Protecting your Personal Brand Image

(Belton, 2017) 

In this modern era, social media plays a big role in the lives of more and more people as time goes on. This is highly due to the fact that, people like to make connections and stay in touch with their friends and family. Even though social media seems to be only positive, there are some aspects you must be aware and can come off as negative in the future. It is very important to be careful about what you post since it will around for very long time even if you delete it.

(Bartram, 2011)

With each new post, you are creating a brand image of yourself, and the image is built from all your posts. For example, if you have 30 pictures of yourself posted on Facebook of you partying, most employers will look down upon that. Employers will think that you are irresponsible and not reliable enough to do proper work. This is why you must make sure that anything you post should put out an image that shows you are a responsible, kind, and professional individual.   

In addition to that, if you think you can just delete post of the past and no one will find it, you are very mistaken. Once something is posted there will always be traces available online, so someone can always find it once it’s posted online. Also, there are professional services that offer to clear up previous post but even they had to admit that, they just make those post harder to find, since traces will always be left.

(Cody, 2016)

The best option is to not post something that you will regret in the future since employers and new people will make an image of you from your posts. For example, people can learn a lot about you from your posts, like if you have traveled to Mexico, age, relationship status, political views, and etc. Also, you should always try to post something that would send off a positive image and if you are feeling negative do not post it online. The reason behind not posting negativity is that people may attack you over something you post. Like if you post something like “I hate sitting next to fat people on public transit”, the fat shaming community will come after you and try to tarnish your brand image. For these reasons, be very careful about what you post online since it will define your image to people who do not know you on a personal level. 

References

https://www.marketingcloud.com/blog/social-media-best-practices-for-brand-engagement/

http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/05/21/teens-social-media-and-privacy/

https://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?toURL=https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2015/01/27/6-social-media-practices-that-boost-seo/&refURL=https://www.google.ca/&referrer=https://www.google.ca/

https://smallbiztrends.com/2016/05/best-practices-in-social-media-marketing.html

http://www.business2community.com/expert-interviews/social-media-marketing-small-businesses-interview-nathan-resnick-01786662#HkgPdHkkxOAK3hIf.97

https://luanded.wordpress.com/2016/01/20/social-media-clean-up-get-ready-to-start-deleting/