More than ever, public relations professionals need to really take the time and effort to establish their personal brands and how they manage how they are presented online as a researcher, practitioner, student, and person. We as PR professionals need to take every opportunity to be our own “PR person” in a sense – especially with the current economic times.
Corporations and other employers will be looking online and evaluating how potential employees represent themselves on social networking sites. Max Kalehoff of Online Spin says that people now have to be more in tune with how they manage their personal brand online, or what he calls digital personal optimization. Digital personal optimization (DPO) as Kalehoff explains focuses on managing an individual’s personal brand online – whether it is on social media sites (ex. Linkedin or Twitter or Facebook) to web sites.
This is an interesting topic for professors, professionals, and students to be aware of. We have to be strategic and effective managers when dealing with information online. We also have to look at the different personality attributes and associations that are being made about our personal brand as well. This will keep us informed of how we are perceived by others.
I believe that it is very important for students to be aware of how they are presented online. These students are facing a tough job market, and first online impressions are definitely going to play a part for their future employers. I also believe that professors need to be interactive and present online as well – whether it is for school, class, research, or personal use – we need to be able to know about the technology and how to use it to be more effective and integrated PR professionals. A great way to manage your reputation effectively is to check what is presented online about you by doing a regular search of your name. A great site that I found when doing research for my guest lecture this past year on managing your online reputation is the search engine just social media Social Mention. From microblogs (ex. Twitter) to pictures (Flickr) to news stories (web sites) – it has it all! Hope that this helps! 🙂
Have a great day! 🙂
Best Wishes,
Karen
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