Social Networking: It Could Make YOU More Engaged!

In this day and age, social networking sites have taken over and have proven to be particularly useful when connecting people together. Although we typically use it to contact our friends and family, social networking sites can also help you find ways to become more engaged! Whether you are searching for an opportunity to volunteer, job shadow, or look for a workshop to develop your skills, you’ll find that these following networking sites are ideal!

Twitter:

Twitter is the perfect site to use when finding ways to become more engaged with your community. It’s very easy to follow the Twitter accounts of specific organizations, blogs, and newspapers in Vancouver, and you’ll always be up to date on opportunities of your interest! Also, Twitter has the “keyword search” feature which is an optimal tool for finding exactly what type of opportunity you may want. By searching tags such as “Volunteer Vancouver” or “Internship Vancouver,” you will discover all recent tweets containing those specific search terms while some of these positions will be urging for people to apply.

Some Vancouver based Twitter accounts to follow include:

@Vancouver_Now
@VancityBuzz
@WEVancouver

Facebook:

I have found that some organizations use Twitter to post links to messages that are really located on Facebook. For this reason, when there is an organization that I want to stay in touch with, I make sure to follow them on Twitter and also “like” their Facebook page. This way I never miss an important post!

Some Vancouver-based Facebook accounts to “like” include:

-Your academic faculty’s Facebook page

-604Now

-This Is Vancity

LinkedIn:

Although many organizations do not have a LinkedIn profile, if you go through your university career and eventually graduate, you will likely meet many individual professional contacts that do! In addition, LinkedIn is focused on maintaining your professional network. With that said, if you ever attend a social networking event, be sure to share your LinkedIn profile and get the LinkedIn profile of others. You never know when you may want to contact a professional in your field who could help you out!

Kerri is currently in her second year at SFU and working toward her degree in Business. Through her posts on the ENGAGE blog she hopes to inspire other students to take initiative and become engaged, both at SFU and within their communities.