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While garnering social capital has always been essential to internal corporate collaboration, it has become even more critical for every hybrid employee, remote-working person, or solo entrepreneur today. Simply having the skills to do a particular job is no longer sufficient because our hybrid offices have made many people invisible. Your ability to partner with team members, make an impression, network in your industry, and stay ripe for opportunities depends on the strength of your professional relationships and communication skills.

Just like any other currency, social capital can be earned, invested, and spent. When it comes to your professional longevity, there is no greater fortune than your worth in social capital. So how much do you have in your bank?

Earning social capital is dependent on our ability to work together effectively by having a shared set of values and working toward a common goal. In a corporate environment, it makes employees more collaborative, but for remote employees, solo entrepreneurs, or members of the gig economy, it is non-negotiable to success. Couple that with the challenges of a hybrid or remote work environment, and it is the difference between being considered for an opportunity, ruled out, or completely forgotten.

When I left my 17-year corporate career at a luxury brand to pursue consulting, I went from being a member of a large corporate office to working remotely and independently. Without my executive title and the credibility of being employed by a well-known retail group, I could only lean on myself when pursuing new business. My nearly two decades of accrued social capital bolstered my ability to have my calls returned and my emails responded to.

I understood the value of staying connected to my network and showing a genuine interest in their careers while sharing my future ambitions for consulting projects. I checked in on important contacts to inquire how they were and what they were working on during a time when I didnt need to ask for anything. I sought them out on social media to amplify and support their content shares and to keep my name top of mind. When it was time to pitch ideas or ask for favors, I wrote persuasive emails expressing my request and offering support in return. I valued peoples time and made sure to write succinctly and directly. I have always believed that being accessible makes you indispensable, so I stayed on top of my inbox to guarantee my responsive communication was swift. I knew being readily available for whatever came my way was vital. If my outreach met silence, I followed up again appropriately within a week.

Once I confirmed a project, I knew it was my job to communicate proactively. As a remote consultant, I needed tolet managementknow that I was abreast of my work while also making meaningful connections with the team I was working with.In addition, that ensured that I received up-to-the-minute information. When you are not physically present, it is easy for others to forget they need to communicate directives beyond their four walls. I needed to stay on peoples radars and demonstrate reliability. A good result with one client would naturally lead to a subsequent referral.

The same issues can also affect a corporate remote employee. When you dont have the luxury of proximity, its easy to get left behind and feel a sense of loneliness. Remote employees need to make a greater effort to actively participate in the company culture than people physically in the office. That means they, too, need to communicate proactively and sometimes overcommunicate, while also making a concerted effort to have virtual coffees with teammates.

Hybrid employees that straddle in-person and remote life typically have the bulk of the meeting loadcrammed into their in-office days. That requires them to balance their relationship-building efforts and focus on more than just the colleagues they physically see.

What makes one person accrue social capital versus another? It comes down to your principles, work ethic, and, sometimes, your ability to organize yourself.

If you have strong principles and a steadfast work ethic, you naturally want to do right by someone. You want to complete that task no matter what it takes because you committed to it, and not following through would hurt you as much as it would disappoint someone else. I believe your word should mean something. When you say youre going to do something, following through is tallied and judged on your professional scorecard. Even so, if youre working to improve your executive functioning (organizing, prioritizing, etc.) or your skills in managing yourself, drafting a to-do list might not be sufficient. Instead, consider making meetings with yourself to block the time for each task on your calendar. This can help you accomplish what you need to in the assigned timeframe and will support you in delivering on your word.

Despite the clear benefit in doing what you say you will, how many times has someone promised you that they would make an introduction for you but then ghosted? Can you count how often someone owed you something that was done incompletely or past a deadline? There are way too many instances to count. The risk of unfulfilled promises is that when you fail to deliver, you become labeled as someone who is unreliable.

Conversely, Im sure youcan easily name the people you know you can count on and who earn the covetable reputation of consistently being great to work with. You are confident these people can deliver whatever you ask of them well and on time. Because of this, you are likely to call on them repeatedly. You will think about these people even when they are not in the room. In doing so, they have earned social capital with you.

