Editor’s notice: This put up is cross-published on the Social Work Virtual Pal website. Social Work Digital Pal is a world and digital group of follow for the social work occupation, that digitizes the follow of getting a pen pal for skilled studying and networking. This group focuses on connection and collaboration amongst social staff to supply the occupation with a chance to harness its collective information for the higher good. Now we have sources for social work educators so, please think about incorporating #SWVirtualPal in your social work course. Study Social Work Digital Pal here.
Social Work Digital Pal now has a LinkedIn Group for social work college students, instructors, and practitioners to attach with different social staff around the globe. Just like our Twitter account, it is a digital house that digitizes the follow of getting a pen pal for skilled studying and networking. As well as, this group focuses on connection and collaboration amongst social staff to supply the occupation a chance to harness its collective information for the higher good. On this weblog put up, we provide particulars for making a LinkedIn Profile, establishing your digital networking targets, after which becoming a member of our LinkedIn Group to find your #SWVirtualPal.
The place to begin
LinkedIn is a social networking website designed particularly for skilled use and provides a strong person profile system that serves as a digital resume. It’s a great spot to determine your on-line presence as a social work scholar or practitioner. As with every social media platform, you’ll wish to begin with creating your LinkedIn profile. There are various on-line tutorials on making a high-quality LinkedIn profile, and LinkedIn’s Help characteristic offers many tips and guides on navigating the platform. Earlier than getting began along with your profile, you’ll want to have a professional-looking photograph and a duplicate of your resume useful. Put aside a couple of hours to create your profile. Here’s a good profile checklist designed for college students, however relevant to anybody.
As a result of #SWVirtualPal is designed to assist social staff from around the globe join with different social staff, there are some extra options to contemplate including to your profile:
If you’re a social work scholar, think about working along with your establishment’s profession providers workplace. Typically, they’ll allow you to with skilled headshots or allow you to arrange your profile. You will need to control the public-facing information of your profile and to maintain it updated recurrently.
Set up your targets for digital networking
After establishing your profile, take into consideration your targets for digital networking as a social employee. What do you wish to study? Who do you wish to meet? Of their article,
Hill & Lineback (2011) advocate that everybody wants three networks:
- Operational – community you have to do your day-to-day work
- Developmental – community of people you belief and who assist you
- Strategic – community that reveals you the longer term and easy methods to put together it
Ideally, you want all three networks. Nonetheless, this final community – the strategic one – requires an intention to develop. Most of us don’t naturally join with others to arrange for future work tasks as a result of these are people with whom we don’t come into contact recurrently.
One other solution to discover your targets for digital networking is by looking for hashtags which might be related to your areas of curiosity. A method to consider hashtags is that they’re key phrases that assist shortly determine subjects or pursuits for posts in LinkedIn. When you understand the related hashtags on your skilled pursuits, you’ll be able to shortly type by way of content material to find out what’s related to your networking targets. For instance, try the Symplur Healthcare Hashtag Project for a complete itemizing of hashtags associated to well being and well-being. #SWVirutalPal is registered with Symplur, which can present you the newest tweets and prime influencers.
Study & observe the norms
As with every new digital house, it is important to study the norms of the LinkedIn platform. For instance, LinkedIn is specifically designed to connect professionals around the world. Thus, customers are sometimes extra formal and work-oriented in presenting themselves and discussing points on the platform. One other norm on LinkedIn is that connections are meant for people who you understand and belief. Thus, you don’t have to simply accept a connection request from somebody you don’t know. Alternatively, you’ll want to make a personalised request of somebody you have no idea when making a connection request on LinkedIn. You may study extra about LinkedIn’s norms by observing how others put up feedback or arrange their profiles. One other manner is to learn LinkedIn’s Professional Community Policies and their Publishing Platform Guidelines, which operationalize its values. As you learn by way of these tips, think about and examine them with the social work moral code that applies to your area or space of follow.
Join with related folks and organizations
As you begin to join with folks on LinkedIn, begin people and teams you already know. These are your friends and the people in your operational and developmental networks. Use the connection feature in LinkedIn to view somebody’s profile and posts. Reconnect with these you will have misplaced contact with through the use of the LinkedIn Messaging characteristic or commenting on their posts. One solution to join with somebody chances are you’ll not know is to put in writing an invite to attach. Strive an elevator speech approach to your invitation by explaining who you’re, what you do, after which asking a query. If you’re not prepared to attach with some, strive following a person, which implies you’ll be able to see what they put up on LinkedIn. For instance, observe social staff together with college students, instructors, practitioners, researchers, and social work organizations. You can too join a LinkedIn group, which incorporates members who share pursuits or experiences.
Becoming a member of the Social Work Digital Pal Group
To seek out your #SWVirutalPal, be part of our Social Work Virtual Pal group. It’s a skilled connection and dialogue group, and we invite social work practitioners, college students, and educators from around the globe to hitch. Listed here are the group’s tips:
- Guideline #1: Join to seek out your Social Work Digital Pal
- Guideline#2: Solely put up related content material – social work occupation, skilled growth, networking
- Guideline #3: Deliver worth to the discussions – encourage each other, be good, share sources for creating connections
- Guideline #4: Preserve it skilled – be respectful in language, questions, and feedback
- Guideline#5: Respect the group tips
As soon as within the group, use these tips to find and connect with your #SWVirutalPal.
Share your insights and tales by posting in #SWVirtualPal Group
Listed here are some methods you’ll be able to start a group conversation throughout the #SWVirutalPal group:
- What’s one thing you discovered lately?
- Run a Ballot to intestine test or ask a questions
- Reply to questions from different customers in a pleasant method
- Like and share worthwhile content material (sharing whereas giving credit score to the unique supplier of information).
- Discover and share trustworthy articles and hyperlinks in your space of experience.
- Thank individuals who have appreciated or commented in your posts
- Give credit score to individuals who have supplied the sources you’re sharing.
- Use LinkedIn Reactions (i.e., emojis) to take part in group conversations
You may study extra about Social Work Digital Pal by visiting our website. Do you have already got a #SWVirtualPal? In that case, share your feedback under. We’d love to listen to from you.
Easy methods to cite:
Hitchcock, L.I. (2021, September 8). Utilizing LinkedIn for #SWVirtualPal. Instructing and Studying in Social Work. https://laureliversonhitchcock.org/2021/09/08/using-linkedin-for-swvirtualpal/
