Social media is your way to brand and promote yourself online: it’s your reputation. The way you use social media can help or hurt your job search.

Here are nine tips to make sure social media works in your favour.

1. Keep your social media PG. You don’t want to miss out on a great job opportunity because the hiring manager saw some questionable photos on your Facebook page. Or at least make sure that your privacy settings are as strict as possible so that only friends can see. Keeping your social media presence clean doesn’t just relate to photos. You might want to consider removing links to potentially divisive articles, deleting political rants, or very random posts like what you ate for dinner.

2. LinkedIn is the most powerful social media tool when it comes to job hunting. Make sure that your LinkedIn profile is complete, showcasing your employment history, job-related skills, and education. You should only highlight information that you’re comfortable with your current and future employers seeing.

3. Remember, not everything on your résumé is applicable to every job. On your LinkedIn page try to highlight skills and achievements that employers in your field will be looking for.

4. Have a good, professional headshot for your LinkedIn profile.

5. While you’re at it, ensure that you keep the information on your LinkedIn and other social media accounts up-to-date.

6. Join groups relevant to your industry or the industry you want to break into. This will help you to expand your network and keep abreast of discussions or topics relevant to the industry. Joining groups can also help you connect with recruiters.

7. Include links to your current or completed projects, your blog, online portfolio, etc on your social media accounts.

8. Follow industry leaders and communicate with them on platforms such as Twitter.

9. Also, follow the hiring managers or key players at the companies you’re interested in on LinkedIn and Twitter. Don’t use social media as a means to badger them about job opportunities however.

Sources: Monster, Recruiter, The Muse, Hays