Social media platforms are a perfect place to present your soft skills to your audience. The platform that you will use and the type of content to produce needs to take into consideration the public that you will address, as well as your career goals.
This exercise will improve your presentation skills and it will help you understand how to engage with professionals and companies.
Step 1 – Identify your soft skills
The first part of this exercise will have the main aim of selecting the soft skills that you are going to present in social media.
Please make a list of your soft skills and choose three soft skills that you would like to present. For that you can use the results of the YOUnique mapping worksheet. They can be the strongest soft skills that you possess, skills that you are trying to improve or that you would like to get better at in the near future.
Step 2 – Choose one social media platform
You can decide to use any of the three platforms presented before LinkedIn, Twitter or Instagram. Take into consideration your audience and the popularity of each social media platform in your region, for example. You can decide your criteria to choose the best platform that suits you!
Step 3 – Decide the content
Think about professional, personal or academic experiences related to the soft skills that you have chosen. Recount the time, setting, and details of how your soft skills led to success, for example.
When planning the content that you are going to create, it is important to keep in mind that you should show and not simply tell. Providing evidence or life stories is important to be credible.
If you are addressing companies or organisations, make sure to tailor examples of your soft skills to the entity you are speaking to. Research the organisation’s mission and values and how your skills complement these aspects. Creating a clear picture of how your strengths and soft skills will contribute directly to the organisation is important. Consider doing this in the same way you highlight certain hard skills related to a specific industry.
Step 4 – Record it!
The goal of this exercise is to record 5 stories based on what you planned. You can ask a friend to hold your phone and record you while you talk or do it yourself! Please choose what makes you feel more comfortable.
While recording, it is advisable to focus on your tone of voice, your body language and to speak fluid. You can record the same story more than one time if you desire.
When you have your 5 stories recorded, it is time to publish them and check the results later!
You can make use of hashtags, tags, location and other features that the platforms offer.
Background information and teaching material for guiding your students through the exercise or offering it in your classroom
