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Utilizing Online Social Networking Sites Ronita Sanderfer BSHS/352 November 21, 2011 Donna Zeh Utilizing Online Social Networking Sites Social networking started many years ago, but in this day in age, it is more advance and has several benefits. Social networking started before anyone knew of Facebook, Blackplanet, or EHarmony. LinkedIn offers professionals the opportunities to network with other professionals in your field and organizations.
In this paper, I will explain how a websites such as LinkedIn can help someone to stay connected to the professional community, how to use LinkedIn, and how other technological tools that have been developed to help an individual manage their professional business contacts and/or stay connected. Professional Business Groups On the LinkedIn website, I created my profile and found one organizations that I knew about. I found it difficult to choose only three, but I chose the three that I would enjoy working for. The first one that I chose was Thresholds Mental Healthcare in the Greater Chicago Area.
Thresholds provides a comprehensive, individualized program of mental health services that include psychiatric rehabilitation and recovery programs, outreach programs, housing, educational advancement, social opportunities and employment services. Most of their programs are community based. They offer unparallel in-house employee training and development programs. It is not know if they offer continuing education opportunities or education credits for licensed professionals. (Thersholds Mental Healthcare) My second choice is the Lighthouse Emotional Wellness in Arlington Heights, IL.
The Lighthouse is a premiere center that offers a unique combination of traditional, holistic, and integrative therapies to treat the everyday emotional, physical and mental struggles we all endure in life. Their belief is that, overall wellness achieved facets of a person’s life, and that our emotions can be a guide throughout this process of change, leading to greater happiness and better relationships. The lighthouse offer community based programs such as workshops for families, couples, and individuals. They also offers coaching and mediation.
They do not offer continuing education opportunity or education credits for licensed professionals. (Lighthouse Emotional Wellness) My finally choice is Helping Hand Rehabilitation Center in Countryside IL. Helping Hand does not offer continuing education opportunities or credits for licensed professionals. What they do offer is employment networking for their clients through an agency called Employ Alliance, which specialize in job placement assistance. They match quailed individuals with targeted employers who are interested in hiring people with disabilities.
Helping Hand also offers outpatient clinics for mental health. (Helping Hand Rehabilitaion Center) Not all three companies offer monthly or yearly public meetings to network with other professionals in my field. Professional Community Staying Connected In the past people use to communicate by using the postal service or over the phone. When online communication was developed, it made communicating faster and easier. Sites such as LinkedIn, which allows their members to maintain a list of contact details of people with whom they have some level of relationship, called Connections.
Members can invite anyone to become a connection. To stay connected with your professional community when using a social network will build up consisting of their direct connections, gain an introduction to someone a person wishes to know through a mutual contact, find jobs, people, and business opportunities recommended by someone in their contact network. In addition, employers can list jobs and search for potential candidates. A person seeking a job, they can review the profiles of organizations that are hiring and find out which one of their contacts can introduced them.
You also can stay connected by following organizations and receiving notifications about open job opportunities. (LinkedIn Coporation, 2011) How LinkedIn will assist professionals with staying connected with other human services professionals is to first, add the people that you already know to your contact list. You can import friends from your email accounts as well as other social networking websites. You can build an online profile or create a professional identity. When someone put their name into the search engine, their professional profile comes irst. This is beneficial when you want to establish that you are professional. LinkedIn is also useful when you want to look for someone in a particular company, or to find out what positions people hold in a particular organization. You can also use LinkedIn to stay connected by approaching other professionals through emails. (How to Use LinkedIn, 2011) Ties, to the community can assist you with offing more support services to your clients. Networking with other professionals would be beneficial to your clients.
Professional can use LinkedIn to research resources and/or other companies. Technological Tools Some technological tools that help individuals manage their professional business contacts are essential. Relationships are the means of support for organizations but as your network grows, you cannot remember everything about everyone. Everyone could benefit from using technology to manage their contact information, which could spread across multiple devices, files, sticky notes, and drawers. To manage my professional contact, I simply store them on my IPad as well as my IPhone.
These to devices are easy to use and they are like walking computers in your pockets. Conclusion After utilizing LinkedIn website, I think that it will benefit my future job search and as well as my friends and family. I never would have found this site if it was not for this assignment. Every professional could benefit from a social networking such as LinkedIn. Having a web site that assist you in find companies in your community or even around the world that you feel is the best job for you has just got easier.
I would recommend this site to my friends that work in my field but also work in other communities. I am thinking about creating my own social network site to assist women with networking with other women in their community. We are in need of social network sites to assist us in dealing with day-to-day problems as well as for finding jobs and communicating with friends and family. A social network of this magnitude will allow women to address, read someone else solutions to their problems and/or find a job. References
Helping Hand Rehabilitaion Center. (n. d. ). Retrieved November 15, 2011, from http://www. hhrehab. org How to Use LinkedIn. (2011). Retrieved November 18, 2011, from eHow Money: http:www. ehow. com Lighthouse Emotional Wellness. (n. d. ). Retrieved November 16, 2011, from http;//www. lighthouseemotionalwellness. com LinkedIn Coporation. (2011, November 19). Retrieved November 19, 2011, from Wikipedia: http://www. wikipedia. com/wiki/LinkedIn Thersholds Mental Healthcare. (n. d. ). Retrieved November 16, 2011, from http:///www. thersholds. org