Your Personal Brand

I stumbled across this post, “How to Hide Facebook Posts From Your Boss”, which provided valuable information, should you need that kind of privacy feature in your life.  Disturbingly, this is the case more often than not as we, aware of it or not, build our personal brands through digital marketing.  Unfortunately, we are either unaware of the reach of the digital paintbrush or just plain careless in our online actions.

Like it or not, we are always advertising ourselves via our online activity.  From emails we send, to blogs we write, to facebook posts we vomit, to online groups in which we belong, we are creating a personal brand.  Perhaps I was born just early enough to be skeptical of the internet (I’m 34), but it seems that the Millenial generation (which I may be part of by some measures) are the largest offenders of poor personal digital marketing.

It can be tough to balance a digital presence where you want to be expressive, but still maintain a positive personal brand as measured by common norms.  Carelessness will always exist, but as our digital world expands, we need to be more thoughtful in teaching future generations about the information that is being collected with and without their consent.  And that this information will live on in perpetuity and be accessible by virtually anyone.  If we can instill a mindset from the beginning of a youngster’s online life that they will be digitally marketing themselves from that day forward, we can give them the best opportunity to establish a positive brand that is invaluable in so many aspects of life.