When it comes to promoting yourself or your business, our online image becomes extremely important. This includes both our brand and our personal
online profile.
Our online presence represents our largest social field. When creating an online profile, it is
important to remember that those watching us are only interacting with a snapshot of our personality. If we are not careful about how we approach our profiles, the wrong impression can be made very easily.
Part of the problem is that we often don't allow our online image to evolve. We do not update our credentials or qualifications. We present outdated information or even a photograph from ten years ago.
To ensure that the people we potentially do business with
understand who we are, we should adopt helpful habits when presenting ourselves online. Here are several ways to achieve this.
Whether we're looking for a job, starting our own business, or just want to get noticed for whatever reason, it's important to set achievable goals. Thinking carefully about what we want to achieve with our profile allows us to use it proactively.
It is therefore important to develop a strategy. Many of us balk at the idea of using acronyms. However, in this case, the SMART principle becomes really useful. If you are not familiar with the idea yet, it means:specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-oriented.
Think about what you want to achieve, how you will measure its success, if it is within your reach and when you would like it to be achieved. Applying these criteria to each point of your strategy will break down your goals into more manageable tasks.
The first thing most people online will interact with will be your profile picture or any picture on your timeline. Your profile picture serves as a brand identifier. With this you need to make sure that you are using the correct image.
There are, of course, many ways to approach your profile picture. If the brand you want to represent is one that loves good beers and whiskeys, then a glass in your hand is appropriate. However, if you are looking to get hired for a job as an accountant, this image can be very detrimental.
Also, you should be aware that potential employers or clients may find photos of you quite embarrassing. Try unchecking or deleting unwanted photos.
Over the past fifteen years, social media platforms have grown exponentially. While this has allowed for greater choice for those looking to build a substantial online presence, it also means you may need to broaden your search for potential audiences.
It can be tempting to focus on one platform, like Twitter or Facebook. However, once you have mastered your personal brand, you should seek to automate and tie all of your social media together. This way you can promote yourself or your website on many platforms at once.
Fortunately, every platform recognizes that users need to share posts between different
platforms and most of the time you will find automation tools to share your content.
Websites and content change all the time. If you are in the habit of regularly updating your website, you should check to see if the links you have provided on your social media platforms continue to work.
There is nothing more professional than trying to click through a site that no longer works. Potential clients or employers you may have may well think that you are no longer interested in sharing your website.
A habit of updating and maintaining links means your social media stays relevant.
The internet is increasingly driven by user content – with Instagram, Youtube and Facebook Live taking up web space. To get people's attention, it's important to start looking for ways to engage on a more personal level.
There's no better way to do this than to form a narrative around your online profile.
"People instinctively love to see a narrative, whether it's a rags-to-riches story, an amazing
journey, or even a fall from grace," says Alyssa J Scott, author at Researchpapersuk and Last Minute Writing. “Look carefully at your CV and think about your personal history. Everything you offer should be compelling but still authentic – don't assume people can't see if you're faking it! »
This applies to all online profiles, not just businesses looking for a sale. Calls to action are most often applied to sales funnels, but they can also apply to someone looking for an audience for their ideas, those looking for a job, or someone looking to get in touch with. like-minded people.
Every post you post and every part of your bio should have an end goal in mind. It's helpful to keep your social media strategy handy, so you can see every goal you want to achieve at every step. Your calls to action should be guided by your SMART goals.
Let's be honest for a minute – not all of the content you post will be your best. Of course, this is something we all want to achieve. But in many cases, whether it's because we're pressed for time or lack motivation for some reason, our output can be just plain poor.
That said, even if you look back at some of your content or posts and frown, there are still some that you feel deeply proud of. This is what you need to put in the foreground.
Despite what many think about the sometimes toxic nature of social media interactions, most
people really want to see your best work. By putting your best content on your landing page or in constant rotation on your social networks, you set a benchmark for yourself, while presenting the best you have to give.
Many decry the internet as a destroyer of social etiquette. They fear that smartphones have replaced face-to-face interaction and that traditional methods of interacting with the world around us are rapidly degrading. In fact, much of the Internet is still text-based. This means that people are reading at a much higher level than perhaps twenty years ago.
“The fear that people will change the way they interact with their environment is legitimate,” writes Jennifer B Wilkins, author at Draftbeyond and Writinity, “However, the more things change, the more they stay the same. George Orwell, one of the greatest writers of previous centuries, advised us to cut out unnecessary prose. He might as well have been talking about internet content. »
We have become accustomed to using our online profiles as an avatar for our real character.
Most of us who have watched social media evolve from chat rooms and personal pages like
Myspace tend to allow our profiles to remain two-dimensional and contain text. But those who grew up in the digital age recognize that simple texts and a profile picture are static and frankly uninteresting.
In order to follow this trend towards a more tactile visual style, you need to be open to using video content or podcasting. The younger generation, having taken famous Insta bloggers as models, are adept at presenting to a camera or talking about a given topic through a streaming service. It takes a bit of practice, but once you've taken the first daunting steps into the diverse array of interactive media available, you'll undoubtedly begin to reap the rewards.
Of course, all the best media content in the world probably won't get very far without a carefully crafted SEO strategy. In the early days of viral content, bloggers and vloggers could jump into trending hashtags or upload their keywords and tags. However, search engines and social media platforms have sought to regulate the uses and abuses of keywords.
It may seem like a lot of work at first, but once you understand the ideas behind SEO, it can become relatively simple. The trick is to keep up to date with your industry, skill set, or chosen topic and keep researching and updating your search terms. With many online SEO resources available, it is becoming easier to understand this crucial aspect of modern digital engagement.
See also:9 Easy Ways to Use Social Media SEO