Unlike money, which can compound when left alone if appropriately invested, social capital can only be sustained with connection and relationship maintenance. A once-positive reputation can become negative if an effort is not made to sustain it. Take work references, for example. You cant assume someone who vouched for your work several years ago would go out on a limb for you today if you havent put in the effort to maintain that relationship. Social capital can expire, and if you are not careful, you might find yourself checking your bank account one day and discovering a zero balance.

Follow these five tips to make sure youre maintaining this positive regard in every relationship you navigate, especially when you are not face-to-face:

If you are on a team, raising your hand to support someone elses project or going beyond the scope of your role to help others will make you an invaluable and memorable colleague. It is how people establish a collaborative reputation and often get identified for internal mobility. If you have a goal to one day move into a different department of your organization, proactively doing this can yield powerful results.

For independent contractors, no one wants to work for less than they are worth or for free, and most people cannot afford to, but sometimes its strategic and acceptable to do so. For example, if you know that working with this client will add credibility and valuable experience to your business, and is likely to signal to other clients that you do good work, it might be worth it. Even so, this is not something you want to do as a regular practice. Always weigh the pros and cons.

Whenyou do something as a favor for someone when necessary, you have taken your first step in building social capital with that person. Furthermore, doing so, especially to gain experience in an area where you may need expertise, effectively fills that skillset void. Negotiating a testimonial as part of your fee is strategic and acceptable. It can build your credibility and be a valuable asset on your website or secure a referral in the future.

The most critical factor to success when youre behind a screen is ensuring your communication is written to inspire action. First, consider your timing. Whether youre sending a pitch, catching up on email, or sending updates on projects, make sure youre considering where your colleagues are. Just because you dont mind emailing after hours doesnt mean others do or can. Or perhaps you are in a different time zone. Send or schedule your emails to be delivered within your shared working hours to increase your odds of real-time response.

Second, your words need to connect with the reader. That begins with understanding who you are addressing. Often, people forget to consider their audience. They focus on what they want to say and ignore who is on the other side. Do some research to understand the recipients experience or point of view. If you are pitching an idea, it is always beneficial to understand what has been done before and what they might be looking for.

When setting expectations, make sure your words are backed by action. Accurately assess your capabilities and deliver on that. Or better yet, exceed expectations. Make your words mean something.

As your career progresses, keeping track of your network inside and outside the company becomes increasingly complex, primarily if you work remotely. While it may take slightly more effort, maintaining a spreadsheet of your networking interactions and referrals will be tremendously valuable. Not only will this assist you in relationship management; it will support you in connecting the dots between people. For example, if an introduction from a friend resulted in a new client, you will want to remember who to thank in the future. It will also help you monitor when it is time to follow up with people.

Inbox zero is a lofty goal for many, but managing all your forms of communication will allow you to take advantage of every opportunity. Utilize tools like inbox labels and filters to help organize yourself. Being a speedy responder shows people you are efficient and reliable. In a world inundated with messaging coming from every direction, being quick to respond is a superpower and is valued dearly. If colleagues know you are accessible, you will become someone known as good to work with.While everyone needs work-life balance, quickly scrolling through your emails after hours just to ensure nothing critical came in could mean the difference between putting out a fire or jumping on an opportunity. This is especially important if you work with people across time zones.

If youre difficult to get in touch with, the opposite holds. You may become labeled as someone who cannot be depended on and may be passed over for opportunities. Its best practice to ensure that people are responded to within a reasonable amount of time (ideally no longer than two business days). Even if you dont have the answer yet, letting someone know that youre working on it will give them peace of mind that their email was in fact received. In addition, and as a gentle reminder, if you communicate with team members on tech tools like Slack, remember that your teammates can see when you are actively online or not.

Lending unsolicited support and amplifying another persons efforts go a long way. It is also never too late to thank someone for an opportunity. There is no expiration date on gratitude. Thanking someone is also an underrated way to get back in touch. In addition, if you are someone who reaches out to your network to ask how they are while asking for nothing or even better, to offer support and take a sincere interest in what they are doing you will find yourself flush with social capital. A simple way to do this is to say, Your name popped into my head today, and I wanted to reach out to see how you are.

