We are living during a time ruled over by the internet and a whole host of forms of social media, this is both exciting and daunting, especially when starting out on a professional career. Social media can be incredibly useful as it allows for rapid spread of information, we find out about global events at a much faster rate than ever before, in fact in 2012 there were more than five million Instagram posts, 175 million tweets and 250 million Facebook photos being uploaded per day. This wide variety of information being available to us is extremely useful as we can now know far more about the world we live in and take part much more in a global community. Professionally social media is useful as it allows for discussion over many topics and encourages participation from many people who care about the profession, for example new teaching regulations can be discussed by the teaching professionals and this will lead to a stronger and more developed profession where all those involved have had an input. However as a professional you must keep your personal life separate from your working life, you must also always keep your professional boundaries and moral standards. Social media gives us a chance to voice any thoughts and opinions you may have and this is a fantastic opportunity but can also lead to serious issues or ruin your professional appearance. There have been many cases where an inappropriate comment made on social media or a photo showing non-professional behavior have emerged and ruined the career or reputation of a member of the teaching profession. However through careful monitoring and thought you can marry your personal and professional life online. You can share interesting ideas and news stories which you feel will enhance your professional life, sites like Pinterest are also useful as they provide a vast resource pf creative ideas and help make new and exciting ways to teach. I plan to keep social media sites like Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram separate from my professional life as I feel these are more personal and I use them as a way to keep in touch with friends. However I have a Pinterest which I collect interesting teaching ideas on and if I was to get Twitter I would use it for my professional life. However all forms of social media need to be kept professional and I monitor what I allow to be put up and will never make a statement which could be deemed unprofessional or put my career at risk. They key factor when using social media as a professional is that you have to remain sensible and always be aware of how you are presenting yourself.