The Importance Of An Online Presence

Ever heard the saying, “you are what you post”? Well, if you haven’t, I’m telling you about it now. This week, I’m discussing the importance of having a personal brand, as well as how crucial it is for you to maintain an incredible online presence that reflects who you are as a person, and by that, I mean, who you would like your professional network to know as a person (so if it wasn’t obvious enough, you can keep those drunk photos/videos of you in your camera roll 😉).

It is a known fact of today that social media has become a part of most of our daily lives. That said, it is important for us to make sure that every post, and its caption, reflects the best version of ourselves. You’re passionate about something? Post about it, and make your caption shows your excitement. You’ve done something you’re proud of? Post about it, and make sure your caption explains what it is. The thing is this: you never know who’s actually looking at your profile. Say, for example, a hiring manager in your industry of interest falls on your page, by accident even. You want to make sure that when they click on any photo, they will say “okay, wow, this person really loves this industry. They have a strong work ethic, they are passionate – I want to keep my eye on him/her”.

Take my Instagram profile for example – every. single. post. is thought of and calculated. Rarely will I post something that I haven’t thought about carefully. Why? Because in this case, I know for a fact that if someone in the music industry is looking at my page, they will see who I am as a person: passionate, hard working, a go-getter, determined. You can decide what you want your page to reflect of you, but overall, I’ve always wanted people who go on my profile to know how much I love the music industry. This can be seen specifically through my posts of having been at Universal for the first and second month, when Sir Lucian Grainge came to visit the office, when I volunteered at the 2017 iHeartRadio MMVAs and so on.

Besides, it is important for you to have a personal brand because more and more people have one these days. That said, if individuals can find out more about you by searching online, then why not? This can make you more qualified than another for a particular job and can benefit you in a multitude of ways. If you don’t have an online presence, you are simply missing out, because the chances of your competition having one are higher than not. That said, they have the advantage of people knowing more about who they are as a person in an organic way, whereas you would not.

Here are some tips on building a personal brand:

• Think first about what you would like people to think of you as/know about you when they click on your profile
• Once you’ve decided the type of person you want to be portrayed as, online, think of different posts that could reflect that
• Create a social media calendar for yourself, i.e. a calendar where you can plan out what you will post, what captions you will use and when you will post them
• Capture photos/videos at all times. Honestly, you never know when a particular media can be used to post online

Have any other tips? Let me know in the comments below! 🙂