Above Image taken from 28 Reasons Why Everyone Needs Personal Branding (Jill Celeste, 2014) Via Jill Celeste
With an authentic online professional profile, does it mean to be about having single or multiple digital identities? I believe that as long as we know what we are doing online, we can keep our online profile professional. Online professional profile can be drilled down to self-branding.
Taken from Laura Jane Higgins Via Google
Self-branding is crucial as it gives people a view of who we are. What we placed online are part of our virtual self which can be searched easily. By treating ourselves like a brand, it helps to develop our online professional profile in the long run. With this video below, it shows how we can develop our online professional profile.
Another example would be a Jobvite article (Jobvite, 2014) that talks about how recruiter search for information online. One of the most used website is LinkedIn. Statistics have also shown that 94% of recruiter uses LinkedIn to search for their new employees.
Taken from SocialApeMarketing Via Google
We should start building on our own branding with the help of LinkedIn as it is a B2B business tool which enables recruiter to look at your past performance and history before making a judgement. However, it is only beneficial for professionalism side. We also need to understand their social communication to be in check if they are suitable for the job or not.
With a clean looking profile, we are able to showcase or portray ourselves better. To do that, we need to put in as much positive things and reduce the negative things that we put online such as rude comments that are not beneficial to our current selves.
Linking back to topic 2 about having multiple or single online identity, to be professional, I believe that single online identity would be beneficial to us. With a single online identity, we are honest about what we are doing. We need to be consistent in maintaining our online profile. This means that we should only use a single online identity to engage with people. With only a single online identity, people will know that we are honest and true to what we say we are. There are no hidden or secrecy in what we are doing. This will help to build a trust between employee and employer.
In conclusion, maintenance of an authentic online professional profile is tedious but it will benefit us with more employment opportunities in the long run. With a consistent maintenance of our online profile, it will be able to showcase our professionalism.
(408 words)
References:
Job Hunting: How to promote yourself online
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-25217962, Accessed on 5 November 2015
How One Stupid Tweet Blew up Justine Sacco’s Life
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/how-one-stupid-tweet-ruined-justine-saccos-life.html?_r=2, Accessed on 5 November 2015
Jobvite, Social recruiting survey
https://www.jobvite.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Jobvite_SocialRecruiting_Survey2014.pdf, Accessed on 5 November 2015
Using social media in your job search
http://moocs.southampton.ac.uk/websci/2014/03/13/ill-tweet-job-spec-snap-cv/, Accessed on 5 November 2015
How to Create a Professional LinkedIn Profile
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmGjPXJ9fwM, Accessed on 5 November 2015
Development of a professional online profile
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTZDahPgbTk, Accessed on 5 November 2015
5 Tips to Building Your Personal Brand Online
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJzpb2_mB8Y, Accessed on 5 November 2015
Personal Branding and Marketing Yourself in Social Media
http://socialapemarketing.com/personal-branding-and-marketing-yourself-on-social-media/, Accessed on 5 November 2015
LinkedIn
https://sg.linkedin.com/, Accessed on 5 November 2015
Social Media Overlap [Image]
https://laurajhiggins.wordpress.com/2014/03/09/ways-in-which-an-authentic-online-professional-profile-can-be-developed/, Accessed on 5 November 2015
28 Reasons Why Everyone Needs Personal Branding | Jill Celeste
http://www.jillceleste.com/28-reasons-why-everyone-needs-personal-branding/, Accessed on 5 November 2015
C.WANCHYNG 
Hi Wan Chyng!
You have a good explanation on the benefits of having a good professional profile and I agree with you in the point where by maintaining a good professional profile benefits us in the long-run, and I do believe that honesty is the best policy.
However, there are a few doubts I wish to clear in order to understand your views. Firstly, do you mean that you do not separate your professional profile from personal profile? Do you think that employers would believe that you do not have a personal profile hidden from them just because they couldn’t find it?
In a case whereby our friend leaving a comment on your social media profile which we may deem as inappropriate, should we delete the comment (which may affect communication online between our friend and us), or should we create a separate profile for official use in our “branding”?
Cheers! 🙂
LikeLike
Hi Nicholas!
Thanks for your comment!
Actually there is pros and cons to whether we want to separate or not.
Separation of profile:
Pros: a clear line is drawn between social and work life.
Cons: It might not be authentic as there is no true self.
No separation of profile:
Pros: Consistent with what we put online. With one profile, we can remain authentic as we do not have anything to hide.
Cons: If an error is made, there will be consequences we need to face.
So it will really drill down to what you want to do with it. Whether or not the employers want to believe in us, will depends on their trust towards us. But nowadays, many people are having multiple online profile as we have stuff that we do not want employers to know.
In the case, I think that creating a separate profile will help to make sure that we have a clean record in what we do.
Cheers!
LikeLike
Hello Wan Ching,
Interesting post! 🙂
I agree that as technology advances, personal branding and developing an online professional profile is essential. First impression counts. As such, it is important to have a clean profile. However, if we only include positive contents and do not include contents that will not be beneficial, such as our weaknesses and flaws, aren’t we portraying a ‘perfect image’? Sometimes, being too perfect reduces validity as it seems too exaggerated. Should we portray a ‘perfect image’ or allow others to recognise our weaknesses?
Moreover, managing a single online identity is very challenging. Don’t you think that it is tiring to be wary at all times and have to think twice before sharing? It may not be the ‘real’ you. Furthermore, we are emotional, impulsive and tend to make mistakes. Being implusive, inappropriate contents may be circulated before we realise the consequences that we may have to face.
Hope to hear from you soon! 🙂
Cheers,
Constance
LikeLike
Hi Constance!
Thanks for your comment!
I agree that if we only show our positive side, there will definitely be people judging us such that they might label us as fake because of all the positive post. By showing our flaws might be good, but people might say that we are fake to show our weak side. It will depends on what you want to portray to people. But often we do not want to post our ugly moments online too.
Even though it is tiring to manage a single online identity as we need to think before posting but it is beneficial as we are consistent with what we do. But there will definitely be consequences in whether we have a single or multiple online identity. It will depend on what we really want to portray to people.
What do you think about it?
Cheers!
LikeLike
i experienced jetlag over the weekend without even flying! my gi;efrilnd’rs band played a show on vancouver island, and instead of getting a hotel, we packed up quite late (3ish), drove to the ferry terminal and waited for the first ferry (6am). we finally got in just after 9am (after loading gear), and it’s taken me until today pretty much to not be tired as hell and feel out of sync.
LikeLike