Remember that your credentials cant speak for themselves; they need to be bolstered by the relationships that you are fostering along the way. Your social capital ensures your professional longevity, especially when you are not physically present. For any type of professional, your connections are as meaningful as what you know and the skills you have. Even from afar, the most significant opportunities will always stem from your trusted reputation.

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Building Social Capital When You Work Remotely - HBR.org Daily

In a field experiment conducted with economists on Twitter, the authors find that users who are identifiable as white, women, and PhD students affiliated with top-ten universities are more likely to receive follow-backs.

Professional networks are important determinants of labor market outcomes, especially in academia, where collaboration is critical. Nevertheless, individuals access to formal and informal academic networks is far from homogeneous. This heterogeneity may exist for several reasons, but a plausible cause is discrimination: do individuals with specific group-based characteristics such as gender, race, or university affiliation have lower access to networks due to discrimination based on these characteristics?

To test this hypothesis, we conducted a randomized experiment on Twitter, a social media platform widely used by academics to develop their professional networks. We created human-like fictional accounts that claimed to be PhD students in economics at universities in the U.S. The accounts were identical to each other apart from their perceived gender (male or female), race (Black or white), and university affiliation (one of the top-ten U.S. universities or a relatively lower-ranked university listed between 79-100, according to the 2017 U.S. News & World Report).

The experimental accounts randomly followed Twitter profiles of various economists from around the world. The subjects in our experiment are people who used the #EconTwitter in posts in January and February 2022.

Interestingly, we can use public information from Twitter to predict some of those users characteristics, such as their gender, race, and university affiliation. Even in the observational data from this sample, we find some disparities in the number of followers between different groups of economists, particularly in terms of the economists race and university affiliation. This is illustrated in Figure 1, which shows our subjects log number of followers according to their predicted gender, race, and university ranking (conditional on the subject being an academic economist). In the observational data, the gender of the economist has no impact on the number of their followers. However, the distribution of followers for white economists is shifted to the right relative to the distribution among non-white economists, suggesting the median white economist has more followers than the median non-white economist. Top-ranked university economists similarly have more followers than economists from lower-ranked institutions. However, many factors may explain the differences (or lack thereof) in the number of followers between these groups, such that these results alone are not evidence of discrimination. For example, publication records or the frequency of posts on the platform could correlate with the racial identity or university affiliation of economists who use Twitter, so that race or university affiliation do not themselves explain differences in the number of followers. Our experiment allows us to identify whether discrimination exists in these dimensions (and in which direction) since the accounts created are identical in all dimensions except those we study.

Figure 1: Distribution of followers on #EconTwitter

For the core experiment of our study, we created 80 fictitious accounts and followed about 8,000 economists on Twitter. Figure 2 gives examples of our experimental accounts: the profile picture (an artificially generated image) signals gender and race, while the profiles description signals university affiliation. Names, both first and last, were selected from a list of common names according to the 2000 U.S. census. Names that indicated a specific ethnic minority group were removed from possible use. The experimental accounts randomly followed profiles of various economists. Then, after a few days, we measured the proportion of economists who reciprocally followed them back. By comparing the follow-back rate for each type of account, we could identify the existence (or not) of discrimination, since our accounts were identical except for the characteristics we manipulated.

Follow-backs are an interesting outcome in our setting because having many followers is essential to benefit from Twitter. The more followers an account has, the greater its potential impact and reach on this social network. Moreover, following an account back is a relatively low-cost action, suggesting that the disparities we find could be even larger in other (costlier) situations.

Figure 2: Sample experimental accounts

Overall, the follow-back rate varies substantially depending on the characteristics of the experimental accounts, as shown in Figure 3. For example, comparing the most extreme cases, we document that white women studying at prestigious universities were followed back in 23.9% of cases. In comparison, Black men from relatively less prestigious universities were followed back in only 14.4% of cases, a difference of over 65%. Strikingly, we also find that Black male students from top-ranked universities fare no better than white male students from lower-ranked institutions.

