by Alex Low | @Alexander_Low | LinkedIn
We live our lives online. The social economy is booming. WeChat transacts $1.8bn in revenue vs WhatsApp $50mn , it is an economy in its own right. The latest additions and partnerships with LinkedIn Sales Navigator platform show this now the direction of travel they are heard. Using your profile as part of the verification process using Adobe Sign or GetAccept .
Your profile will also now follow you around in outlook if your work email address is registered as your primary email address on LinkedIn. Whichever way you cut it, you will have a digital presence. More importantly, this digital personal brand is going to become ever more important in your everyday life, it doesn’t matter what role you have.
The conundrum is so few people seem to really care, OR they believe they have to adhere to some type of corporate, false looking, veneer. Yet you do not project this image when you are in a face to face environment, at least I hope you don’t. You have a personality and your own voice, both of which are unique to you. The business you work for trusts that you will represent yourself and by proxy the bran, in a polite and professional manner, yet they do not expect you to be a corporate automaton.
So why do so many LinkedIn profiles project this image? If you are trusted in a face to face environment, why should this be any different in the online, digital market place? It shouldn’t.
It is time to bring your digital personal brand into the 21st Century to represent who you are and what makes you, you. People buy form People, and that remains true today. To paraphrase Gerd Leonhard – “what cannot be digitsised is where true value will be driven – human only traits”
Last point, do not write your summary or the rest of your profile in the 3rd person. It reads terribly and comes across as pompous. I hope that when you meet people you don’t refer to yourself in the 3rd person, so why on earth would do it for your digital self.
Inspired by a conversation with Gary Whittemore
People who read this also read these:
http://www.social-experts.net/three-people-walk-bar/
http://www.social-experts.net/spamming-cold-calling/
http://www.social-experts.net/seen-end-sales-commission/
