Ten Strategies for a Positive Professional Online Presence

The creation of an online digital footprint has become unavoidable. Here are ten strategies one can use to help manage your online presence to ensure it conveys a positive message.

1. Use your real name to take an online inventory of yourself (Richardson, 2008). Understand what is out there about yourself. Are those things positive or negative? Search several pages deep on Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
2. Utilize privacy settings on the social networks you use (Boyle, 2014). For example, Facebook's privacy settings are evolving regularly. Understand what is being shared and tune settings to give you the best chance of controlling it.
3. Keep software up-to-date (Davidson, 2016). If your computer becomes infected with a virus and someone steals your personal information, you could easily lose control it. Up-to-date antivirus and operating system software are key.
4. Check the cookies in your browser (Davidson, 2016). Ensure that there are no sites that are sending you cookies that you do not recognize. Use of an extension that allows you to better manage cookies can be helpful in this regard.
5. Develop good online habits that help you keep separation between different parts of your online life (Wilton, 2014). Consider using different email addresses for work and personal communications. Use different credit cards for online purchases than you do for everything else.
6. Use a password management tool (Boyle, 2014). This type of tool keeps each of your accounts more secure by helping you generate a unique password for each site you use. It is also useful because it will help keep inventory of those sites. If you have an account on a site that you do not use, you should delete it.
7. Optimize existing positive content about yourself (McGinnis, 2012). Use search engine optimization strategies on sites you control to ensure you are highlighting positive work to anyone searching for you.
8. Link to existing positive content about yourself (McGinnis, 2012). Further highlight you positive content by creating links to those items. This can be done on your blog, on an AboutMe page, or LinkedIn.
9. Find positive communities and participate (Richardson, 2008). Find bloggers with interesting or relevant work. Find Twitter hashtags. Share your interests and perspective on the issues being discussed.
10. Create positive content (Taub, 2012). Create a Twitter account. Add details you are comfortable sharing you an AboutMe page. Acquire domain names. Blog.

References

Boyle, J. (2014, March 8) 11 Tips for Helping Students Manage Their Digital Footprints. Retrieved from http://www.teachthought.com/the-future-of-learning/digital-citizenship-the-future-of-learning/11-tips-for-students-tomanage-their-digital-footprints/

Davidson, P. (2016, May 9) 8 Tips to Effectively Manage Your Digital Footprint. Retrieved from http://justcreative.com/2016/05/09/8-tips-to-effectively-manage-your-digital-footprint/

McGinnis, S. (2012, August 23) Online Reputation Management: A How To Guide. Retrieved from http://spinsucks.com/communication/online-reputation-management-a-how-to-guide/

Richardson, W. (2008, November) Footprints in the Digital Age. Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/nov08/vol66/num03/Footprints-in-the-Digital-Age.aspx

Taub, A. (2012, June 7) 5 Key Things To Improve Your Digital Identity. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/alextaub/2012/06/07/5-key-things-needed-to-improve-your-digital-identity/#61c2a76b932b

Wilton, R. (2014, December 23) Ten Tips To Manage Your Digital Footprint. Retrieved from https://www.internetsociety.org/blog/tech-matters/2014/12/ten-tips-manage-your-digital-footprint-0