[Issue 2202] Update Personal Branding lesson for current state of Social Media #2344
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merging these in while supporting contributors for the ODHack14 also because over a month stale |
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Thank you for your patience! This is looking great, but I've added some comments for the next version of the content. Let me know if you have any followup questions, and I should be MUCH faster to reply this time.
| - [Twitter (or X) account](https://twitter.com) | ||
| - [LinkedIn account](https://linkedin.com) | ||
| - Professional social media presence on at least one of these platforms: | ||
| - [LinkedIn account](https://www.linkedin.com/) |
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Now that this is in a list of "platforms", "account" is a bit confusing here.
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Actually, we might move LinkedIn out of this list because the lesson itself (appropriately imo) presents LinkedIn and GitHub as the two non-negotiable platforms then recommends at least one of the others.
| ## Motivation | ||
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| - Your personal brand is your way to distinguish yourself from others and make yourself memorable. | ||
| - Having a distinct and relevant personal brand can help employers identify you as a good fit for their open roles, or can help you build credibility with colleagues and managers as you further your career. |
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This feels more like an "and" than "or" to me!
| - Your personal brand is your way to distinguish yourself from others and make yourself memorable. | ||
| - Having a distinct and relevant personal brand can help employers identify you as a good fit for their open roles, or can help you build credibility with colleagues and managers as you further your career. | ||
| - It is worth the investment to think outside the box and develop a brand that will help employers get to know you. | ||
| - In today's digital landscape, thoughtfully managing your online presence is crucial for career development and networking. |
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We might mention something here about helping employers establish authenticity if you end up needing to apply for roles for which you don't have referrals, unless that seems too hostile to mention upfront here to you?
| - Online networking approaches | ||
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| ## Lesson | ||
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This might be a good place to describe a bit of the strategic importance of having a strong social media presence when applying to jobs, especially jobs that see a lot of inauthentic applicants (whether it's an AI application not associated with a person or a person misrepresenting their identity or skills).
Want me to try to draft a paragraph like that?
| - Engagement approach: Regular commits, meaningful README files, contributing to others' projects | ||
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| #### Mastodon | ||
| - **Decentralized alternative to Twitter** |
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Because learners probably won't have experience with the role Twitter used to play in the tech space, this might not be the most meaningful to them. We might describe Mastodon independently as something like "Decentralized community-focused platform with strong opensource communities"? I don't love that exact phrasing, but that general direction maybe?
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| 5. **Engage authentically with communities** | ||
| - Join relevant groups and communities | ||
| - Contribute meaningfully to discussions |
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Technical Leader Noelle Russell (https://noellerussell.ai/) recommends trying to leave 5 good comments that truly engage with somebody else's content every (working) day, and I've really loved that approach for strengthening my network and helping to find people with similar interests. Knowing you're going to comment on at least 5 (or 4, 3, 2...) more things changes how I read posts!
| - Contact information | ||
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| **Platform options:** | ||
| - GitHub Pages (free, developer-friendly) |
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This will also add green tiles to your commit chart as you work on the website!
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| ## Additional Resources | ||
| - [GitHub Profile README Generator](https://rahuldkjain.github.io/gh-profile-readme-generator/) | ||
| - [Developer's Guide to Content Creation](https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/developer-content-creation-guide/) |
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This link 404s! Is https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/a-simple-content-marketing-playbook-for-software-developers-and-creators-937f86d6dd90/ the same thing or similar enough?
| - [GitHub Profile README Generator](https://rahuldkjain.github.io/gh-profile-readme-generator/) | ||
| - [Developer's Guide to Content Creation](https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/developer-content-creation-guide/) | ||
| - [The Developers Guide to Creating a Professional Online Presence](https://www.samjarman.co.nz/blog/online-presence) | ||
| - [Building a Personal Brand as a Developer](https://dev.to/ladybug/building-a-personal-brand-as-a-developer-1k4c) |
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Looks like they've deleted this! https://dev.to/ladybug/why-blogging-is-awesome-127 could still be useful though?
| - [Developer's Guide to Content Creation](https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/developer-content-creation-guide/) | ||
| - [The Developers Guide to Creating a Professional Online Presence](https://www.samjarman.co.nz/blog/online-presence) | ||
| - [Building a Personal Brand as a Developer](https://dev.to/ladybug/building-a-personal-brand-as-a-developer-1k4c) | ||
| - [Hashnode: Free Developer Blogging Platform](https://hashnode.com/) |
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I'm not sure if they've pivoted or if this was always a less common use case because I'm not super familiar with hashnode, but their website right now is very focused on docs use cases. We might remove this? Or replace it with dev.to, which remains more blog/community focused?
- Remove hashnote and keep dev.to reference - Replaced URLs that no longer provide relevant content or lead to 404s - Add authentic commenting quote from @MaggieFerro - Add note about GH green tiles for personal website - Generalize writing platform usecase comment - Add dev.to and medium to pre-reqs - Add TikTok section - Clarify Twitter / X as an older platform with movement to Mastadon - Clarify Mastadon usecase comment - Leave comment for future "importance of social media presence" statement - Employer reference authenticity statement - Replace "or" with "and"
📝 Description
This PR updates the Personal Branding lesson to reflect the current state of social media and modern personal branding practices for software developers. The original content contained outdated references to Twitter and didn't include newer platforms like Mastodon, BlueSky, and Threads that have become relevant for tech professionals.
🔂 Changes Made
⚙️ Related Issue
Issue Number: #2202
🍏 Type of Change
Update Topic Outline
🎁 Acceptance Criteria
🧪 How to test or what to evaluate