Month: September 2010 | Paul Wallbank - Communications Professional

The need for a digital footprint
Everyone needs a personal description on the Internet

Once upon a time business reputations were spread through local taverns, guilds and market squares.

There was only one thing worse for a local merchant than having a bad reputation and that was having no community profile at all, if the townsfolk didn’t know who a merchant or professional was, their business would simply have no customers.

In modern times, the Internet is the town square and our customers and colleagues expect they can find our backgrounds and profiles on the web. All business people — individual staff members, managers, owners or founders — need something on the web to establish their credibility.

So an online presence, a digital footprint if you will, ranging from a basic profile in your company’s website through to an elaborate personal website, is now essential for all business people.

A good online start for most people is LinkedIn, which at its most basic is like a ready made online CV listing your work history, achievements and qualifications.

Enhancing LinkedIn’s value is the recommendation function where you can publicly thank colleagues for their good work and they can do likewise to you. These become instant professional references on view to the world.

The most powerful part of LinkedIn though lies in the social networking aspect. When you look at someone’s profile the service lists everyone connected to them and, most importantly, what connections they have in common with you. This is a great way of establishing an individual’s bona fides in an industry.

Social networks tend to reward frequent updates, while most business people don’t have time to update them, it is worthwhile keeping recent appointments and qualifications up to date so people checking you out have the latest details.

There are downsides with our digital footprint, we have to be careful about what we say online as inappropriate comments do get noticed and we are held accountable.

Privacy issues are always an issue for what you post online so don’t post family details on the public Internet or add anything you wouldn’t want broadcast next to your photo on the six o’clock news.

Just as we’ve previously said that web pages are today’s shopfront, the net is also becoming our business card. Just as we need business cards, we also need that digital footprint.

Even if you don’t want to put your details on a service like LinkedIn, make sure you at least have an up to date personal profile on your company website.

Last week, children from around New South Wales gathered at the Sydney Opera House for The Festival of Choral Music. Over the four days the event is run each year, over 2,000 kids perform in the choirs, bands and ensembles.

Sitting among the proud parents in the audience on one of the nights, I listened to the positive, enthusiastic and uplifting performances and wondered why we aren’t telling more good news stories.

We all have positive stories about our businesses and there’s a demand for them; it’s no coincidence two of the most popular Internet clips of the year have been the Old Spice Commercial and Air New Zealand “crazy about rugby” safety video. Both are fun, upbeat and quirky messages.

The Air New Zealand clip also shows how we can make what’s usually a collection of stern warnings into an entertaining topic. It’s also one of the few flight instruction clips that actually shows where the life jackets are, how the oxygen masks work and clearly explains how to share them with children.

An entertaining and humorous message is worth a thousand dour and negative lectures. Let’s get some light into what we’re telling the world about ourselves.

While we can’t afford to buy the NZ All Blacks or hire actors and former NFL players like Isaiah Mustafa, the star of the Old Spice commercial and follow clips taking messages through Twitter, we can be telling our stories through positive and entertaining messages.

With our websites, newsletters, social media feeds and the traditional marketing and communications channels we no shortage of ways to tell the world what we’re doing; let’s get out and do it.