Building Professional Connections Online: Strengthen Your Online Presence Through Effective Communication presentation in Graduate Student Professional Development series for DASS graduate students.

1. Building Professional Connections OnlineStrengthen Your Online Presence Through Effective Communication Genevieve Howard Sharon Wood-Turley

2. Where you are now What are you currently doing? Google yourself. Check regularly and set up Google alerts.

3. Where you want to be Why build a strong online presence? Connect with other academics in your field. Help you on the job market. Find speaking engagements. Promote your group or business.

4. Social Media: the big ones Linkedin: page on CAFNR to help you set it up. Facebook: keep it clean, check your privacy settings. Twitter: try it to see if appropriate. Blogging: be ready for time commitment and topics. WordPress is customizable. Academia.edu (research).

5. @ sign + user name = responding to someone. These are publically visible. @cafnr RT = retweet. This means you are resending someone else’s message. RT @cafnr # = hash tag. These add context to your tweets. #ag D = direct message. You can send direct messages to people who are following you. These are not publically visible. D cafnr Backchannel = Tweets during a live presentation How to talk Twitter

6. Is Twitter right for you personally? Yes, if you like this kind of online participation. Do you want to follow trends and learn from others in your specialized area? Find people by looking at who your colleagues follow. Who Should I Follow? Wefollow Listorious Most people use an application to manage Twitter, such as TweetDeck or Hootsuite.

7. Ideas for using Twitter academically Post reminders on assignments. Send links to relevant readings. Promote upcoming events. Ask for opinions, “What should we name our next flavor of ice cream?” Use in the classroom to share questions and thoughts, an official backchannel. Helps to have a person monitoring Twitter stream Use a # hashtag

8. Web Each MU student has 200 mg of server space. You can use it to post papers and articles. There are also many hosting options. Check for pricing and features. Set up your Google profile page. This will help your name in search results. Slidesharefor presentations.

9. E-mail management Electronic signature: add links to where you want people to go. Maintain consistent tone across media. Remember grammar and punctuation. Think of your e-mail as public. You never know where it will be forwarded. Less is more. Limit the quantity that you send. People will appreciate it and give more respect to yours when you do send it.

10. Other considerations How to handle negativity Measurement Transparency: Personal vs. private vs. professional Thank you! If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Genevieve Howard, howardg@missouri.edu Sharon Wood-Turley, swt@missouri.edu