Figure 3: Follow-back rate by bot group

Figure 4 displays the main results of the experiment, comparing the marginal follow-back rate for each dimension we experimentally manipulated. Black students had a 10% less chance of receiving follow-backs than white students, while students who claimed to be studying at top-10 U.S. universities received almost 22% more follow-backs than their relatively lower-ranked counterparts. In addition, women had 25% more follow-backs than men.

Figure 4: Follow-back rates by bot group, marginal distributions

The differences found are substantial and statistically significant at conventional levels. They quantitatively demonstrate disparities in access to academic networks among members of these different groups, which can contribute to the lack of diversity in the profession. The race and university affiliation results are consistent with economists perceptions and evidence of disparities in these dimensions.

However, the result for gendersubjects were more likely to follow back female than male accountsruns counter to the overwhelming evidence, both within economics and in other contexts, of discrimination against women. We note that different mechanisms may be at play to explain this result. Some users, conscious of the barriers women face in the profession, could be attempting to engage more with women to correct those barriers. It is also possible that some subjects were using Twitter to establish social rather than professional connections and disproportionately wished to establish such connections with women. These two motives might have different implications regarding the consequences of having more Twitter followers on womens professional outcomes. While we cannot elicit the motivation behind each follow-back, considering how this effect varies by different subgroups of subjects may provide us some hints about this behavior (e.g., male subjects follow back female bots at a higher rate than female subjects).

Overall, by documenting that discrimination is indeed present in the context of the formation of academic networks, we aim to contribute to the debate about the lack of diversity in academia. Nevertheless, much more research on the topic is needed to understand, for instance, the motivation behind follows and how discrimination occurs in different stages of professional interactions. Still, our results indicate that, even on a platform regarded as democratic and egalitarian, different groups face different barriers to networking, which may reduce the potential benefit these groups obtain from the social media presence.

Articles represent the opinions of their writers, not necessarily those of the University of Chicago, the Booth School of Business, or its faculty.

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Discrimination in the Formation of Academic Networks at #EconTwitter - ProMarket

TikTok has held its third annual TikTok World event today, where its shared new insight into its latest product developments, ad tools, and creator options, along with strategy tips and pointers to help businesses grow their TikTok presence.

And even if you didnt catch the live event, you can still get up to date on all the announcements, with TikTok also launching a new TikTok World Hub mini-site, which provides a central space for all of the featured elements.

The TikTok World Hub includes video presentations from the event, covering the latest creator tools and options, including eCommerce elements, improving ad tools and more.

There are also links to a range of guides that can help to improve your TikTok marketing approach.

Within this, TikTok has also published two new guides Creative Codes, an overview of the key principles that drive standout creative in the app, as well as a 4-page explainer of TikTok creative principles.

The Creative Codes guide is the better of the two, highlighting a range of key principles and approaches to help maximize your TikTok content efforts.

There were no major updates announced as part of the TikTok World event, but TikTok has provided some valuable insights into what works best in the app, and what its working in as it continues to develop its ad tools.

If youre marketing on TikTok, its worth tuning in, and reading through the various guide notes to ensure that youre maximizing your potential in the app.

You can check out the TikTok World Hub here.

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TikTok Launches 'TikTok World Hub' to Share Guides and Insights ... - Social Media Today

It seems the days of cold calls and 30-second pitches are overthe time of the direct message (DM) is upon us.

More from Fortune: 5 side hustles where you may earn over $20,000 per yearall while working from home Looking to make extra cash? This CD has a 5.15% APY right now Buying a house? Here's how much to save This is how much money you need to earn annually to comfortably buy a $600,000 home

Hard sells have long been a favorite of the budding entrepreneurspam calls are a tactic used by the likes of Tesla's Elon Musk and Apple's Steve Jobs.

Famously Jobs, aged 12, called Hewlett-Packards co-founder Bill Hewlett to request some leftover electronic parts. Years later Hewlett offered him an internship.

But the cold call has since morphed into sliding into someone's inbox instead of their voicemail.

It's a tool which is working not only for career help but also investments.

Billionaire investor and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has invested in two companies that sent him cold emails.

But it's not just investments that have arisen out of the lowly DM.

If it weren't for a DM, ESPN audiences wouldn't be used to seeing anchor Max McGee on their screens.

