Tweet

Stake your claim in social media

Written by: Andrew Rondeau

Article Overview: How much time do you spend deciding on your name that will be your ID or handle on the internet

Stake your claim in social media

If you have ever been a parent then you know what agonising times they were trying to decide on the name of your newborn child, unless of course you had to follow protocol and name the kid after his great grandfather three times removed. How much time do you spend deciding on your name that will be your ID or handle on the internet? As with naming a child, the name you present yourself with is important. It will represent your online identity.

Of course the advantage of the internet is that you can change your identity to suit different purposes. You may wish to have a totally different name for when you are lurking on internet dating sites to when you are working your internet marketing business or when you are writing a serious blog.

Whatever you decide on, you need to work out what purpose your user ID has and what image you wish to portray. Think of this as your suit of clothing. If you are going to a business meeting your suit will be more formal and conservative. Finding a parter on a dating site can be quite different.

The internet is as serious a space in terms of appropriateness as the real world. In fact it is even more concentrated and focused. At least in a job interview you can sparkle with your new shoes, great hairstyle, warm smile and handshake and more to create a great first impression.

Online you have a few characters and a tiny picture to create an image and sometimes a resource box to provide a short bio. Not much to work with. So why take it lightly? Be careful what name you select and what image you upload as your avatar or photographic ID.

How do you determine what image you want to show? Now that is a very big question and one only you can answer. A word of advice is all one can offer here. Think conservative and then think even more conservative.

The reason for this bit of very cautious advice is that you never know how your online presence will develop and what you might wish to do in the future. If you are young you might just want to frolic and have fun. But in a year's time you might want to establish a serious blog and work towards your first eBook.

Remember this one. Once you have posted your details online they no longer belong to you and the site where you have left your information may do what they like with it for as long as they want to.

Having said that, how safe is your naughty online dating name then? Would it be possible that your details could be pollinated across the internet without you having any control over where it gets to? Add to that the scary thought that the internet does not forget.

Have you ever trashed an important file by mistake? You would have used a computer service to retrieve it for you. The same applies on the internet. After all the internet runs off computers across the world. You have no idea where your details are being kept. Your service provider could be backing up your information on a computer in Kuala Lumpur for all you know.

Before entering the social media space and leaving your mark think carefully how you wish to make that mark. Some forethought will be most useful in times to come.

What's the best names you have come across?

Related Articles
  “Should I or shouldn’t I”
  Positioning Power
  Resourcing B2B social media
  Social Media is NOT about Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin
  Legal Marketing: Social Media and Law Firms

Article Tags: appropriateness, avatar, dating site, dating sites, great first impression, great grandfather, handshake, internet marketing, job interview, new shoes, newborn child, parter, photographic id, presence, protocol, real world, sparkle, three times, warm smile, word of advice



Related Forum Posts
Re: Twitter, Social Networking: What's Your method? - The bottom line: You can have thousands of friends, and it takes only a second to add one, if you don't make conversation with them, it is a useless tool, like all social media sites. I know many people who concentrate mainly on social media marketing, and they make money, but it takes time. Personally, I rather skip social media and focus on other stuff, like article marketing, and I use social media only for fun and communicate with best friends.
Re: Real Estate via social networking? - Now day’s people love to busy on Social media websites especially on Facebook. They are also using internet for all other usual task of their life. They are getting all things on social media sites that's why social media transfer lot traffic to website.
Re: Social Media Marketing Ignorance - Has anyone read any good books on social media they'd like to share? I've been considering reading one, but wanted to see if anyone had any recommendations on an informative one. Someone earlier mentioned a lack of time. That is one reason I'm still in the dark ages as well but I realize that I may be falling behind the times by not at least considering the business case for social media against the time consumption. I'm also hesitant to use facebook and the like fearing it will turn into a platform for old friends to reconnect v. a way to grow my business. I also am unsure how much time it really takes to maintain various social media...any thoughts? Anyone made any mistakes or had any huge successes using social media for business that they'd like to share?
Re: How much is social media part of your marketing strategy? - Most of the companies make gross mistake by using techniques listed on the internet without even looking into whether they are suitable for their business or not. If you are dance company, music company etc etc then you simply cannot afford to ignore social media. There are several other businesses which perform well in social media promotion. You need to look whether social media will help your business or not. If you see huge pool of customers who are searching for your services on Youtube, metacafe, then surely you must jump for it.
Re: FILL IN THE BLANK: My favorite way to market my business is: - [quote="Evan":14pe90vp]Trent - agreed - people who come from SEO have the most willingness to take action and are the most likely to convert![/quote:14pe90vp] Yep, that's what I try telling other marketer's all the time, but too many of them are stuck in the social media clouds and not getting anywhere. I like social media to an extent but I'll take ONE visitor from Google via my SEO efforts over 10 visitors from [insert any social media site here] any day!


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Log On

Online Business Ideas: A Look At Various Options

Halloween Howl Seven by Author Paige Agnew

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.