Believe it or not, I am writing a post advocating not using social media. If you bear with me for the entire post, you’ll see that I’m a proponent for students using social media to advance their careers. But, like misguided companies who sign up for Facebook “just ’cause,” students shouldn’t sign up for various social media “just ’cause.”

Without further ado, here are five reasons students should not be using social media:

1. Don’t use social media if you see it solely as an opportunity for shameless self-promotion. Trust me when I say you’re not making any friends if the only thing you post on Twitter or Facebook is links to your blog posts, announcing who you’ve met and other content that generally inflates your ego. Self-promotion needs to be done very carefully and strategically. I recommend focusing on building relationships with those you meet and adhere to the 70/30 rule: share 70 percent content from others and around 30 percent of your own.
2. Don’t use social media if you only want to complain, talk about what you’re eating or hate on everything. “Ugh, I HATE my professor!” “OMG, FML. I have a paper due tomorrow and I haven’t started .” If this is you and if you see a lot of it in your stream, avoid it. Sure, it’s OK to be human and complain, but no one likes a Negative Nancy. Think before you post and you’ll thank yourself later.
3. Don’t use social media to talk about how drunk you are. If you want to post how drunk you are on Facebook… don’t. If you want to post on Twitter how many shots you’ve had… don’t. Honestly, it’s just not worth it. Even if you’re 21, it overall reflects poorly on your character and might offend those in your network.
4. Don’t use social media to replace offline networking. This is my biggest pet peeve. Social media absolutely does not replace the value of in-person networking. Make sure to stay active in associations and go to conferences–that’s where you meet people.
5. Don’t use social media for the sole purpose of getting a job. You can tell who’s using social media to get a job and who’s using social media for its real purpose. I think it’s great to participate in #HAPPO and #PRStudChat, but once those chats are over, try to avoid constantly advertising yourself as a job seeker.

Looking at what I’ve written above, it makes me sound like a social media elitist. And I’m not. I think social media is a great place for you to show your genuine personality and to build relationships with others. These are things that will not help you do that. In fact, you’ll probably be ignored and unfollowed if these are the only things you use social media for. All in all, just be smart and use your best judgment.

So, what do you use social media for? Anyone have any interesting perspectives they would like to share?

Photo by woodleywonderworks on Flickr.