Who’s Creating Your Online Persona?

Your online persona is a social identity that internet users establish in an online community or website; also known as your personal brand (Wikipedia). Everyone already has an online persona—either as invisible/nonexistent or as fabricated by you or other internet users—not curating your online identity is equivalent to letting internet to create your persona for you. With so many social media platforms, negative reviews can easily ruin your professional reputation without your knowledge. However, you can take control of your online persona.

When you create an account with a social media platform you start creating the information that is circulated about you and your practice. By posting research and information related to your field, you begin to impact what is pulled to the top by search engines.

When you create a social media account you need to consider what you want to express to people. In the article “Grow Your Practice and Skills Through Social Media" were four questions asked:

1. Why is social media important to me or my practice?
2. What outcomes do I want to achieve for myself or my practice through a social media profile?
3. Who does this social media profile reach?
4. How often will I update my profile?

These four questions are design to help guide you in your site management and planning. Once you’ve decided what you want your brand to represent, you need to create a plan of engagement for the demographic you will be catering to. Content is key. Make sure the content allows room for people to engage on with you. Engaging can be posting a comment, sharing a post through other social media platforms, or “liking” a post. Ask a question, and get people talking. Small communications like these open doors and introduce you to people as a professional in your field.