A Person Contributing To Social Media is a Like a Ship Sending Out Beacons

If you are wondering if it is worth your time participating in social media sites within your company or outside your company, think about this this way. You are good at something. Your manager knows it. Your colleagues know it. Your friends know it. Your recruiter knows it. However, your managers, friends, colleagues and recruiter may not always have the right opportunity for you.

So you need to send out periodic messages to the world, beyond your geographic and organizational limits, about what you are capable of, what you are good at, what you have accomplished, the things you like to do, the things that you are doing, the people you know, the books you read, the people you met and so on.

In the book, The Power of Pull the authors compare social media participation to a ship in the middle of sea, sending out beacons periodically in all directions because it wants something. The ship may want some parts, may want to exchange something with other ships, may want to offier something, may want to let other ships know its location and so on. The key words here are periodic and freequency. It is not enough if you make a lot of noise in one event or to the same few people. It is necessary that you make this a habit and make yourself findable.