The SportsCenter host told Fortune he reached out to an executive at the network in late 2021 and at the time was working at CBS Baltimore.

McGee sent the executive a number of YouTube links to his work and a brief message saying if the network was holding auditions, he'd love to be considered.

"I figured everybody asks for a job," McGee said. "For me, I just wanted an opportunity to show them what I could do. If they didnt like me, I was willing to live with that."

His key piece of advice is simple: "Shoot your shot".

"You miss every shot you dont take," the TV journalist continued. "Stop being afraid of rejection. You could either choose to change your life or sit there idle and die. While I didnt expect a direct message to parlay into it changing my life, thats the magic of opportunity. Im a living example of having faith in yourself while keeping an open mind."

Story continues

McGee said he often gets DMs from both budding journalists and those already in the industry looking to level up. The trick, he says, is to be concise and authentic: "The ones that get my attention are the ones that arent a Harry Potter book in length long, and that have one or two questions that dont require a quick Google search. Being genuine will never go out of style."

This is the formula Oliver Pour followed when messaging 3,300 people on LinkedIn during his second year at Boston University in March 2020.

The undergraduate was seeking career advice and internship opportunities across the fields of tech, finance and consulting.

He's not alone in the ideaaccording to LinkedIn data half the users on the platform have used the network to gain access to people who previously would have been unavailable to them.

"To be honest I used to think LinkedIn was just another social media platform," Pour admitted. "I was young and naive and had zero idea about what I wanted to do for work.

"So I sorted my page out and just started approaching people at companies I was interested in like Amazon and Facebook."

An approach he quickly nailed down was beginning with an introduction of who he was, why he was interested in the individual he was approaching, and asking an accessible question like "what does your day-to-day look like?"

The result was 600 responses from VPs to sales executives across a range of businesses, and 400 conversations that lead to internships and networking opportunities.

Research from LinkedIn supports Pour's experiences50% of workers surveyed in April 2023 said they have usedthe platformto connect with a professional in their field that they otherwise wouldnt have had access to, with 44% saying networking now takes place online more often than it does physically.

Pour told Fortune he always knew his strengths were in relationships and communication, but in the post-pandemic world communicating online became all the more crucial.

"If you're going for any job or internship I'd message everyone you can find on that team to find out about the role," the New York-based account executive for legal processors Luminance said. "It basically gives you the inside track for the interviewthen when you start you already know the team that works there so it's a foot in the door.

"The best spokespeople on company culture are also the people who work there," Pour added. "It's in the interest of recruiters to sell you on that companythe same goes for the company's websitethe workers are the ones who know if there's a bad culture."

The art of the direct message has also transformed the portfolio and prospects of digital content creator Brooke Monkwho has not only formed relationships with brands like McDonald's thanks to the tactic, but also seen her invest in smaller businesses.

Monk, who has more than 36 million followers across her platforms, said she's had speaking opportunities and brand deals arise out of companies sliding into her DMsas well as opening up equity investment offers.

Usually in the $10,000 to $25,000 range, 19-year-old Monk has invested in brands like skincare business Aloe Attiva and healthy treats supplier Sunday's Creme Cookies.

When crafting a direct message Monk said she highlights a piece of research, work history or accomplishment the other person has achieved before segueing into business discussions.

"The best thing to do is look for people within the field that you're targeting and build genuine relationships and connections with thembefore leading straight into business," she told Fortune. "DM them asking to hop on a call to learn more about what they do and if opportunities do arise out of it, that's great, if not, at least you've made a new friend who can teach you about an industry that you may not know about."

Not every DM is going to hit first timeeven if you've sent the perfect note.

Following up on a cold DM isn't only necessary but expected in some cases, said LinkedIn's career expert Andrew McCaskill who said that in the case of job seekers, the onus is on them to keep the conversation going.

"Its expected and required that you will follow up but hiring managers or people you want to network with might also be busy," he said. "So, follow up once. Follow up a second time, and if you dont hear back, you might try again in a few weeks or request a warm introduction from a second-degree connection."

