In spite of the casual, accessible nature of social media, it shouldn’t come as a shock that not all Instagram Followers and Facebook Fans are really our friends. It’s true – some are trolls, some are robots, and some might even be those creeps that haunted Instant Messaging chat rooms of the early 2000s. So when it comes to personal branding, why does the concept of “privacy” seem to go out the window for so many public figures?
Firestarter suggests it’s because the online world offers us the opportunity to be our own publicists, posting whatever we want without any immediate consequence. So since authenticity is the most basic way of leveraging your personal brand on social media, “sharing information about who we are, who we know, and how we think outside of the virtual world” is a key component to organic growth.
It’s true that we live in a social world characterized by “an apparent willingness to share [our] every waking moment with an eager audience of online fans.” But as a personal brand, it’s essential – especially within the realm of social media – to ask yourself, “Am I being too open?” If you are mindful about how and to what extent you share personal information online, you can be transparent without putting yourself or your brand in danger. Below are four things to keep in mind when balancing the private and public as a personal brand.
1. “What is my personal brand?”
The answer should come easily to you; after all, if it’s your personal brand, it’s exactly what you made it. This is one of those times when the saying “less is more” applies, because when you center on a few core values and content pillars to describe your personal brand, you’re better able to create realistic boundaries between yourself, your brand, and your online social community.
No matter how transparent you want to be with your followers, no one wants to know every little detail about your life. The key to successful personal branding is therefore to offer a window into your life that makes you accessible and relatable, while still remaining professional. A social media account that represents your brand should not mirror how you would interact with your close friends; it should reflect the type of professional banter you’d carry out inside the office.
2. “How much is too much?”
The online social world and “real life” are not all that separate, especially when it comes to how you represent yourself and your company, products, services, etc. For example, if you were a promising semi-professional athlete and you shared content involving recreational drug use or excessive alcohol consumption, it would most definitely not reflect well on your brand to potential employers. On the contrary, if you shared content toasting champagne at a family event, it would portray your brand in a responsible, familial setting – indicating a healthy work/life balance.
It also shouldn’t have to be said that sharing your private banking, identification, or any other sensitive information online is one of the biggest risks an individual or brand could take. However, the reality is that the intimate nature of social media confuses people into thinking that “they are simply having a private conversation or indulging in a bit of friendly ‘banter’ with their friends and colleagues, rather than sharing [on] a public forum.” Always keep in mind that your audience is made up of more than just people you know personally, so anything you say online can have long term consequences if you’re not careful.
3. “Why would you post that?”
Keeping in mind your core brand values and strategized content pillars, you should have no problems staying on-brand when communicating with your online social community. So unless something directly relates to your brand in some way or another, it probably wouldn’t complement your feed if you posted it. Digital Self Marketing Advantage advises that when using social media for personal branding, “how others see you on the social web is fragile and your best digital first impression should never be left to chance or trial and error.”
At the end of the day, it’s your brand and you know it best. But when you’re unsure about whether you should share certain content or not, it never hurts to stand outside of yourself for a moment and ask, “Why would you post that?” Is it on-brand? Does it reflect your moral and professional codes? How would your boss react to it? A general rule of thumb: trust your gut, it got you this far. If something doesn’t feel right, being cautious will definitely do you good in the long run.
4. “It’s not just what you share, but what you don’t.”
Finally, while transparency on social media requires your brand’s social activities to be consistently authentic and open, Medium pertinently points out, “protecting our online identity is just as important as developing it.” Emphasis here on boundaries; sharing is caring, but over-sharing can be detrimental to yourself and your brand. So, you probably shouldn’t rely on the “Delete” button when it comes to a picture that you shouldn’t have shared publicly in the first place. This only allows you to seemingly permanently remove a post.
After all, “It’s only when we become most comfortable with sharing that we let our guard down and let something slip, ruining prospects.” Just because something seems convenient, doesn’t mean it’s necessarily the best or safest option. You might want to reconsider clicking the “Save Information” function every time you’re prompted; it might make your shopping check-out or Facebook login faster, but it’ll also make your sensitive or financial information more vulnerable to the online abyss. “Just because something is apparently hidden behind a password, doesn’t mean it’s not accessible in some form.”
All in all, be smart about what you share online. Remember that many things can be recovered by the internal trolls of the online world; even the little things a brand might do could go viral when least expected.
Riley ✨
@serotinamedia
#KEEPSOCIAL
