Top Ten Ways that College Students Can "Professional Adult(ing)"

The following is a combination of helpful tips about maintaining a positive social media profile and how to write effective emails:

10) Less (<) is more (>): 

When emailing a person, you want to be direct and to the point. The same goes for bio line or mantra line on your social media accounts. 

9) Make your profile pictures the same on ALL your social media accounts!:

This is an important tip because if someone is trying to connect with you and your profile pictures are all different they might be unsure if they are connecting with the right person. I recommend keeping your picture professional with a face shot. 

8) Screen names and email addresses MATTER!:

      To keep things professional, you want to have a simple email address such as janedoe2018@gmail.com. This shows employers and professors, that you are professional and want to have a good online image. An example of a bad email address is puddin-pants@gmail.com. Screen names apply to this as well. Do not have a screen name that you will regret later. People do judge you off your picture and screen name.

7) Formatting an email and post matters:

      When sending an email or posting a message on social media make sure you do not have text that is yellow and font size 20. People can read normal size font of 12 with black text. Be mindful of also what you want to stress. People can detect emphasis with bold, italics, and underline. 

 

6) Be yourself:

     When sending an email or posting on social media it is important to communicate clearly who you are. A simple "Enjoy your weekend!" is acceptable and meaningful. People can tell if you over compliment in any email or post.

5) Make yourself easy to be found:

      Adding an URL, a blog, or any other personal product in your signature is also helpful. This is a good tip because people already look up other people on social media or any other platform if you add your extra links to your profile or email signature you are beating them to the punch.

4) Go Anonymous: 

      This is a smart tip because you get to evaluate what the outside world sees on your profile. You can analyze what future employers can see. 

3) Always have the goal to be understood:

       This applies to both social media and email writing. When we send messages on both platforms know that it will read by somebody, if what you are saying makes sense, will it upset or annoy anyone, and does it take too much time for someone to read. These are simple goals to have before sending or posting. 

2) So what's the point?...

      This is important to ask yourself before you send your email or post online. In a social media setting people are judging you so be careful you are not offending anyone. As for email make sure that you are not wasting your time as well as the receivers time with a question, concern, or comment that you can figure out yourself.

1) Check yourself!:

Think before you hit send, share, post, like, comment, heart, follow, favorite etc.

      This is SUPER important for college students. Take a moment and look at your history. Anything that you post on the internet is traceable.