This is not another cautionary tale about cybercrime or identity theft. This is about a loss of another kind. The disappearance of something that we used to value highly and guard closely: our privacy.
In many ways, we are colluding in our own loss.
When I log onto my Facebook account, an empty square beckons. “What’s on your mind?” it asks. What it doesn’t say, but is implicit in its message, is: “Tell the world. And tell them in a way that will leave a digital trail forever.”
This should give anybody pause. Especially those concerned with personal branding. As an advertising and communications professional, I know that real consumer branding is created by a tremendous team. A combination of public relations, advertising, and marketing professionals who shape, finesse, research, and test the “face” that an organization puts in front of the public.
Individuals don’t typically possess that kind of savvy or have access to that kind of staff. They are incapable of researching the reaction to an electronic “post” that will be linked to them in perpetuity. That means that if I can look at the “interests” of an acquaintance’s 18-year old and see that she ” . . . likes to paaaaaaaarty!,” then so can future employers and college admissions professionals. And if I can see that a co-worker has updated their status with “I hate my job,” then so can our mutual boss.
Electronic communications present a unique point in time, and a true cultural shift, in our ability to broadcast who we are and what our personal “brand” is. Professionally, it can be a real opportunity. Personally, it can be a real threat.
A word to the wise: Individuals involved in social media should view every post, every tweet, and every shared photo as a kind of personal tattoo. If it’s not something that you want to stand behind forever, perhaps it’s something that you shouldn’t say at all.
Author Bio:
Patricia Cara, our Vice President of Creative Services, has an eye for design no doubt honed by years of painting, photography, cooking (and school-projects). Every AE's go-to goddess at deadline time, Patty, with Alstin for more than 24 years, keeps it real with impromptu office dance parties and the latest iPhone apps.
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