Reputation and Your Personal Brand

Last week, I went to a presentation sponsored by the North Shore Technology Council about social media. I wasn’t sure what to expect, as I got the impression this group was a bit more into traditional markets, so the presentation on social media might have been a bit too high level for me.

While my impressions about the group were right (pretty much no one had heard of twitter, and only two people had blogs, including myself), I was very impressed by the presentation, which did an excellent job of balancing introducing this subject to the group but also explaining its usefulness.

One of the presenters was Chris Brogan, so I added him on Twitter and Google Reader and have been enjoying his updates. His most recent one was on personal branding, and a part of it advises creating accounts on the big social networks.

What he hasn’t touched on yet, though, is making sure you manage your reputation on those networks. Here’s what I mean: If you are trying to brand yourself on the web as a professional and (dare I say) respectable resource, you might want to think twice before Digging or favoriting a some people might consider in bad taste.

Personally, I have a fairly thick skin, so I find quite a lot of the top items on Digg humorous. But I am very careful about digging a story that could offend others, simply because I know not everyone shares the same sense of humor as I do.