Managing Your Digital Footprint

I’ve been meaning to share this personal branding infographic that I came across with a few months ago. It was originally created by Enrico Bisetto and translated by Jorgen Sundberg. And, one of the reasons I wanted to share this is because I keep getting asked similar questions to: “How do I manage my personal/professional digital presence?”

With the lines of personal/professional getting blurrier every day when it comes to online presence, it is becoming more important to learn this skill that many of us never even considered in the past.

This is actually the topic of the talk that I gave to a group of smart AIESEC youths a few months ago during a summit that was held here in Adelaide.  And, I’m finally making my presentation available to VIP Circle Members: Optimising the Digital You [Slide Deck]*.

And, as a summary of the infographic you see here, as well as some  key points from my presentation, here are tips on managing your digital presence:

1. Know who you are and what you stand for. What do you want to tell people about you? It should be more than just a title or job description. Show your passions and your interests.

2. Set yourself some goals. And, don’t be too hung-up on the numbers game (number of followers, friends, etc). You also don’t need to be on every single platform. Just know what you wish to achieve and pick 1 or 2 platforms to start with. Learn it and grow it. Find out how you can best work with it. Make platforms work for you and your goals.

3. Build your brand. Depending on what you want to achieve, you might want to focus on having a blog first before you conquer YouTube or Twitter. Or maybe, you want a different reach, so you can build a stellar LinkedIn profile first.

4. Create and engage! Provide content worth commenting on, sharing, or liking. When you ask questions and someone answers, make sure you respond. I’ve seen some Twitter users who just automate everything to the point that they ask questions on a regular basis, but never respond to replies to their questions. There’s no point in asking questions if you don’t want to listen. If you want to create a Twitter account that’s announcement-only, that can work too. Just make sure that it’s clear. For example, Seth Godin has a Twitter account that’s primarily just a Twitter announcement for his blog posts. It doesn’t follow anyone, but it’s clear in the bio that it is not an account for engagement.

5. Be generous – Share, explore, and go outside your circle. Don’t just share your own posts or your own thoughts. Celebrate others’ creations too. Visit other blogs and comment. Retweet, share… It’s all part of building a great community around your brand. By being generous, you will increase your chances of receiving other people’s generosity too.

6. Monitor and listen. Find out what others are saying about you, your causes, and your interests. Take on feedback.

7. It’s okay to “clean up”. While deleting erroneous Tweets may be looked down on, there are different ways you can handle “damage control” when it comes to your digital presence. If you have to clean out some of your drunken Facebook photos, you just have to do it. Same thing with blog posts that don’t contribute to what you wish to say about yourself and your brand.

* If you’re a newsletter subscriber, you will get the password in this month’s newsletter. If you’re a Premium Member, you can access it through this page immediately when you’re logged-in to your Vervely account.