Using social media platforms for building data science profile

Rohit Pant 13 Jan, 2021 • 5 min read

This article was published as a part of the Data Science Blogathon.

Introduction

Everyone is familiar with the power that social media holds in spreading the word or engaging with colleagues on any matter. As virtual platforms become more intertwined with our daily lives, they are becoming one with our physical environments.

“Let Twitter be the club and GitHub be the gym
LinkedIn be the office and Facebook, well nothing “

Amusing saying, yet true.

Twitter, for example, is a café: a platform where we interact with any stranger using a one-liner. We engage with people from all walks of life.

LinkedIn is the synonym for workspace – professional networking, sharing news, and connecting with coworkers.

Facebook/Instagram is your living room where you catch up with friends ( well!! privacy 😉 ).

Youtube is the biggest library of visual content.

Let’s dive into different social media platforms and their uses. This will help you understand the importance of each platform and how people have been using them to reach out to their audience.

Twitter

It is this café-like atmosphere that makes Twitter the ultimate platform for customer engagement. Twitter provides an even playing field where brands and consumers have unrestricted lines of clear, concise communication.

One can start following major twitter celebs in the field of data science to remain updated.

Start browsing through this exhaustive list to follow, which is the culmination of major active Twitter accounts in the field of A.I, data science – click here.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a resume that elaborates on our professional life and daily interactions. In my view, the best part of LinkedIn is the reach it provides to your post, so use it to the fullest to build the academic and professional circle.

Check this, some awesome personalities to follow:

Vin Vashishta – Founder and chief data scientist at V-Squared Data Strategy. With more than 20 years of experience.

Kunal Jain – A huge contributor to the field of data science and knowledge sharing. Founder of Analytic Vidhya, and a big advocate of learning for all.

Andriy Burkov – Global Machine Learning Team Leader at Gartner. Active content creator.

Andrew Ng – Co-founder of Coursera. His passion for the field of deep learning, NLP, and robotics is world-known.

Github

Github, while not an active front for the conversation, is essential to build a data science portfolio and keep projects and tasks updated. Git is a version control system that can help us keep a track of our progress. There are several Github startup tutorials one can use to start and learn.

Refer to this article for top Github repositories to follow.

Facebook/ Instagram/ YouTube

When we talk about content consumption, these platforms are way above then any other platform, we just need to find our target audience and engage in healthy conversations.

Keep your tabs on for any good channel. Mukul has curated a list of some amazing channels that you can follow – click here.

Now as we know how each platform and some of the prominent personalities using it, let’s dive into how we can use it to power our growth.

How to use social platforms?

Modern social media has democratized the discussion, impacting all communities from casual to professional. One should know the potential reason to engage with social media. Draft them and let them define your steps ahead.

Once done, there are several ways we can use social media to benefit ourselves, such as :

Gaining visibility
Learning about the new trends
Publishing and sharing our own knowledge
Building a community

Just like influencers, leveraging the power of social media, data science practitioners should use these tools to increase engagement. They all are connected, so if we put our efforts into content creation, one will gain visibility and that will gradually help in building a community. Similarly being active in conversations will help you gain visibility that results in building our community.

How to engage and gain visibility?

Start by defining your target audience. For example, a Data Scientist would like to engage with the community interested in coding, machine learning, text analytics, and so on. This will help you initiate your journey and learn about new advances in the field. Check new websites, comment on your views, and cultivate a habit of engaging on healthy topics.

How to build and share your content?

Once you gain a fair presence among your target audience, you will have a diverse set of minds as your audience. They will help you grow by reviewing any project you intend to work on. The next step is to develop and share content to help the community.

Based on that, some simple steps you can apply for any social platform:

Fear of Social platforms !!

Well, not to fear, the below steps are a tried and tested way to help you grow:

Start following/connecting most trending personalities, hashtags, topics, and groups.
Take part in the ongoing conversations actively.
Create informative posts or content.
Use of hashtags, visuals ( photographs, video) to increase the engagement.
Reach out for help if you feel so, no need to hold back :).

Sharing your own knowledge

An important step is to be a part of a creative community and keep sharing your own experiences and knowledge.

You can write blogs, keep posting your experiences as short posts or tweets. If you have worked on something, you can share your project on GitHub.

There are several posts on the internet to guide you to start building your Github portfolio (try this), and writing blogs ( you can start here, comes with a chance to earn too ;-)).

Build your own community

This being the ultimate goal of any thriving developer to have an active audience where he can collaborate and share his experience and gain from others. There are several such personalities, who have used internet platforms and now have a huge community.

One such personality, that I know and have used the power of social media to grow is “Pratham Prasoon“. Go on and check his account, you will be amazed. How much he has gained in such a small span using the power of social media.

The list of examples and sources is non-ending. Keep in mind, this is an iterative process, with efforts to be put in continuously.

Some amazing names that I admire – Josh Starmer (Statquest), Harrison Kinsley (Sentdex),