The odds are in your favor if you connect with someone in your fieldLinkedIn added that its April data shows that 79% of workers who connected with someone in their field onthe site saw itlead to a successful professional outcome.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

More from Fortune: 5 side hustles where you may earn over $20,000 per yearall while working from homeLooking to make extra cash? This CD has a 5.15% APY right nowBuying a house? Here's how much to saveThis is how much money you need to earn annually to comfortably buy a $600,000 home

Continued here:
DMs are the new elevator pitch: How an ESPN anchor, college graduate and social media influencer landed jobs, investments and brand deals by sliding...

Survey Reveals how 40% of women have experienced or witnessed sexual harassment on social media platforms

FULL REPORT & GRAPHS - (https://www.sellcell.com/blog/social-media-sexual-harrassmen...)

Key Findings:

- 1 in 5 women, 20.8% have personally experienced sexual harassment on social media.

- 4 in 10 (39.7 %) of women have either experienced or witnessed sexual harassment online, on social media.

- 57% of those female social media users who experienced sexual harassment did so on Facebook and Facebook Messenger.

- Of those women who experienced sexual harassment on social media, 79% said they had received unwelcome messages and/or sexual comments.

- 68.2% of the 3000 women who use social media polled do not believe that social media companies do enough to protect people.

Introduction & Purpose of Survey

Leading online mobile phone price comparison site, (https://www.sellcell.com/), has conducted a survey about online sexual harassment of women on social media. The surveyconducted by OnePoll on behalf of SellCell, collecting answers from 3000 UK women who actively use social media and related appsattempts to discover how many women have experienced sexual harassment, or have witnessed sexual harassment.

As the UK House of Lords is pushing through amendments to the Online Safety Bill, designed to further protect women from online sexual harassment and abuse, SellCells survey will cover the following:

(Please note that the questions and answers contain sensitive topics)

- How many women have experienced or witnessed sexual harassment via social media platforms or applications. - If they havent experienced this, what actions are they taking to protect themselves. - Which social media apps have the worst record for those who experienced sexual harassment. - What forms of sexual harassment took place on social media. - The action taken by those who were victims of sexual harassment on a social media platform or app. - The effects of sexual harassment on those who were victims. - Whether the victims of sexual harassment feel that social media companies are doing enough to protect people from abuse online, via their platform or app.

Main Findings

- Of the 3,000 UK women who use social media, who responded to the survey, 40% have experienced or witnessed sexual harassment on social media platforms or apps. - Of the 3,000 respondents, 21% of them have personally experienced sexual harassment on social media platforms or apps. - 57% of the 624 respondents who have personally experienced sexual harassment on social media state it was via Facebook or Facebook Messenger. - 79% of those who have experienced harassment online say it took the form of unwelcome sexual comments or messages. - 76% of women who experienced sexual harassment on social platforms or apps took action by blocking the offender or offenders. - 32% of victims of social media sexual harassment state that the long-term effects included feelings of violation and/or intimidation. - Of the 2342 who have not experienced sexual harassment via social media, the majority of respondents (69%) state this is because of their diligence in selecting who to follow or accept friend requests from. - 68.2% of the 3000 female social media users polled agree that social media platforms do not do enough to protect people from online sexual harassment.Summary of Survey Questions - SellCell and OnePoll asked 3,000 UK women who use social media the following questions regarding sexual harassment through applications or platforms for social media. Content warning: some questions and answers in this survey contain wording of a sensitive and/or sexual nature.

1. Which of the following statements best describes your experience of sexual harassment through a social media platform/ app?

The survey asked 3000 UK women who use social media, Which of the following statements best describes your experience of sexual harassment through a social media platform/ app?Of the respondents, 39.7% (1190) stated that they had either personally experienced sexual harassment or had witnessed sexual harassment, online, on social media platforms or apps.

Of the 3,000 respondents, 20.8% (624) stated that they had personally experienced sexual harassment on a social platform or application.This leaves 79.2% who have never had experience of sexual harassment personally, while using a social media platform or app.

2. (If you have never personally experienced sexual harassment through a social media platform or application). Why do you think you have avoided personally experiencing sexual harassment on social media? [Select all that apply]

In answer to this question, 69% (1605) of 2342 women who havent personally experienced social media sexual harassment said it was because they are selective about who they follow or accept friend requests from.42% of respondents keep their social media account private to avoid harassment, and 41% avoiding posting much about themselves as they do not trust the platforms to keep them safe.32% only use social media to keep up with news and activities rather than to be sociable, and 5% only use social media for work or business purposes.

