In the early days when the Facebook userbase were mainly milenials, I would often update my status to reveal what I was upto from the important (job interviews, work functions) to the mundane (what I was eating for dinner). As the medium started to become more popular with generation x's and baby boomers, and my network began to grow to include older relatives and colleagues, I began to tone down the amount of information I shared but would occasionally share my plans for Friday nights. My typical Friday posts were often funny depictions of my love for alcohol, so I'd share something like "TGIF- Totally single so tonight I'm going to be spending the night alone with a bottle of Grey Goose Vodka" or "I'm going to dance and get wasted with my girls tonight", you know, typical single girl living a life of debuchery posts.
It all stopped the day my pastor sent me a friend request. You see, I was a very active member of the local chapter of my church and held several leadership positions. I wasn't comfortable with my pastor seeing my 'cheeky' posts that often included updates about spending the weekend in nothing but my underwear with a bottle of red wine for company because I did not want him giving me sermons on how I had to comport myself to reflect my faith to the world. I wasn't going to start posting scriptures either because it just wasn't my style so I just stopped sharing updates all together and became a lurker, checking out what others were sharing.
Even if your pastor/boss/cleric or anyone you hold in high esteem doesn't follow your online activities, you still have to be careful with your online activities. This because the internet never forgets and whatever you do on the internet stays there forever and even if you delete it, chances are that it may still exist on other computers, websites, search engines or someone with a fast finger screen grabbed it.
To project your personal brand, it is important that you are careful with the information you put online. Too many people are losing their jobs and elected positions because they aired what they believed where their personal opinions with friends on social media. Recent instances of high profile people losing their jobs as a result of their social media activities include a mayor, a director, a police officer and Hamilton's Brandon Victor Dixon who was initially praised for speaking to Vice President Elect - Mike Pence's until his credibility on speaking on important social issues was questioned when one of his tweets from 4 years ago was dug up.
As a career professional, it is important that you keep your online activities as professional as possible. This is because 60% of employers use social network to research job candidates. Hiring managers will pass up a candidate based on the information found about them online. Top of the list why a hiring manager will eliminate an otherwise qualified job candidate includes posting provocative or inappropriate photographs or information, information about candidates drinking or drug use, discriminatory comments related to race, religion, gender and bad mouthing previous employers or colleagues. Poor communication is also very big no no to a recruiter.
You may think that you can prevent a recruiter from seeing your social activities by keeping your social media accounts private but keeping your profile private can be counter-productive as 41% recruiters report that they are unlikely to hire someone if they are unable to find information about them online and employers who use social media in their hiring process admitted to sending such cadidates friend requests anyway.
Here are some important points to guide you on making the best out of your online activities
- Be consistent: use a consistent username across all your social networks or even message boards and online communities you belong to, this is helpful in establishing your digital footprint and strengthens your personal brand
- Join online forums/groups that are pertinent to your industry and make intelligent/well researched cotributions
- Limit the amount of personal information you post online, seemingly harmless information about your interests or family can be used by hackers for identity theft or by stalkers or criminals to know your whereabouts (Kim Kardashian can tell you a something about this).
- Steer away from engaging in unnecesary arguments/fights, you may just be having an argument with a troll, who has far less consequences to suffer in the event that the post becomes public
Remember the rule of thumb is not to post or engage in activities online that you would not say or do in public.
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