reputation courtesy of russel davies and creativecommons.org
Warren Buffet said “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”
When we are young, we are often not aware of the unintended consequences of our actions. We’re immortal and invincible and that does not lead us to caution. As a result we are often unrestrained in the things we do and say. Before Social Media appeared, and the Internet was everyone’s scratch pad, it didn’t matter as much. A comment made in an off handed manner was limited to a small group of people and those others that they repeated it to. Today however, we all have access to Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, FriendFeed, and thousands of other social sites where everything we write is memorialized forever, and is available to every potential date, mate, friend, employer, employee, partner and associate – and that is something that should give anyone pause, before they post a photo of themselves that they might later regret, or write something without considering what the impact of their creativity might be.
I’m not suggesting that people shouldn’t take positions or have opinions. In fact, I posted a great quote from a friend of mine about a week ago. It was a quote from her grandfather who said “If you’re afraid of being criticized, say nothing, do nothing, and be nothing. “ However I do believe that a everyone needs to think about the message they project when they post something, and be prepared for the consequences when a prospective employer checks out their online identity.
Laurel Papworth, an Australian Social Media Strategist, notes in her chart on Reputation Management Cycles, that we start creating an Identity when we post our profile, which is broadened by our choices of avatars, friends, social networks, friends and applications, but our reputation evolves from the actions we take in the network and the manner in which we take those actions.
One of the most important things that we do at BuzzBuilderz when we help our clients create their online profiles is to be aware of what image they want to present in each venue. For example a good Facebook profile is warm and personal and shows the social side of the individual. The LinkedIn profile however should be more formal, and should help express the professional side of the client, while the 140 character profile that needs to be placed in multiple social networking sites, needs to be broad enough to attract professional attention while providing a sense of who you are. Evene your online nickname or avatar can be important to the identity you build. And if you build the base properly, as you can see from the link to Laurel’s well considered chart, your profile grows into an identity, which in turn creates a reputation, which then impacts the trust warranted by that reputation (good or bad).
So taking a photo of that intimate tatoo that you just got, or bragging about how much you can drink, or the quantity of recreational drugs you took last weekend - and posting it to your myspace page might not be something you want to share with your next employer. I’m just saying.
Tags: 0, Facebook, LinkedIn, myspace, reputation, Social Media, Twitter, web 2