3. (If you have personally experienced sexual harassment through a social media platform or application) Which social media platforms/apps have you personally experienced sexual harassment on? [Select all that apply]

57% of the 624 women who answered that they had experienced sexual harassment on social media state that Facebook and/or Facebook Messenger is the platform or app where they were most likely to be harassed.37% of those 624 state that Instagram was the app or platform, while 26% state dating apps like Tinder or Hinge have been the culprits for experiencing sexual harassment.4% of the respondents who have faced online sexual harassment fell victim to offenders on LinkedIn, a platform designed for professional networking.

4. (If you have personally experienced sexual harassment through a social media platform or application) What type(s) of sexual harassment have you ever personally experienced on social media platforms/apps? [Select all that apply]

The majority (79%) of those who have experienced sexual harassment on social media state that it came in the form of unwelcome sexual comments or messages.59% of victims said it was in the form of friend requests or invitations from strangers that made them feel uncomfortable.48% of those who have fallen prey to offenders said the offender sent them pornographic photos or videos.9% of victims of online social media sexual harassment said it took the form of threats of sexual violence.

5. (If you have personally experienced sexual harassment through a social media platform or application) When you personally experienced sexual harassment on social media, did you report this to anyone/take any action? [Select all that apply]

Of the 624 women who answered that they had been sexually harassed on social media, 76% of them took action by blocking the individual who was sexually harassing them.42% of the respondents state that they reported the offender to the social media app or platform on which they were victim to abuse.5% took the matter to the police, but unfortunately 11% of respondents did nothing as they knew the platform, app, or police would take no action against the offender.

6. (If you have personally experienced sexual harassment through a social media platform or application) Which, if any, long-term effects have you experienced/do you experience as a result of the online sexual harassment you experienced? [Select all that apply]

Of those women who answered yes to question one, 32% say that the experience left them feeling violated and/or intimidated.21% say the sexual harassment has made them doubt their personal appearance, and 19% of the respondents say that the sexual harassment has left them suffering with anxiety.The sexual harassment has affected 10% of victims current intimate relationships, while 3% have had their careers suffer as a result of the offenders actions.

7. (All respondents) Which of the following statements best describes your experience of sexual harassment through a social media platform/ app?

Of the 3,000 women surveyed, an overwhelming majority of 68.2% (2045 women) state that social media companies dont do enough about sexual harassment on their platforms or applications.Only 7.8% think social media companies are doing enough, while 24.0% of respondents were unsure whether companies do enough to protect their female users from sexual harassment.

Conclusion

It is very clear from the survey results that not only are a lot of women (39.7%) either victims of or have witnessed sexual harassment on social media, but the platforms they are using are simply not doing enough to protect their female users from abuse, and when abuse arises, they dont do enough to stop the offender and their behaviour.

Clearly, significantly more needs to be done by brands in order to make social media platforms and applications a safe space that women can enjoy without the threat of sexual harassment.

Methodology

SellCell conducted a survey of 3,000 UK women who use social media through OnePoll to ascertain how many women have suffered sexual harassment on social media platforms or applications. It took into account the ages of victims, the platforms used by the victims, the forms of harassment, the action taken by the victims, the long-term effects of harassment, and whether those surveyed thought platforms did enough to protect women from sexual harassment online. SellCell then analysed this data. No personal details were collected or stored during the surveying process.

What Is SellCell?

SellCell.com is the number one smartphone price comparison service and trade-in site, working in the online and mobile space, offering consumers a safe and convenient way to trade in old devices and tech.

SellCell regularly conducts data analysis and surveys across US and UK markets to understand the interactions between humans and technology and how the use of digital technology has an effect on everyday lives.

SellCell has featured in multiple authority publications such as TechRadar, The Daily Mail, Apple Insider, CNBC, Tech Crunch, Business Insider, and more, and regularly features in news.

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SURVEY: 1 in 5 Women Have Personally Experienced Sexual ... - ResponseSource