Branding Yourself Online: Where Personal Meets Professional

In today’s world of burgeoning social networking sites, it’s not uncommon to have multiple profiles on multiple platforms. Many people are using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Digg and many other sites on a daily basis. However, as these sites become more popular and companies start to do business using social media, it becomes difficult to draw a boundary line between what parts of the Net are for your personal use and what could be viewed from a professional standpoint.

Although there is no one correct approach to take, it seems there are a few key best practices to keep in mind when interacting on these sites.

1. Anyone can see anything. Every aspect of your online presence can be found via Google. That blog post you wrote 3 years ago bashing a company you had a bad experience with? Still searchable. Same goes for embarrassing college drinking photos and old tweets. That being said, the first step is to use your privacy settings, they are there for a reason.

2. Facebook. Everyone knows that potential or current employers or even clients can stumble across an unwitting employee’s Facebook, so the options are as follows. Keep it clean or keep it private. There is nothing wrong with keeping your Facebook for family and friends only, but make sure that you know exactly what is being shown if someone searches for you on the site.

3. Twitter. The rule I seem to hear again and again is to never tweet something you wouldn’t want your mother to read. I agree. Twitter is a great place to share ideas, but there should be a balance between personal and professional tweeting. You don’t want to air your dirty laundry to the rest of the world (or offend a client), but you also want to sound human and do more than tweet links to industry articles or news stories. There needs to be a level of engagement with other users, but also a boundary. If you want to tell your friend what happened last weekend, text them, don’t put it on Twitter.

4. Blogging. Perhaps the most potentially hazardous platform, because many a blogger has burned themselves by oversharing about their personal life, job or coworkers. Case in point: Dooce. She talked too much about her company and boss, and she got fired. She was the exception to the rule in that she turned her blog into a business, but this certainly does not happen often. Before you embark on a blogging venture, check your company policies regarding blogging. If you’re a student, know that employers, friends and family could all potentially stumble on your site, and keep that in mind as you write.

Obviously managing your online presence is a delicate balancing act, and it’s up to you to decide how you want to proceed, whether you want to clean up your act or if you even want to participate. These are just a few things to keep in mind. Just remember, once you put something online, it’s out there, and most of the time, you can’t take it back.

- Lauren Brown is a senior at Boston University majoring in Public Relations and is currently interning at Solomon McCown & Company. She can be reached at lauren.brown1027@gmail.com or on Twitter @laurlita