If I ask you to make a quick count of your social networking sites, you’ll probably and definitely come up with more than one. There’s the website you use to connect to other professionals in the industry, the comfortable site where you would always vent your feelings for the day, the online platform of your thoughts in less than 160 characters, among many others at the top of your head.
Together, your social networking accounts make up your social media identity. There are two reasons why this is important:
- It’s the identity by which your friends and acquaintances online communicate with you and, more importantly,
- it is increasingly become a way for employers to find out who you really are.
Of course, who you are online is often not what you are in your day-to-day conversations. You may be less stiff or more conversant. In any case, there’s always a difference. This so-called difference, however does not matter to your employers. In order to assess your personality, most companies have also taken the extra step of googling your name and finding out what the Internet has to say about you.
Instead of feeling helpless about the unemployability of your identity according to search engine results, direct your energy at reinventing your online identity to a more pleasant and employable status.
Barone’s suggestions are easy enough: synchronize your profiles and link them with each other. All you need to do is ensure the consistency in your profile pictures, names, and username. This, I think, is effective in establishing the different facets of your personality using common references point, like your profile photo and username.
Sniderman goes a bit deeper and suggests that you take active steps in creating a positive social media identity. One of the more salient points is the creation of your own branding. What makes you buy a product isn’t just the quality of the product per se but how it is branded.
In the same way, creating your own branding means making yourself desirable to your target audience, employers. Since you know that they’re keeping a close eye on you, you might as well show them the best in your personality.
Do away with the negative, the curses, and the racy photos. Focus on the brighter side of who you are and, before you know it, you have a slew of positive updates about yourself. You will not only do employers a favor; you are also doing yourself a favor by talking about the good rather than bad.
So what are you waiting for? Start consciously creating your social media identity–and on a positive way at that!