Maintaining a Professional Digital Footprint
Authored by: Camryn Mason
In a digital age, roughly 4 billion people access social media platforms to share thoughts, milestones, photos, humor and more. Living your life through social media is a common concept that many individuals live by, but can putting yourself out there for the world to see help you professionally? Whether your profile is private, or you only have 100 followers or friends online, our information and the content we share is seen by more than just our friends.
From the moment you create an account online, your digital footprint begins. A person’s digital footprint reflects all data associated with their name that can be traced back to them. This data ranges from: social media data, content posted on social media platforms; web browsing data, websites visited and searched; financial data, online purchases made. The most important type of data that anyone can see reflecting a person’s reputation for future employment opportunities and future professional relationships is social media data.
In terms of hiring, seventy percent of employers check social media accounts when reviewing job candidates. Employers are understandably concerned with their employees' social media accounts, potentially subjecting employers to liability or increasing the probability of reputational damage.1
However, this should not deter someone from having social media or posting on social media. Though this should encourage individuals to practice having a positive, professional presence virtually as you would in an interview. Maintaining a professional image online allows those who search for you to see your personality, interests, and initiatives that make you the best candidate and ensure that their core values align with those they hire.
With this transition to a professional digital footprint, one can see many positive effects to their career success and themselves. The benefits of having a positive digital footprint are increased trust from those who see you on social media that can transition into long term personal and professional relationships, the door opening to many opportunities from full time jobs to scholarships to internships, and improved search results for your employers to gain a positive first impression of you.2
What does professional even mean? Professionalism ranges based on your future career goals. Certain jobs have ethical standards where they prefer applicants who have shared limited viewpoints on personal health, political issues, social issues, etc. While others might not care as much about these types of things and focus more on how you portray yourself on social media, it is important to understand your virtual presence when applying for a job.
One might wonder where do they start when it comes to the task of online reputation management? Here are a few tips to begin that transition to having a more positive digital identity for future employers.
Starting off with the basic research on yourself through Google by looking at yourself through the active search –what you post– and the passive search –what others post about you. After doing an active search, you can conduct a “social media detox” by removing images, videos, reposts, and tweets that no longer represent you or you would not want anyone else to see or deactivate social old social media accounts. After doing the passive search, you can untag yourself from current and old friend’s posts that portray a negative image of you, ask, if applicable, friends to remove images, videos, or posts with you mentioned in them, or unfollow people that you no longer relate with.3
After completing your successful cleanse, there should be a new mindset of being more mindful of what you post or send online. Some people like to have a rule while drafting a story or caption or posting an image or video to imagine a close family or friend or even an employer standing over you to prevent oversharing, the sharing of negative thoughts, or sharing of inappropriate behavior that would cause consequences in the future. 3
Society has put a negative connotation with the word digital footprint to make them feel that social media is nothing but negativity and always causes more harm than anything, so people should just stay off of it – this is not the case. If used properly with a positive mindset, you can be among the community of people who use it for rewarding purposes personally and professionally. People like to use social media for various forms beyond what the social media platform they are using is known for such as building professional and personal relationships, communicating with family and friends, and staying up to date on the latest news. 4
- Nina Kruger et al., A Framework for Enterprise Social Media Guidelines 1 (2013), https://aisel.aisnetorg/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1578&context=amcis2013&httpsr edir=1&referer=; Frank E. Langan, Note, Likes and Retweets Can't Save Your Job: Public
- https://dataprot.net/articles/what-is-a-digital-footprint/
- https://policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/National%20Office/2012/02/osos106_Digital_Footprint.pdf
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-019-00695-1