Task 3a-Current Networks

Professional Networking is an extremely important tool for everyone in their professional life. It's not just about who you are connected to online, but also in life. Your friends and family are part of your professional network and who they are connected with are as well. It's very important that in our professional lives we manage our professional network to make sure we maintain good relations. Having spent most of my life at a performing arts school, my friends are in the arts and so are therefore part of professional network. People they know and the information they gather is important to help my professional life and vice versa. 

I'd like to think that my networking involves keeping in contact with as many people as I can that have helped me in my profession. It's great being out on your own, doing things for yourself but it's nice to know that people are there to help you and support you. For example I try to keep in contact with my teachers from college, to let them know how I'm doing and what I'm up to. Also as part of my professional network I have various social media accounts. The ones that I would use for dance jobs are Facebook, Flickr and my blog. My other accounts are mostly for enjoyment purposes. If someone needed to contact me I would give them my email address. I have a separate one for professional use and I check it everyday and make sure I reply as quickly as I can. Because we are in the digital age, people expect things to be done instantaneously and so I try to reply quickly because you don't know how many other things that person might need to organise.  I think using social media accounts can be very beneficial for networking because you can 'become friends' or 'follow' whoever you want to or people you admire. But having social media accounts as part of your networking comes with responsibilities, such as; making sure it remains professional, keeping up to date with your most recent events and making sure it's easy for people to contact you without giving away too much personal information. 

 

Other people are more established in their professional networks because of where they are in their careers and the responsibility they have to maintain their contacts and their image for marketing purposes. For example Lisa Davies, my mentor, has a website that she has to sustain and it's a very important part of her professional network because it's not just advertisement for the public, but it also lets students know when term starts and significant dates in the year. The consequences of forgetting to update the website could lose you potential students and confuse current students. Lisa also has a Facebook page for members only that she keeps updated with relevant information. Anything else that she feels she needs to share, goes via email. Email is one of the quickest ways to get in touch with someone if you don't have their number. Obviously there are people who have a wider variety of social media accounts and keep information updated on all of them. For example, if someone was starting up a company it would be imperative for them to have as much advertisement out there as they could on social media. 

More on the social side of things, people may hold fundraising events, hand out leaflets and posters. This is equally as important if not more important than advertising via social media. If you have the chance to meet with someone face to face, you can make a real connection whereas social media can sometimes make it seem a bit fake. Obviously this sort of advertisement doesn't apply to my profession because I'm not trying to advertise or start up a company. I am still trying to advertise myself to the performing industry though like many others, so that's why it's important to maintain my image on social media.

I could definitely do more in terms of networking via social media because I use it more for entertainment purposes and before my last year at Tring I didn't even think that your social media accounts could be part of your professional network. Many of friends do much more for themselves on social media to advertise themselves and I know I should do more. But until I am certain with where my path will take me I think I will stick to what I can manage for now. When I have more of an idea of my where my profession will take me, I can build my professional network both socially and on the web. I will slowly begin to take steps to building a good professional network, one that I am happy with and will be beneficial for my career.