Your Personal & Professional Brand - #3 in the Employment in the Digital Age Series

Part Three of Three Digital Learning Resources for Tech-Savvy Young Adults in the Workplace

An online educational resource for youth entering the workforce, initiated and funded by:
Developed by:
miranda-miller.com

Young adults have grown up with technology. They are considered ‘digital natives.’ These three workshops explore employers’ expectations of the use of digital technology and communications devices in today’s workplace.
Digital Natives at Work
Employment in the Digital Age: Session Three – Your Personal & Professional Brand

Session One: Making Technology & Devices Work at Work Cell phones, laptops, tablets and PCs are commonplace in modern work environments. Are you using them correctly?
Session Two: The Business of Business Communications Learn how to use email, chat applications, online discussion groups and even social networks like Facebook for business communications.
Session Three: Your Personal & Professional Brand Privacy, identity and integrity are critical to your success in technology charged workplaces.
Employment in the Digital Age Series

When you see Discuss tabs in this course… Stop! Learners working in groups should take this opportunity to have a conversation about the topic at hand and follow instructions to complete the task. Individual learners can explore the topic on their own using the resources provided.
Discuss

What is your personal brand?

Your personal brand used to be the way you marketed yourself and your career to the world.

Now, your personal brand includes not only what you put online yourself…
But your digital footprint, which is the passive and active data trail left by all of your online activities.

It includes what others publish about you, as well.

Your personal brand includes ALL of the information available about you.

Even if you don’t think you have much of a web presence, you might have appeared on a school or employer’s website, in a newspaper, or in a social media post by one of your friends.

Why does your personal and professional brand matter?

Your online brand is very closely tied with your reputation.

Landlords, schools, employers and others can all look you up and make a decision about you – sometimes without even talking to you!

•Forty-seven percent (47%) of employers review an applicant’s social networking sites after the employer receives an application.
•Twenty-seven percent (27%) of employers review social networking sites following an initial conversation with an applicant. (Canadian Association of Counsel to Employers)
Employers tend to review social media in the early stages of the hiring process:
Employment in the Digital Age:
Session Three – Your Personal & Professional Brand

Understanding the publicly available information about you is an important part of protecting your personal and professional brand.

What does your web presence – and your personal brand – look like?

•The content you post and share on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or other social profiles.
•The language you use in social media.
•Any images or videos you are in that are published online.
•The images you use to represent yourself.
•How you treat people around the web.
•Comments you make in forums, on news sites or blogs.
•Any other activity that can be traced back to you – even if you think your identity is hidden!
It might include:

Everything you say, do or share online can potentially affect your brand.
Privacy is never guaranteed – and online content never goes away.

Your brand can even be affected by things others share about you.
(Johnson City Press)

Discuss
Think of the different ways your online activity could affect your employment, education or life in the next 10 years. Discuss with your peers or, if working independently, write a list.
Read ‘Create Your Brand’ on the University of Toronto website.

How can you protect your brand if you don’t control all of the content?

It’s important to understand your personal brand and the information available about you to others on the Internet.

Search your own name and email address(es) using the major search engines.

Use the different search options to find images, most recent content and more.

YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world and processes over 3 billion searches a month! Search for your name on YouTube to see if you’ve been tagged in the descriptions of any videos.

There are search engines now that will allow you to search for social activity, too. Try searching with Topsy and see if your name has come up.

Perform these searches every three to six months to see any new information.

Set up Google Alerts for your name and email address(es) to notify you by email when they are mentioned on the Internet.

Remember, you can control the privacy settings on your own social profiles…

But you can’t always control what others publish about you.

You can’t respond or try to have the content removed if you don’t know it’s there!

Discuss
Write a paragraph about your findings and discuss with your peers. Was there anything surprising in your search results?
What does your personal brand look like to an outsider? Use each of the recommended tools to search for information about yourself.

The things you post and share reflect on you… But did you know that your social connections do, as well?

