Career,  College Life,  Lifestyle

6 Ways You Can Create an Online Presence as a College Student

Photo courtesy of Brooke Cagle on Unsplash.

As a college student, you may not realize how important having an online presence is. Having an online presence, especially in this day in age, is helpful when searching for jobs and internships as well as networking with like-minded individuals. In this article, I will be listing 6 ways you can create your online presence as a college student. Let’s get started.

1. Social Media

All About You

Creating social media accounts is a great way for recruiters and/or clients (if you’re planning to start your own business) to get to know who you are as an individual and professional. There are so many modalities to share content like text, photo, and video. Video is a great way to showcase your personality as it gives recruiters and/or clients a sense of what you’re like. TikTok would work well with this.

My personal favorite social media platform is Instagram because of its unique interface. I’m a visual person so I love sharing photos, graphics, and such. Instagram is a great place for creative people like graphic designers, web designers, writers, content creators, influencers, and more.

Twitter is great for quick updates. Facebook is good if you’re starting your own business as you can create your own page for it. Pinterest and We Heart It are great too.

Networking

I find having a social media presence so important because it allows you to network with like-minded individuals. It’s not even about following someone, it’s about sending them a message or DM. I know it can be scary at first but it’s less intimidating if you were to speak to someone face-to-face. Talking to someone can lead to networking with others.

Networking is so important no matter what field you go into. It leads to job and internship opportunities as well as meeting new people.

2. Create a LinkedIn Account

Creating a LinkedIn account is a great way to connect with like-minded individuals and allow recruiters to see you who you are as a professional. It’s an important place to increase your online presence. Being active on LinkedIn makes you more appealing to recruiters.

If you don’t know what LinkedIn is, it’s a platform where you can connect with friends, students, family, and professionals. In your profile, you’re able to display your current job position, list job experience and education, display a profile picture and a banner.

It’s a great place to search for jobs and internships.

3. Create an ePortfolio

For my major, it was a requirement to create an ePortfolio (a digital portfolio). I would have made one either way. This is a great way for recruiters and/clients to get to know you through your work. You can also share your resume and create a contact form for recruiters and/or clients to reach out to you.

Upload work that showcases your skills from school and outside of school. This is helpful for people to see what you can do.

4. Build Your Portfolio

Going along with creating a portfolio online, it’s important to build it. This can be an internship completed while in school and even experience you’ve had outside of school.

Don’t just focus on the big projects, the little ones are just as important.

5. Start Your Own Blog or Website

Starting a blog or website is a great way to showcase your talent to recruiters. If you’re a writer, it’s such a great way to show recruiters what you can do with the written word.

6. Make a Carrd or Linktree

Making a Carrd website or Linktree is a simple yet effective way to share links to work, social media, and more with your intended audience.

If you don’t know what Carrd is, it’s a site-building platform that specializes in one-page websites.

If you don’t know what Linktree is, it’s a platform where you can share multiple links on any social media platform.

I would do this first before creating a ePortfolio, website, or blog because it’s pretty basic. I’m more familiar with Carrd than I am with Linktree but I know both platforms are straightforward.

Closing Thoughts

Being able to create an online presence especially as a college student is important for you as far as finding jobs and internship opportunities, networking, and share your work with your intended audience.

I hope this list is helpful for you.

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