Social Media for the Working Mom or Dad

It is 7:41 on a Tuesday morning. The two oldest children have successfully made it on the bus, and I managed to get them ready for school without threatening to take away their TV privileges for the rest of their lives. Now I can get to work, except the youngest—who is this close to heading off to kindergarten—wants to do an “experiment.” This will require water, paper clips, spices from the Lazy Susan and a lot of my patience. (The scientific data for this experiment is still being processed, by the way.)

One more hour until she heads off to pre-school for three short but hopefully productive hours; however, I need to make some professional connections right now. What to do…

Social media to the rescue! While the cumin and paprika are floating atop the water in my daughter’s experiment, I am off to the computer to Tweet, check my LinkedIn account or work on an entry for my personal or professional blog.

Suddenly, I am in the midst of professionals from a variety of fields. Some are already at their offices. Others may be on their way to a big meeting. As I type and read, and type and peruse, I imagine that a few of them might even look like me: a tired mom with untidy hair, wearing flannel pajama bottoms and an oversized nightshirt that used to say “Penn State” but now just says “enn Stat.”

The beauty of social media for a working mom or dad is that you can interact with peers, clients, potential clients and influential members of the online scene without leaving the comfort of your home. You can Tweet about a dynamic project you’ve just completed, and no one needs to know that you worked on it overnight and in-between your children’s play dates. You can blog about the need for customer satisfaction in small businesses or the latest trends in interior design after putting the baby down for a nap and making the three-year-old a hot lunch.

Never before has it been so easy for work-from-home parents to stay connected with people around the corner and around the world. Social media is an excellent way to keep your name in the loop and land projects. It also can keep you sane. Social media offers a chance to step outside of the home life you have worked so hard to create, and the day-to-day shrieks and squabbles that drive you crazy yet make you so happy, and step into the “real world.” Social media encourages you to share your wisdom, pitch your ideas and make new and lasting connections with other professionals. It also forces you to have grown up conversations (even if some of them are only 140 characters long), and every parent needs that.

As a writer, social media is extremely powerful for me. Not only does it allow me to share my musings with people I wouldn’t reach through traditional media, it also nudges me to write more and often. So much knowledge, humor and inventiveness are being shared that I just crave to be a part of it. In many ways, social media makes me a better, more well-rounded writer. These days, as my access to the “real world” is still limited, it also makes me a more social being. Social media doesn’t take the place of face-to-face encounters, but rather augments them by offering new ways to personally and professionally connect.

You don’t have to charge out of the gates with social media. It has been a little over a year since I tapped into it, and I’m still discovering new opportunities. For now, I’ve chosen a few outlets that are powerful yet relatively easy to follow and maintain. As my free time grows, so will my level of involvement with social media.

Start out slow. Spend ten minutes creating your personal profile on a site, responding to a blog or developing one of your own. Ten minutes of “grown up” interaction can refresh your mind after a long day with the kids, and it just may land you a new contact or a chance-of-a-lifetime opportunity.

Diane DiPiero is a writer, editor and proofreader who divides her time between writing articles for print and online publications and helping companies strengthen their brand through strong written communications. Diane began her career in New York City, moving to Cleveland in 1995 to become a freelance writer. Although still a social media novice, Diane currently has three blogs: http://www.dianedipiero.com/blog, http://www.asiwaswriting.blogspot.com and http://www.calledtobeasaint.blogspot.com.

Welcome to Social Media

An Educational Project of the
Cleveland Social Media Club

Welcome to Social Media, Volume 1

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