Social Media 101 for Healthcare Workers - A Conversation with Cali Wiersma

In this day and age, there're probably very few people out there who aren't on social media... yet. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and most recently TikTok, are part of our daily lives both personally and professionally, so learning how to use them to our advantage is a must, especially for healthcare workers looking for new work opportunities. With that in mind, we recently sat down with our very own Cali Wiersma, social media specialist at Caring Support, to take a crash course on all things social media. This is what she told us.

Do's and Don'ts for Healthcare Workers on Social Media

According to Cali, "social media is an amazing tool that a lot of professionals across the globe are using to find their next dream job or great employee – the world is quite literally your oyster when it comes to the exposure and access to information and opportunities that you can find online. However, your use of social media will affect your job search and could even harm your ability to get that dream job if you’re not careful."

These are some of her social do's and don'ts:

• Do see your social media like that cover page to your story. It's going to tell them what they need to know and whether or not you'd be a good fit for the team and it's just really important that what you're putting out there is something that you wouldn't mind people to see.
• Don't forget about privacy settings. It just takes going into your actual privacy settings and checking things out once in a while and just making sure that the version of yourself that you're putting out there on social media is the best version you can.
• Do be mindful of the fact that every time you comment on anything, post anything, like something, share something, you are putting information about yourself out into the social-verse.
• Don't ignore the public nature of social media.You need to think of social media as a big grocery store. If you wouldn’t stand on a platform at the entrance screaming what you just shared on social media to everyone that walks in the store, then you need to take a moment to consider your privacy settings on your social pages.
• Do take a moment to do a privacy check-up on ALL your pages when you are job searching, – yes, even the ones where you don’t use your real name. You’d be surprised how easy it is to find people even when they think they’re being stealthy. If there are posts you’d rather potential employers don’t see you have a couple of options – take them down OR change the privacy settings so that only your friends can see them.
• Don't let people tag you in photos without your approval. Turn on the tag review feature on your social profiles. This feature allows you to review things that people tag you in BEFORE they get posted to your profile or page. It gives you the chance to say “whoa! Hold on. I don’t want this out there.” And to ask that it be taken down or to un-tag yourself from it entirely. (But remember, if you simply un-tag yourself, that picture of you on the beach drinking wobbly pops with your bestie is still out there in the social-verse and can be found by using facial recognition software that is actually pretty easy for anyone to get their hands on.)
• Do learn more about the settings of your social media. Most social platforms, or at least the major ones that we all know and love like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn etc., you have the ability to chose who can see what you post by changing the privacy settings on your overall page or even just individual posts. You can even go so far as to chose who of your friends can see certain posts too by setting up custom privacy filters.

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Social Media Recommendations for New Grads

"The best advice that I have is to promote yourself as if you are the best at what you do. You want to sell yourself and your abilities to potential employers. You are, in fact, marketing yourself. So, think of it more like you are a product that you're trying to sell. You're a service that you're trying to sell, right? Look at you, how you would want an employer to see you, and then just try to make that come across in your video resume, in your Caring Support profile, in your other social media channels, your paper resume or wherever you can. Once you do that, your education and skills are going to shine, and you're going to get that chance for the interview. It's just taking that first step," says Cali. Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Media Assisted Collaborative Healthcare

What Healthcare Employers on Social Media Should Know

Cali provided us with some recommendations for employers:

• It doesn’t matter if you are a small organization with only one employee or a larger organization with thousands of employees, your organization needs to be on social media and should have a website.
• You should claim your business on Google so you can manage the reviews and information that is there. You want to make sure that the information out there is what you want potential clients and employees to see. A website and social media presence can help you do that, and it can help your business attract your next amazing employee.
• It’s important to remember that even though you are an organization and you're the one looking for employees and holding the interviews, employees are also checking you out and should be interviewing you as well because their choice to work for you will ultimately come down to the information they can access, reviews, and how you promote your organization. You can control that information, but you need to be proactive in managing your organizations online presence.
• Be aware that nobody wants to go to work for a company that may be misrepresenting itself online or has no information out there. That's when your employee turnover will be very negatively affected. The best thing that you can do is to control the information and to be proactive in managing your organization's online presence.
  

Best social media platforms for healthcare workers to network and self-promote

"The best social media platform is LinkedIn. LinkedIn is very important for all working professionals. It doesn’t matter if you are a store greeter, a finance director, a healthcare worker, or an actor/actress, LinkedIn is such an amazing tool to make connections and network with like-minded individuals and organizations that you would like to work with. Even Ryan Reynolds has LinkedIn! Facebook and Instagram are just the standards that most people use, and even TikTok is a rising star when it comes to people promoting themselves as the amazingly hard-working individuals that they are," according to Cali.

Other Channels to Self-Promote

When it comes to other channels for self-promotion online, Cali recommends Caring Support's video resume feature. "I LOVE the video resume feature on the Caring Support platform. Cover letters, in my opinion, are slowly becoming a thing of the past. Not a lot of employers read them because they don’t have time. Did you know that the average amount of time that an employer spends looking at your resume before deciding if you’re in the “contact” or “don’t contact” piles on their desk is only 7 seconds? This is why video resumes are an awesome way to ensure that potential employers are checking you out. People in general are more likely to watch a short video than read a document. This makes the video resume feature something that is super important to your job search and will set you out from the others that don’t have one."

Cali also offers some tips to record a successful video resume: "It may sound cliché, but just be you. Before you film take a moment to psych yourself up. Listen to some empowering music, and self-care the heck out of yourself. Also, make sure you are feeling great going into filming. Write a script and practice in front of a mirror or with a friend and keep it short and sweet. 60 to 90 seconds with two minutes being the absolute longest."

How to Attract Employers to You

According to Cali (and everybody else on this team!) joining Caring Support and creating your free account should be the first and most important step for anyone who wants to attract the attention of employers.

"From there it’s all about making sure that your profile is fully filled out. You want to strive to see your profile hit that 90% - 100% filled out range. When you successfully do that, you will get a cool flame by your name that will make your profile a top-tier profile. Having Top Tier profile status means there’s a good chance that a healthcare organization will reach out to you via the messaging tool because when they use the search filters on their end. That’s really the cool thing about the Caring Support platform. Healthcare workers don’t have to do all the work when it comes to the job search process," she adds.

About Cali Wiersma

Cali is a digital marketing specialist and administrative professional with an eye for detail and a drive to take on any challenge presented with determination, passion, and creativity. She has experience working with various companies across multiple disciplines including finance, safety, cellular and the oil industry.

This is what Cali said about her professional journey:

"I didn't actually get my start in digital marketing or social media management. I actually went more the route of just administrative professional work. So like front desk receptionist, that kind of thing. And then about six years ago, I got pregnant with my first daughter and I had her. And for about five years, I've been a stay at home mom. And during the pandemic, I decided that I wanted to go back to work, but I didn't want to go back to doing what I was doing before. So I actually went back to school during the pandemic with two kids under the age of four. And I got my diploma as a digital marketing specialist from Trios College. And that is where I was introduced to the team here at Caring Support. I was lucky enough to do my internship with Caring Support. And then I guess they loved me so much, they decided to keep me on."

To learn more about Cali, visit our "Meet our Team" page. And to ask Cali any questions you may have about social media, leave us a comment below.

To listen to the full interview, visit our podcast or our YouTube channel.

Thank you for reading!