While you’re interning this summer, you also want to keep in touch with all of your friends online. Your Facebook wall is full of curse words, your Twitter feed is all about partying and you have a ton of posted pictures that are seemingly less than professional. Your boss just friend requested you—not to mention potential employers are constantly looking you up online—so it’s time to clean up your online platforms.
One of the easiest things you can do is control your privacy settings. When friending your boss, it’s important to make sure your profile doesn’t have anything too scandalous. Keep your albums private—if necessary, don’t feel like your employer or colleagues can’t see anything you post, unless you just really want to keep your personal life and work life completely separate. If friends post inappropriate comments on your wall, you can either make your entire wall private or make individual posts private. Even easier, you can talk to your friends about what they post; hopefully, they can clean up their act, at least while you’re actively interning.
Besides privacy, you also need to be conscious of what you are posting. Watch how much personal information you put on your profiles. When tweeting, don’t post every single thing you’re doing every hour of the day. Not only could it lead to unexpected stalkers, but it’s annoying for everyone who follows you. This isn’t necessarily unprofessional, but it makes your profiles overall appear too simple and doesn’t necessarily show off your true self—at least as an employee or intern. Instead, try retweeting posts from your company (not every single one, or even every day) and other places that interest you. Post some interesting articles related to your school major or skills. The more variety you have throughout your online profiles, the easier it will be for employers—current and those seeking you out for interviews—to paint a picture of what you can bring to the company and also how they can cater to your interests.
Finally, and most importantly, to keep a professional Facebook or Twitter, don’t post negative comments about your work. Think or yourself as an ambassador for the company. If you’re posting that you hate your boss, you have an annoying colleague, or that you just hate what you’re doing, you shouldn’t expect to be working there much longer. If you feel the need to vent—about work, personal issues or anything like that—keep it off the Internet. It might be funny, it might lead to a lot of comments on your Facebook wall, but it’s not classy or professional. Besides, a good phone call or in person venting session is always fun.
Overall, just be aware of what you and others are posting on your profiles. It’s not hard to remain professional, it just takes active attention to your accounts. Good luck, interns!
– ToonyToon