Developing Skills 2 Flashcards
What is your digital footprint?
- Social media activity
- Browsing history
- Online subscriptions
- Photo galleries
- Videos uploaded
- Personal websites/blogs
- e.g. anything on the internet with your name (or image) on it
- Your digital footprint is a record or trail left by everything you do online
Why does your digital footprint matter?
- What goes online, stays online (‘Never put a temporary emotion on the permanent internet’)
- The way you use social media can impact on your career/job prospects
- Potential employers use it to look up and screen applicants
How can you limit the negatives on your accounts?
- List down all your accounts, keep only the accounts you use, delete ones that you don’t use
- Use privacy settings, know the various privacy settings available on social media (but don’t over-rely on them)
- Create a second email account
- Create a Google Alert
Worst case scenario - go nuclear
- Delete social media accounts
- Unsubscribe from mailing lists
- Delete forum comments and blog posts
- Delete email accounts
How do you maintain a professional profile?
- Keep your profile up to date
- Don’t overshare
- Consider how your personal views and comments posted online will be read by others
- Think about who is shaping your digital footprint (is it you or your friends?)
Who created the THINK model?
Melissa Pilakowski (2015)
Explain the THINK model (Melissa Pilakowski, 2015)
T - is it True?
H - is it Helpful?
I - is it Inspiring?
N - is it Necessary?
K - is it Kind?
Can having no online identity be detrimental?
Yes!
- Social media skills are valued by employers, so it’s good to demonstrate that you have them
- You can use social media to promote your skills, achievements, experience and interests
- Showcase good communication skills, creativity, being a well-rounded person, examples of anything related to your desired profession
How do you develop a positive digital footprint?
- Create a website in your own name so that your site shows up high in search engines for queries of your name
- Start a blog and create content, don’t just blog about anything, have a focus and develop an expertise relevant to your industry
- Establish your credibility on the topics related to the job you are actively pursuing, participate in online forums and communities that matter most
How can you keep it positive?
- Share your interests, stimulate discussion, learn and share
- Share successes and achievements, give appreciation and thanks where due
- Self-control, remain authentic, avoid ranting, shunning or being rude
- Make timely contributions, monitor conversations (but don’t overshare!)
How should you use your social media profiles?
- Commit to using your social media profiles from the mindset of a job seeker
- Be active on Twitter
- Optimise your LinkedIn profile
- Use Facebook wisely
- Instagram can help
- YouTube and Pinterest
What professional guidelines should you be aware of?
- The various professional bodies all publish guidelines on what they expect from their members with regard to the use of social media
- You should familiarise yourself with the relevant guidelines and use your social media to demonstrate an understanding of these
What are examples of the UoB social media expectations?
- Students should consider other people’s feelings
- Respect other people’s freedom of speech
- Provide feedback through appropriate channels
- Students shouldn’t include photos, images or recordings of staff or students without their permission
What are the components of a single page website?
- Modern design trend
- One page, continuous scrolling
- No distractions for user
- No decisions on where to go
- Easily adapted for mobile
- Not suitable for large amounts of complex content
What are the components of a multi page website?
- Traditional layout
- Multiple pages and sub-pages
- Menus and sub menus
- User navigates in any order
- Find what they want quickly
- Suitable for large amounts of complex content
- Hard to adapt for mobile devices
What are single pages versus multi pages best for?
Single page best for:
- Content with narrow focus
- Want users to perform a single task (buy something, sign up for something)
Multi page best for:
- Complex content
What are some reasons for why you like a site?
Why?
- Graphics
- Colour schemes
- Layout
Easy to use?
- Clear navigation?
- Find what you want easily?
- Scan read quickly?
Or just the content?
What are the important elements when it comes to brand logos?
- Site identifiable with your brand
- Brand logo on every page
- Usually top left
- Link back to home page
What are the important elements when it comes to themes?
Website tools offer themes
- Colour schemes
- Layouts
- Fonts
Switch between them
Consistent look and feel
What are the important elements when it comes to colours?
- Avoid too many colours
- Aim for good colour balance
- High colour contrast - text
- Search web for colour palettes
What are the important elements when it comes to menus?
- Important
- How visitors find what they want
- Usually at top
- Limit top level (then use sub-menus)
- Menu items - must be clear, descriptive
What are the important elements when it comes to links and links to social media?
Links
- Easily recognisable as links
- Links to external site - new tab
- Check links regularly
Links to social media
- Link to your social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter)
- Link back from these to your website
What are the important elements when it comes to footers?
Pages to include:
- About us
- Contact us
- Terms and conditions
- Privacy policy
- Support
Links in footer
What are the important elements when it comes to images?
- Add interest and focus
- High quality
- Take your own photos
- Stock photos
- Copyright
Creative Commons Zero - CC0
www.pixabay.com
www.pexels.com - Optimise images
Appropriate file size
What are the important elements when it comes to videos?
- Better to show than describe
- Keep them short and snappy
- Embed from YouTube (play on your page, most videos allow embedding)
- Upload own videos (consider storage issue)
- Don’t set to play automatically
Explain written content and content at top of home page (what percentage of web content is text?)
Written content:
- 95% of web content is text
- Accurate
- Relevant
- Concise
- Avoid jargon and tech-speak (use language your visitors will understand)
- Informal tone (as if addressing an individual, appropriate to content)
Content at top of home page:
- Consider content at top of page
- What your visitor sees first
- Good quality
- Visitor will make decision about the rest of the site
How can websites be made easy to scan read?
- Short paragraphs
- Headings and sub-headings
- Font size
- Colour
- Bullets
- Images
- White space
Explain mobile devices (what will visitors look at your site on?)
Visitors will look at your site on:
- Desktops
- Laptops
- Tablets
- Phones
Will look different on all
What is something that should be done with important information? (in terms of mobile devices)
- Ensure important information is visible on all of these (desktops, laptops, tablets, phones)
- Website tools can help with this
- May not be perfect
- Test it!