Law enforcement and courts can access far more information about you. Even if it’s not publicly accessible.
(Your Facebook Data File: Everything You Never Wanted Anyone to Know)

•Friend requests and how you respond.
•How you interact with other users and how often.
•Image metadata – time stamps, GPS location information.
•The IP address used each time you sign in.
•Your last known location with GPS coordinates.
•Your event invitations and responses.
•Every message sent or received – even if you deleted it!
•And more, depending on the network.
Beyond the information on your public profile, social networks may keep:

How is this information used?

In divorce or other civil law proceedings.

In insurance or worker’s compensation investigations.

In criminal investigations.

“But I haven’t done anything wrong…”

It’s not just about you – it’s about the people you’re connected to, as well.

You may have heard about “six degrees of separation” – or even “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.

This is the theory that everyone on earth is connected (to Kevin Bacon and one another) by six other people or less.

Today, law enforcement and national security agencies like the NSA use “degrees of separation” to further their investigations.

The NSA (National Security Agency) in the United States allows itself 3 “hops” from a terror suspect to continue looking for phone and online information.

This means a Facebook user with 250 friends is actually “connected” in this way to over 6.6 million people!
(Hops calculator: The Guardian)

The bigger your social network, the more “connected” you are… whether you realize it or not.
(Hops calculator: The Guardian)

It’s important to understand and remember who can see each post – whether it’s public, open only to friends or shared with a wider network.

Even our concept of who our “friends” are changes online…
Read ‘How Many Online Friends Do You Have? Really?’ now on iKeepSafe.org.

This is why the responsible use of social media is so important… Even if – especially if – you think no one is watching!

Discuss
Do you take any of the precautionary steps listed in “Manage your social media accounts like a spy?” Discuss with your peers or write a one-paragraph answer.
Read about what the Canadian Security Intelligence Service – Canada’s own spy agency – expects from their agents who use social media in this article in the Toronto Sun.

The Internet has fundamentally changed the way we learn, find and share information, communicate and even make purchases.

This has opened all kinds of doors to new possibilities,
but there are new risks, as well.

One of the major risks to Internet users is identity theft.

Another is hacking, which can happen to websites, email or social media accounts or elsewhere. This can result in data theft, impersonation or other negative outcomes for the victim.

In June 2014, over 1,900 Canadians reported identity theft or fraud to the CAFC. Their combined losses were over $820,000.
- CAFC

Hacking and identity fraud can damage your personal brand, as well. It gives people access to your accounts, to see your private messages or even pretend to be you.

Even without hacking, people are able to gather a lot of information on those who aren’t careful with their privacy settings and the content they share.

How can you protect your online privacy?

Create strong passwords and change them at least monthly.

How secure is your password? Visit https://howsecureismypassword.net/ to find out!

Keep track of your passwords and keep them safe with a keyword vault. See KeePass.info Password Safe as an example.

Can’t think of a password? Try http://passwordsgenerator.net/ to create one.

•Use a combination of at least ten upper and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols (^ * $ % !).
•Avoid passwords that contain personal or popular information, as these can be easier to guess, eg.: your pet’s name, birthdays, childrens’ birthdays, movie characters, etc.
•Use different passwords for different accounts so if one is compromised, the others are not.
Follow these tips for stronger passwords:

Once your passwords are secure, focus on browser security. See the Wall Street Journal’s interactive browser security guide.

Improving your browser security reduces the amount of data websites and advertisers can collect about you.

Even with browser security and strong passwords, there are two types of risks when surfing the web: technological and behavioural.

Technological risks come from the programs and tools
you use online and on your computer.

Behavioural risks relate to the decisions we make and activities we participate in online.

Young Canadians are taking steps to protect their privacy and information online. Read more by visiting the full infographic called Young Canadians in a Wired World from Media Smarts.

Discuss
What new steps can you take now to protect yourself from technological and behavioural risks online? Discuss with your peers or write a one-paragraph answer.
Read this Cyber Security Consumer Tip Sheet from Canada’s Media Awareness Network.

There are a variety of online tools available to help you build your personal and professional brand.

Everyone now has the power to be a publisher, thanks to blogs and social media networks.

