The best argument I have read for staying away from social media

Avid reader and seasoned journalist Aakar Patel, writing in the year-end issue of Mint Lounge, says social media is for those looking to be distracted by an inexhaustible supply of material — and not those for whom reading is a serious affair.

I don't agree with him entirely, but a couple of points he has made are right on the button:

As a writer, I personally find social media off-putting and not useful.
 
Writers must be insulated from feedback, particularly of the immediate kind. One has no option but to be exposed to this on Facebook and on Twitter, and such things always carry the expectation of a response. ... [The comments section] is meant to be a conversation, and I accept that at times it is an intelligent one. But having comments on your work published alongside it is the equivalent of talking from atop a soapbox at Hyde Park.

The hooting and the cheers and the heckling is all on display, and apparently for the benefit of the writer. All of this is fine, and legitimate I suppose, and certainly it adds to the reader’s experience. But why subject yourself as a writer to it? Unless the idea is to bask in your popularity or infamy, there is little point.

And here is the other important (and just as valid) point:

[Comments by Indians] tend to be tangential, personal, often abusive and mostly irrelevant. I must also say that the quality of the comment is poor and that of the writing poorer. This is an anecdotal observation, but you know what I mean. It infects the other strain of social media, which is user-generated reviews. I don’t think it is wise to pick a restaurant here through what people have written about it on the Internet.

Read the column in its entirety here: "Why I’m not on social media".

• To know more about Aakar Patel, go here.

Why everyone should think before communicating through social media

Ilya Pozin, a contributor to the "Entrepreneurs" section on the Forbes website, has posed two important questions in a recent post:

On sites like Twitter and Facebook, do all old-school means of social etiquette get thrown out the window? Or do most people not even know what classifies as proper social etiquette to begin with?

In turn, he lists 12 questions that he says you must ask yourself before you hit "post" on Facebook:

Should I target a specific audience with this message?

Will anyone really care about this content besides me?

Will I offend anyone with this content? If so, who? Does it matter?

Is this appropriate for a social portal, or would it best be communicated another way?

How many times have I already posted something today? (More than three can be excessive.)

Did I spell check?

Will I be okay with absolutely anyone seeing this?

Is this post too vague? Will everyone understand what I’m saying?

Am I using this as an emotional dumping ground? If so, why? Is a different outlet better for these purposes?

Am I using too many abbreviations in this post and starting to sound like a teenager?

Is this reactive communication or is it well thought-out?

Is this really something I want to share, or is it just me venting?

Read Ilya Pozin's post in its entirety here: "Social Media Etiquette: 12-Step Checklist".

• Thank you, Rigved Sarkar (Class of 2010), for the alert.

ADDITIONAL READING:

"Facebook: Boon or bane?"

"Are you revealing more than you should on Facebook?"

"How you interact with people on any platform on the Web and what you say about issues is an indication of the kind of person you are"

Mind your e-language: How you interact with people on any platform on the Web and what you say about issues is an indication of the kind of person you are

Sonal Agrawal, managing partner of an executive search firm, has made a strong case in Mint for minding your e-language. Writing in her "Career Coach" column, she says this is "not about censoring every online move but about exercising restraint".

Agrawal begins her column with the example of a candidate who messed up his chances of a job with a private equity client of her company's because he had not been "particularly circumspect about the language or tone he used".

Agrawal continues:

After some debate, the firm decided that the candidate’s online personal (but not private) interactions displayed an almost schizophrenic lack of maturity and judgment. While I certainly wouldn’t classify him as a “hater”, he certainly bordered on being an Internet troll. They didn’t hire him. Amazingly enough (or perhaps not), the candidate went on a rant about free speech and privacy — online, on a public profile.

Every year I have been telling my students to watch what they say on Facebook and other public platforms ("Yes, recruiters are using Facebook and Twitter to screen candidates") so I was glad to see Agrawal's piece. What she has to say on this subject should be taken seriously because a. she knows what she is talking about, and b. she knows what she is talking about because she is an expert in the recruitment business.

