After a lifetime against, I'm considering joining social media. Any advice?

I’ve never had a Facebook account or any other social media. I know they keep shadow profiles, but I’ve never given permission. I never had any interest and frankly still don’t.

The problem I’m having is that I don’t exist online when people try to look me up. When someone tries to check me out, there’s nothing there and apparently that’s considered abnormal these days. I think it’s starting to affect my life negatively for various reasons I’d rather not get into.

I’d just like some advice about where to start if you wanted to dip your toes in and check it out. LinkedIn, maybe?

QaspR,

Honestly, I’d stick with the Fediverse. At least on here you have some rights and no one (probably) will sell your information to advertisers. LinkedIn is an okay platform if you’re looking to grow your career through social media.

aeronmelon,

You owe the internet NOTHING. You do not owe it posts at a certain interval, you do not owe it media, nothing. Only post what you want to post, when and how you want to post it.

Social Media should serve you. It should make you happy, it should make it easier to communicate with people you care about or share interests in. If it doesn’t serve you or makes you unhappy, you should not feel any shame or regret in just walking away.

If you don’t know whether or not you want to use “insert platform here”, go ahead and sign up for a free account to reserve your name then just leave it until you find a need for it. If you end up not needing it, you can delete the account or just abandon it in place.

I would also say something like ‘don’t be afraid to ask questions’, but you’ve already got that one down.

Have fun! :)

rockSlayer,

For the most part, stick to the fediverse.

  • Lemmy/kbin = reddit (you are here)
  • Mastodon = twitter
  • Pixelfed = Instagram
  • Friendica = Facebook
  • Peertube = Youtube

The only standard social media account I’d recommend is linkedin, literally only because it’s meant to network for jobs. Don’t get me wrong, it’s full of desperate corporate worship and therefore miserable to use. However, the real point is networking for career advancement and job listings

ultra,

It would be better to host a site.

helmet91, (edited )

When it comes to Facebook, Instagram, and other mainstream social media, just stay away, it’s not worth it. I had Facebook, and it was just full of trash. I haven’t had Instagram, but it’s not very appealing either.

A LinkedIn account, however, for professional reasons is very much advised. Or Glassdoor.

Although over the recent years I saw some decline in quality on LinkedIn, as it’s getting full of shit posts, but you can completely disregard what’s on the feed. What you need LinkedIn for, is to build a professional profile, have your former and current coworkers in your network, and find and apply for jobs. Or even just let opportunities come to your inbox once you have an impressive profile.

The most amazing workplace I’ve ever had was possible thanks to LinkedIn, with almost no effort on my part. I have to say, this isn’t typical though. It’s only likely happening in countries where there’s a labour shortage. But a recruiter (among tons of others) found me from a well known company, their opening looked good to me, so I gave it a try. After just one interview I was hired, and I didn’t even have to apply for the job.

My most recent job was with a relocation to a different country. I can’t even imagine how this would’ve been possible without LinkedIn or Glassdoor. But I achieved one of my big life goals.

A career advice I got about ten years ago: create a LinkedIn profile and always keep updating it. If you do so, you’ll see it’s kinda awkward to go back in time and retrospectively edit things and connect with former coworkers. But since you haven’t had an account yet, I don’t see any other choice for you.

As for Glassdoor, it’s maybe a bit less popular than LinkedIn, but nowadays you can find opportunities there too. The best strength of Glassdoor is that you can find reviews of companies, sometimes they’re also reporting their salaries so you know what to expect. In some cases, individual reviews may be misleading as they’re forced by the company (which is btw against the terms of use), it can be a good indicator if you find thousands of good reviews or thousands of bad reviews.

Regarding the fediverse (Mastodon, Lemmy, Pixelfed, PeerTube, etc.), they’re much better than their corporate equivalents in terms of quality, but they’re not immune to misinformation either. And also not immune to the user’s own stupidity. Obviously, don’t share what doesn’t belong there.

Edit: added notes for Glassdoor

Phen,

It’s not standard to still expect to find anyone on social media these days. If someone mentioned they couldn’t find you and that was important to you maybe you should ask that specific person for advice?

In my experience the expectation these days is for people to be available in some chat apps online (depending where you are: WhatsApp, signal, telegram or iMessage).

drd, (edited )

I’ve been thinking about it as well, I think if I were to do it I’d probably post and immediately close the app, and disable notifications, to prevent addiction. Go for it, it might be fun who knows.

Varyk, (edited )

I’d say if you aren’t on them and don’t need them, there’s no reason to dip your toe in.

It’s okay to be a little weird and save tons of time and not have to read worthless comments.

I was part of the main ones, but got rid of everything, LinkedIn Facebook, all of it. They are useless or detrimental personally, and I don’t need them for my job.

This is the extent of my social media now.

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