Publishing your own content helps build your web presence by distributing positive messaging that appears in search results.
See the above example from a Google search for Canadian chef Chuck Hughes.

Blogging allows you to create longer content, share videos and images, reach a wider audience than your own social contacts, and appear in search results.

WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr, Medium and Typepad are all examples of popular blogging platforms.

Twitter is another great place to showcase your personality and network with others who share your personal and professional interests.

It’s a good network to promote longer form content
with short linked messages, or to engage in conversation.

Endorsements on LinkedIn are a great way to showcase your expertise and help build your reputation in different areas.

Facebook allows you to write short or long posts, embed video and images and more. You can control whether only your friends or the public see your posts.

You can use a Facebook Page in addition to your profile to promote your professional blogging, videos, awards and more.

Keep your social media, blog and other published content
positive, professional and polite!
Put your best foot forward.

Once you have channels, networks and content to showcase your personality, how can you promote it to new people and build your network?

Use a free tool like Buzzsumo to search for information on any topic and see which blogs, YouTube channels, websites and more discuss your industry or field of expertise. Try it now at http://app.buzzsumo.com

Followerwonk is another free tool that can help you find influential people on Twitter who share your interests. Try it now at http://followerwonk.com

Try using Wolfram Alpha to analyze your own Facebook profile.

Wolfram Alpha gives you deep insight into your own Facebook habits and the traits and characteristics of people in your network.

This can help you identify the people most likely to share your content, the best time of day to post, and more.

Give it a try at http://wolframalpha.com/facebook

It can be a lot of work sharing and interacting across
different social media accounts.

A social media management dashboard like HootSuite can help bring all of your activity into one place.

You can connect different accounts and even schedule things to post later. Try it out at http://hootsuite.com.

Discuss
How can you work on building your brand over the next week, month and year? Discuss with your peers or write a one-paragraph answer.
Read Lena Duque’s tips on managing your personal brand while keeping your day job in this article from The Globe & Mail.

Choose the Right Answer: Why does your brand matter?
a)It’s closely tied to your reputation.
b)Your brand includes all of the information available about you.
c)People can use this information to make a decision about you.
d)All of the above.

ANSWER: All of the above
Your personal brand is closely tied to your reputation and includes all of the information available to other people about you.

Fill in the Blank: Employers tend to review social media in the early stages of ________________.

Employers tend to review social media in the early stages of…
The hiring process.
•Forty-seven percent (47%) of employers review an applicant’s social networking sites after the employer receives an application.
•Twenty-seven percent (27%) of employers review social networking sites following an initial conversation with an applicant.

True or False: Nothing published on the internet ever really goes away.

TRUE.
Even deleted emails and social media messages can be archived or recovered.
Remember: If you wouldn’t say it in court, don’t say it on Facebook!

Monitoring Your Online Brand & Reputation: How can you find information about yourself published on the internet?

Use search and social tools to find any mentions of your name, places your email address has been used, images, photos, videos or other content about you.

True or False: As long as you aren’t doing anything wrong, you don’t need to worry about your online privacy.

Identity theft, malicious content, mistaken identity and other actions that can harm your online reputation can happen to anyone. It’s not just about – it’s about your entire network and presence online.
FALSE.

Check out these resources to learn more about building and protecting your brand online:
Resources
•Canadian Consumer Handbook on Identity Theft – provided by the Federal-Provincial-Territorial Consumer Measures Committee
•How to manage your personal brand while keeping your day job – Lina Duque for The Globe and Mail.
•Young Canadians in a Wired World – provided by Media Smarts
•Create Your Personal Brand – University of Toronto
•Calculate the Size of Your Social Network – The Guardian
•How Many Online Friends Do You Have? Really? – iKeepSafe.org
•Interactive Browser Security Guide – Wall Street Journal

Image Credits
Slide 7, DollarPhotoClub
Slide 46, Wikimedia Commons
Slide 96,
Wikimedia Commons
Slide 98, HootSuite
Cover, DollarPhotoClub
Slide 34, Lifehacks

Your Personal & Professional Brand - #3 in the Employment in the Digital Age Series

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