radzikowski, & Stefanidis, 2013; Salehan & Negahban,
2013).
Dr Fragkiskos Filippaios

4. Social Capital and Career Success
• Social capital theory and career success have
been linked by Seibert, Kraimer and Liden
(2001) who connected three competing
theories of social capital:
• Weak tie theory (Granovetter, 1973)
• Structural hole theory (Burt, 1992)
• Social resource theory (Lin, 1999).
• Connections or ties between individuals in a
network help provide the basis for analysis of
social networks.
Dr Fragkiskos Filippaios

5. Online Social Networking – The positive side
• Online social networking seamlessly enables real-life
relationships through information technology (Calabrese
& Borchert, 1996), facilitating the building of new
relationships, maintaining existing ones and exploiting
online social capital to its full extent.
• The idea that social capital, including interpersonal
relationships, assets embedded in relationships and
processes, contribute to career success has surfaced in
multiple studies of social capital theory (Adler & Kwon,
2002; Coleman, 1990; Seibert et al., 2001).
• Research by Lin (1999) shows the contribution of social
capital to career success through priority access to
information on a job opening which an individual can
obtain through connections, or other nodes in a network
can favourably influence a promotion decision.
Dr Fragkiskos Filippaios

6. Online Social Networking – The negative side
• A growing number of publications (e.g. Barnes & Barnes,
2009, Lange 2007, Livingstone 2008, Lewis & West
2009) continuously draw attention to issues of privacy of
individual information available as a result of social
networking use.
• Some researchers (e.g. Weintraub & Kumar, 1997) argue
that technology may be significantly changing boundaries
between 'publicity' and 'privacy’.
• Ryan and Xenos (2011) argue that lonely and unsociable
individuals tend to spend more time on social media and
passively exploit associations and social capital, while
users with higher leadership scores tend to provide more
active social contributions and use the network for self-
promotion.
Dr Fragkiskos Filippaios

7. Online Social Networks and Business
Connections
• Knowledge sharing opportunities through social networks have been
explored by Chow and Chan (2008). It was found that employees
receive satisfaction from content and knowledge sharing in trusted
environment in professional settings.
• Recent studies on human resource competencies show that
organisational requirements for the exploitation of human resource
capital require collative competencies for knowledge dissemination and
sharing in the work place to promote organisational performance
(Lytras & Ordóñez de Pablos, 2008)
• Employers make use of the information on social networks to make
decisions on potential applicants and these do provide a good basis for
future recruitment of employees (Clark & Roberts, 2010; McLaughlin,
2009).
• Companies that use campus based recruitment practices often use
them to explore social behaviour of applicants such as drinking, use of
recreational drugs or sexually explicit behaviour (Roberts & Roach,
2009).
Dr Fragkiskos Filippaios

8. Digital Footprint
Individuals
• The old saying ‘Choose your
friends wisely’ cannot be more
relevant as in the context of
online social networking
• Increasingly, there are
warnings that individuals
should be careful of their use
of networks generally as
employers are more and more
using information gleaned from
social networks to assess
future employees (Peluchette
& Karl, 2010)
Businesses
• An increasing level of
concern from the
businesses themselves,
regarding legal
challenges and the risks
involved in using social
networks for building
business, leading to
policy developments
(Wilson, 2009)
Dr Fragkiskos Filippaios

9. Typology of Digital Footprint (Benson &
Filippaios, 2014)
Dr Fragkiskos Filippaios
Type of Use
Social Business
MatureYoung
Age
Social Links
Builder
Young
Entrepreneur
Mature Friend Business Links
Builder

10. Implications of online behaviour
• The significance of digital footprint is important
for successful career management,
professional networking and developing
business opportunities online
• To develop strong social presence and
reputation, professionals need to be aware of
the potential of their participation in networking
events, interactions with peers and media
content accumulation
Dr Fragkiskos Filippaios

11. Online identity screening
• The statistics of social media screening by
prospective employers is brutal
• 69% of organisations stated that they rejected
candidates because of their social networking
contents (Reppler.com, 2013)
• Facebook, checked by 76% employers, Twitter
53% and LinkedIn 48% respectively
(Reppler.com, 2013)
Dr Fragkiskos Filippaios

12. Our findings come from…
• A survey of over 600 business school
graduates from AMBA accredited UK
universities
• We are able to identify the level of awareness
and degree of application of professional usage
of online social networks
Dr Fragkiskos Filippaios

13. Strategies
• Building your own online brand through setting
up a LinkedIn/Facebook/Twitter profile showing
skills, expertise and media to external visitors
• Follow group discussions to maintain
professional currency
• Become a thought leader, start (and actively
maintain) topical blogs
• Join companies for career planning research
Dr Fragkiskos Filippaios

14. Effective social media strategies
Dr Fragkiskos Filippaios
•Check online reputation
•Remove damaging content
•Identify opportunities for building
personal brand
•Change online behaviour to reflect
your brand aims
• Develop reputation attributes
up to 1 year
• Build positive profile, including
accolades
•Join professional networks of your
preference and be an active participant
•Develop/Become a thought leader
•Plan/Do/Check your personal brand
1-3 years • Build networks with like minded
people
•Identify new opportunities
•Take part and lead events
•Exploit social capital in networks
•Offer mentoring
•Review/maintain online reputation
•Plan for the next career phase/
future
5 years

15. Dr Fragkiskos Filippaios
Thank you
Any Questions?

16. THE UK’S
EUROPEAN
UNIVERSITY
www.kent.ac.uk