Social Media Can And Will Be Held Against You
There’s something to be said about the way you present yourself online. More and more, people are taking the social media avenue to market themselves and their business opposed to the traditional hand-shake and business card exchange found in previous forms of networking. But just because your face-to-face time is being traded in for online efforts, doesn’t mean that self-image isn’t just as important to establishing credibility and making solid connections. Guest blogger, Ashley Thiesen Caldwell, is a social media expert who is here to tell us why perception and brand is key to building a successful online presence.
In this day and age, it’s not uncommon to be a member of Facebook, Myspace, Digg, Twitter, YouTube, FriendFriend, Google Wave and author seven personal blogs. You’re connected… trendy… technologically superior to your grandmother… and overexposed?
Thanks to Web 2.0, it’s easy to reach a worldwide audience on a daily basis. Instead of having traditional media gatekeepers filter messages, the average Joe is able to reach a mass amount of people without any filters or editors. With great possibilities come potential liabilities.
Search engines and social media sites make finding information on nearly anything or anyone easy. Who’s responsible for most of the information out there? You are!
Your involvement in social media is influencing your online reputation, so why not make sure the influence is positive.
I Have a Personal Brand?
Branding is crucial, no matter your professional title, business arena, age or technological level. Everyone has a personal brand—and it’s critical to manage it. Social media has made the concept of personal branding rather complex as the personal and professional boundary lines are becoming more blurred with each tweet.
The reality is that you’ve been creating your online personal brand passively, possibly without any awareness, thought or strategy. In every way you communicate, people are judging, labeling and stereotyping you whether you like it or not. In the online world, people whom you’ve never even met in person are learning about you based on what YOU share with them.
“What’s the big deal,” you ask? If you’re a successful professional, or aiming to be one, your personal brand is your ticket to the show. A polished, trusted and professional image will not only open up doors for you, but it can nearly guarantee success.
From this point forward, remember that every single Tweet, Facebook update, YouTube video comment and blog post can and will be held against you. That realization changes things.
Cut and polish your personal messages so that everyone who comes into contact with them hears the same words in their mind when they hear your name. Highlight the things that make you great at what you do and send those messages out into the world.
It’s Not What You Say, But How You Say It.
Most of the time, there’s no speaking when using social media. Our blogs posts and Facebook comments don’t come with voice tags to help decipher tone and meaning, which can be very dangerous. Our written words alone communicate for us.
Keeping that in mind, it’s important to adjust your tone for your audience. If you have a private Facebook profile where you only allow close friends to see your content, your off-color humor might be more acceptable than in a professional blog post.
Try to keep in mind that what might be obviously funny to you could be terribly offensive to someone else. Your audience might not get your humor or even realize that you’re joking. Sure, the addition of a “wink” or “LOL” might aid in clarification, but seriously consider the true effect of posting a less-than politically correct joke.
If you’re not sure how your messages are coming across to others, a great way to test the water is to listen to the conversation around you. Are people responding to what you’re saying positively, negatively or at all? Adjust your tone a bit and see the change.
A fun tool to help figure the tone of your Tweets is http://analyzewords.com. Input your Twitter handle and see what emotional, social and thinking style your tweets say about you.
Keep Your Personal Life… Personal.
We’ve all had moments we’re less than proud of. If you’re lucky, those moments weren’t caught on camera and then posted to your Facebook account. If that’s not the case, use the infamous “untag” feature and consider bribing the “friend” to take down the incriminating photo all together.
If you don’t want your latest tweet broadcasted on a billboard in Times Square, linked to your full legal name and photo, then don’t post it. Generally speaking, keep uncomfortable details about your significant others, diet, bodily functions and daily errands out of the equation. You do not want your name associated with the feeling of “TMI” (or too much information).
Every time you post something on a site, even if your privacy settings limit viewers, assume that the information will end up in the hands of your worst enemy. Don’t give anyone the ammunition to damage your reputation … and certainly do not do anything yourself to harm your own image.
Remember that every action on the Internet tied to your name, email or photo can be traced. All the sites you join, comments you post and photos you upload automatically become property of the World Wide Web. You’ve worked hard to get where you are today – don’t let a little Tweet ruin it.
About Ashley:
Ashley Thiesen Caldwell is a Generation Y-er social media professional, entrepreneur and philanthropist. Her company, The Modern Connection, LLC, aims to educate and inform businesses on the power of social media. She’s based out of Charleston, SC.
-Shauna
Charleston, SC
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[...] recently had the honor of writing a guest blog post for Mackenzie Image Consulting on how social media affects personal image. Be sure to check it out [...]