What she has to say here is particulary pertinent today:

With the costs and risks of making a bad hire increasing exponentially, employers are increasingly looking at researching potential candidates well beyond their professional profiles and traditional reference checks. Apart from seeking to reinforce positive traits — Are you well networked? Do you communicate well? Are you considered an expert in your field? — they are also consciously looking for tell-tale signs of undesirable traits that could disqualify you for the job. Do you have anger-management issues? How do you react to stress? Are you racist? Are you a team player? Apart from the traditional methods of interviewing, referencing and testing, increasingly they are going online to see what you are saying about yourself, not just to professional links, but also to your friends, followers and circles. 

Read her column in its entirety here: "Mind your e-language".

• ALSO READ: "Facebook: Boon or bane?"

• UPDATE (June 29, 2013): From an article published in Bloomberg Businessweek two days ago: "Think before you post, especially if you’re looking for a job. Seems like common sense, doesn’t it? Yet despite all the advice and warnings to be cautious with social media, job applicants continue to get burned by their online profiles." Read the piece in its entirety here: Hey Job Applicants, Time to Stop the Social-Media Sabotage. 

Yes, recruiters are using Facebook and Twitter to screen candidates

I have been telling my students for years now to be careful about what they post on Facebook and Twitter.

When you apply for a job, I tell them, you may be judged on the basis of your virtual life. So, mind your language.

Think of interesting and intelligent status messages and tweets.

And when you post pictures, think about how these pictures may influence a potential employer. Sure, you may argue that your privacy settings will protect you, but what's to stop a "friend" from copying and forwarding content from your page?

Here's evidence, albeit from a foreign source, that recruiters use social networks to screen candidates.

Want more information? Want to study the infographics closely? Go to Mashable.

And believe me when I tell you that recruiters are dong this in India, too. Why wouldn't they? They get to see the "real" you on Facebook and Twitter, don't they?

• Thank you, Apar Dham (Class of 2011) for the tip-off.

"The interviewer asked me for my Twitter ID and immediately scanned all my tweets" 

• From an earlier post — Satish Perumal (Class of 2011) writes: We think of Twitter and Facebook as networking tools which we use to keep in touch with friends and relatives. I, too, thought these networking sites were good only for having a... er, good time, an escape tunnel from the real world to the virtual one.
  
  But I did a rethink recently after a job interview with a social marketing company, Uncut Donut. The interviewer asked me for my Twitter ID and immediately scanned all my tweets, looked at my profile, and tried to get a fix on what kind of topics interest me. I was taken aback a bit by this turn of events and did not know how to react.
  
  Moral of the story: These networking sites might be fun, but these days they are a launch pad for the careers of many ambitious youngsters. And HR departments use them as recruitment tools too. So go ahead and get cracking with your networking! 

Yes, your Facebook profile and holiday pictures
can convey the wrong impression to recruiters

UPDATE (November 30, 2011): DNA's "After Hrs." section today features a story by Sneha Mahadevan on the monitoring of social networking sites by companies when hiring candidates. There are two examples in the story that illustrate the risks of posting "inappropriate" material on these sites:

Diya Malhotra, 25-year-old marketing professional with an MBA, was being considered for a job at a leading multinational company. After clearing the first round of interviews she was asked to come for the final round of personal interviews, scheduled a week later. When she did come, she was shocked to hear the kind of questions the professionals conducting the interview asked her. "I went in expecting to be asked about my work, but instead they asked me how often I'd go on vacations and how often I party. They even said I wasn't allowed to have an office romance. Initially, it came as a shock to me, but I realised later on that they would have snooped around on my profile on Facebook and seen my holiday pictures. Since then I have changed my privacy settings on social networking sites," she says.

While some have been rejected after being considered potentially reliable candidates, some have fallen into trouble after posting remarks about a co-worker in jest. Surekha Mahadik went through a situation that taught her to never discuss work on a social networking site. "A colleague and I were just routinely catching up on Facebook and happened to say something about another colleague in our team in good jest. She read it, all hell broke loose and the next thing we knew, we were summoned by the HR managers for a lecture on office etiquette," she recalls.

Also read: Facebook: Boon or bane?

• UPDATE (June 29, 2013): From an article published in Bloomberg Businessweek two days ago: "Think before you post, especially if you’re looking for a job. Seems like common sense, doesn’t it? Yet despite all the advice and warnings to be cautious with social media, job applicants continue to get burned by their online profiles." Read the piece in its entirety here: Hey Job Applicants, Time to Stop the Social-Media Sabotage. 

