For years – before anyone even thought about their digital identity – wise image-builders counseled clients to take stock of your digital footprint, search your name and see what you get, be cautious about what you post.
It still applies, but oh, haven’t we moved so much farther along.
Even for those without keen digital skills, it is now amazingly simple to build a personal identity (good or bad) – via your Facebook page, your Twitter activity, LinkedIn, blogs and other digital extensions.
Try this experiment: step back and take a look at friends’ content feeds flowing into your Facebook page, maybe over the next 12-hour period. Imagine those same friends in a room, talking, visiting, killing time. You’d pretty much get the same info, right?
Just as people work to make a good impression with a group of strangers, so it happens on Facebook, and social networking in general. Never mind if the person asking for info on hiking trails in the Swiss Alps really wants that info, or just wants everyone to know he’s going. As in realtime, so it is in digital.
What Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others make so easy is the ability to send a message about who you are, what you care about, why you matter.
At the end of the day, most people people want to make a good impression, establish a smart and savvy identity. And just like any successful effort, it’s not all about one item. It’s the sum total: what you present to friends (and customers); how you’re perceived; who you are, online and in the real world. Don’t neglect one over the other.