At Home with Tech

Have you updated your personal online brand lately? It’s also probably time to replace your photos that the world can see. Here’s why.

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” This quote from the fictional Ferris in the 1986 movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” was spot on. And it applies in so many ways today.

It’s hard enough keeping up. It’s easy to forget or neglect your virtual self. Yes, like it or not, we’ve all created multiple online beacons that represent our lives.

Unless you’re focusing enough time to curate your online presence and stay active on social media, your virtual identity can easily start to fall behind your actual existence.

This divergence of realities can create a time warp of sorts where you will start to simultaneously exist in two separate decades.

Pro tip: Everyone should follow one timeline.

Do You Exist?
It’s always important to keep your personal online brand fresh and accurate. That’s healthy in any number of ways.

I’ve said it before that you really don’t exist if you can’t be found online.

• Your professional self must have a strong and updated LinkedIn presence.
• Your personal self should engage in some social media activity, if only to avoid missing out on everything your family and friends are regularly sharing.

Today, we’re all effectively micro media outlets, broadcasting our lives out to the world. It’s unavoidable. Sure, you can debate that statement, if you want. (I’m sure there were people in 1920 who insisted that they didn’t need a landline telephone.)

Even if you don’t feel you have a specific need to update your online identity today, it’s always out there working for you. So, you should keep it current.

Post a Recent Photo of Yourself
Have you updated your LinkedIn photo lately? Has it been more than five years? Maybe a decade? Perhaps… never?

Yes, then it’s definitely time to change it out. Look we’re all getting older, and we do look different. That’s not a bad thing. It’s reality. It’s life.

Embrace your reality. It’s all you have.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t maximize your reality. So, use a new great photo you love. (It doesn’t have to be professionally shot.)

And I suggest you pick a photo of yourself that’s warm and welcoming. It’s effectively your greeting card to the world.

Smile!
I’ve occasionally come across LinkedIn profile pics without smiles, and I’m always confused by that choice. Why would someone actually want to look unfriendly?

Other times, I see photos that are poorly lit or badly framed. Then, there’s the example where the person is clearly part of a group pic (awkwardly cropped in).

I don’t want to be judgmental, but I don’t get it. We all have smartphones with cameras. If someone isn’t around to snap a new photo for you, a selfie can work just fine. (Just make sure you stand in front of a window to ensure you’re brightly lit.)

Time to Update your Digital Clones
I get it. You’re busy. We’re all busy. You might feel it’s not critical today how people ‘experience’ you online.

But I would say you can’t wait until the day it’s suddenly important again. Then, it’s too late. You can never really know the true impact of actively maintaining your personal brand online across the years.

I believe it’s always beneficial to promote your own story. And to check out how well you’re doing, simply Google yourself.

No, this digital snapshot of your life will never be perfect. You can’t create total digital clones (well, not yet),

But it is a partial view of the real you.

So, give your online personal brand what it needs to best represent you.
Today… and always.