Why you may want to re-think your profile on Twitter

How much can you say in a few hundred characters? Perhaps that is the reason why, as Businessworld columnist Mala Bhargava discovered recently, people are not only uncomfortable with how to tweet, but also with the very creation of their profiles.

She writes in the latest issue of the magazine:

Recently, I was teaching a class of students doing a course on digital communication, and during our exploration of Twitter, I found that people were not only uncomfortable with how to tweet, but also with the very creation of their profiles. As always, when you teach, you learn, and interacting with the students made me realise a few things about Twitter profiles that I don’t see in the usual fare of ‘Ten Tips’ articles plaguing the Web. I promptly re-did my own bio.

So the issue is not really how much you can say in 140 characters, but what you should say in 140 characters.

Bhargava explains why:

Letting your personality show through in those few words is important because everyone wants to feel they are interacting with a real person. But too often, the description overdoes the attitude or shows the difficulty with being specific about the user’s strengths.

The number of profiles I’m seeing referring to “blokes about town”, “lover of life”, “explorer of dreams”, “clueless about everything”, “spellbound by the universe at large”, etc., is staggering. As long as these tasty morsels of self-revelation are balanced with specific information, they are really fun. In the absence of solidity though, they do nothing to get the user very much.

Read Mala Bhargava's column in its entirety here and figure out what you want to say in your Twitter bio.

• Also read: Two benefits of Twitter I can think of.

Two benefits of Twitter that I can think of

1. You get a maximum of 140 characters for your tweet, so you need to be brief and, at the same time, you have to be clear about what you are saying. Not very different from being a journalist? In any case, Twitter helps to sharpen your editing skills. Here's how:

A recent status message I posted on Facebook:

The next time you're at Subway, go for the Italian BMT — it really hits the spot! Leave out the "pickle" (as I did yesterday), add an extra dose of the jalapeno, and stick to the barbeque and honey-mustard sauces. Important: Ask for the honey-oat bread. Scrumptious!

I had to edit it down for Twitter:

Next time at Subway, go for the Italian BMT on honey-oat bread. No "pickle"; extra jalapeno; barbeque and honey-mustard sauces. Divine!

BTW, I didn't know what BMT stood for. Here's what I learned from Yahoo Answers:

The "B.M.T." sandwich at Subway was originally named after the "Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit." Consisting of sliced genoa salami, pepperoni, ham and your choice of salad, it has become one of the chain's most popular subs. With time, the sub's name has evolved to mean "Biggest, Meatiest, Tastiest."

2. As Neilima Bh. P. (Class of 2012) pointed out in a Facebook conversation recently, you get to "follow" celebs, experts, stars, even well-known journalists (though you have to hope that it's not some PR hacks tweeting on their clients' behalf) and read what they have to say about issues that interest them (and possibly us). I follow Rajdeep Sardesai, for instance, and his tweets bring me up to date on the major news events of the day. One of Rajdeep's tweets also led to my discovering the Indicast Podcast Network, in my opinion the best Indian website for podcasts. Media students will love IPN and our AVC students who need to produce a radio feature will get some ideas — check it out here.

• Satish Perumal (Class of 2011) adds: We think of Twitter and Facebook as networking tools which we use to keep in touch with friends and relatives. I, too, thought these networking sites were good only for having a... er, good time, an escape tunnel from the real world to the virtual one.
  
  But I did a rethink recently after a job interview with a social marketing company, Uncut Donut. The interviewer asked me for my Twitter ID and immediately scanned all my tweets, looked at my profile, and tried to get a fix on what kind of topics interest me. I was taken aback a bit by this turn of events and did not know how to react.
  
  Moral of the story: These networking sites might be fun, but these days they are a launch pad for the careers of many ambitious youngsters. And HR departments use them as recruitment tools too. So go ahead and get cracking with your networking!

How true, Satish. The best advice then for those using Twitter and Facebook would be this: When you apply for a job, you may be judged on the basis of your virtual life. So, mind your language. Think of interesting and intelligent status messages and tweets. And when you post pictures think about how these pictures may influence a potential employer. Sure, you may argue that your privacy settings will protect you, but what's to stop a "friend" from copying and forwarding content from your page? — RP

• Also read: "Facebook: Boon or bane?"