If you answered yes, you might want to reconsider it and think about how this reflects your personal brand and online reputation.
Personal brand is how you market an image and/or impression of yourself to others. Typically this is a persona you are trying to create, whether it is through pictures of yourself or your life, posts you make or written articles about yourself. Personal brand is important because it is how others see you (Patel). If you are a student and want a future employer to see you as an expert in a certain field, it is essential that your personal brand depicts your expertise. For example, if you want to be known as a social media genius, talking about social media, being active on social media, etc. is a good way to show future employers you are very well knowledgeable in social media. There are many ways in which you can brand yourself, along with many tools to help you monitor your personal brand. For example, you can set up Google Alerts for anything your name in mentioned (Create an alert). If your name was tagged in a Facebook picture of you partying, Google will send you an alert letting you know that your personal brand was mentioned and you can go and view it. This will help you monitor and track what your personal brand is associated with. If you see yourself tagged in a picture at a party and know that you would not want future employers to see pictures of you in that environment, you could either ask the person to untag you or take down the picture. This can help you monitor your personal brand.
This also leads to reputation. Reputation is the way people perceive your character; it is the overall opinion that someone has of you. For example, if a student always attends class, participates, hands in excellent work, is a good team player, their reputation will be viewed as a good student by the professors and peers. This is an example of a good reputation, where people perceive you in a positive manner. However, one could also have a bad reputation where people’s perception of you is negative. With the online community taking over the world, people not only have a reputation they have to uphold in everyday life, but also online. Your online reputation has a bigger impact on your life because if you do something good or bad, it is forever out there on the Internet. It is something that people can look up and never forget. That is why it is very important to be managing your online reputation. One useful tool to use to manage your online reputation is BrandYourself. BrandYourself offers tools and services to help control and manage your online reputation by teaching you what not to do and what to do when it comes to branding and online reputation. It also offers users a report on their online reputation, by providing a score and showing what you can do to improve the score (About us). As a student, having a good online reputation will be beneficial for your future. Employers typically will look up who you are prior to giving you an interview, which means that first impression and online reputation are critical to your success. Showing that you have a good online reputation will let employers know that you are an individual that would not negatively impact their company. It is always important as a student to be thinking about your future, especially when it comes time to securing a job. Future employers will always be looking online as part of their due diligence to determine whether an individual is an ideal candidate to join their company.
“About Us.” BrandYourself. Web. 23 Feb. 2018
“Create an Alert.” Google. Web. 23 Feb. 2018
Douk, Khemera. How to Remove Tag on Facebook. Youtube. Youtube, 2015. Web. 23 Feb. 2018
Patel, Neil. How to Monitor Your Personal Brand. Forbes, 5 Dec 2014. Web. 23 Feb. 2018
