Your personal digital presence
October 22, 2010 at 8:45 am ABI marketing public relations 4 comments
By Vijaya Dhillon
Whether you’ve embraced it or not, social media platforms are everywhere. It seems that new ones mushroom daily – all claiming to have a distinct purpose. Facebook lets you connect with friends: current, past, long-lost or (I hate to say it) so-called. LinkedIn represents your professional achievements, accolades, experiences and helps you stay in touch with former colleagues and professional peers. Twitter lets you express our epiphanies, moods, taste in movies, as well as things vaguely or closely work related. And yes, you can even express your views on politics.
These are just a few of the multitudes of social media platforms that provide us with an opportunity to “meet” an uncountable number of people and develop deeper relationships. More importantly, they allow us to create a personal brand in an incredibly genuine way.
However, this online world can be a perilous place if you don’t stop to think about how you want to portray yourself. In person, you have the opportunity for nuance. Online is a different story. Readers, especially those who don’t know you offline, will form an opinion about you based on your online profiles.
With the freedom these platforms afford you could very quickly and unknowingly chart a course that may be hard to back track. It is always important to remember that information online lives forever. Online profiles can be viewed by colleagues, clients, future employers, business associates and partners.
Be cohesive and consistent in what you communicate about yourself. (Consider the fact that a few people in your Facebook friends list might be important to you in other capacities and may not appreciate a status update which openly expresses grumpiness over the fact that you have to travel 8,000 miles to visit them.)
There’s nothing wrong with showcasing the human side of your business persona, but do you really want everyone to know about your Saturday night escapades? Fred Barnard said, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Be sure your images say the right thing about who you are, too.
Vijaya Dhillon is Deputy Managing Director, Americas at ABI marketing public relations. You can reach her at +1 212-529-2633 and vdhillon@abipr.com
Entry filed under: Marketing, New Media, Positioning / Messaging, Vijaya Dhillon. Tags: Facebook, linkedin, Marketing, New Media, Online profiles, rss feeds, social media, Social Media Platforms, Twitter.
1.
Chad Horenfeldt | October 23, 2010 at 3:44 pm
Great post – As someone who blogs and is active across many social media channels I think showing that you’re human is a good thing but I agree that you need to show some humility. When I hire people I do a Google search on the person and if I see something unflattering, I may take that into consideration (either positively or negatively).
I would caution against the opposite – crawling up into a non-internet cave where you keep everything private. I believe that having some type of social media presence is better than no social media presence.
Chad
PS – thanks for including my blog Anything Goes Marketing
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