Scrub A Dub: How Cleaning Up Online Helps Women in The Workplace
Monica Eaton-Cardone says your personal brand is an important ingredient in your success.
Follow this: Having a bright, spanking clean digital presence includes more than untagging yourself in all the photos where you are carrying a red cup, wearing a bathing suit and a huge smile. Your public footprint—or what has been called your personal brand for a while—needs to be impeccable. Because it is very true that your social media and digital identity needs to reflect well on your career in order for you and your career to move ahead. This is true for all women in the workplace.
The Post Bulletin’s Kristen Asleson writes: “Your online footprint and reputation play an increasingly important role in determining your personal and professional success. Don’t take them for granted and find out today what’s being said about you and/or your business.”
Googling yourself is not an act of vanity, but an act of professional preservation. Set up a Google alert with your name so you get a daily dose of anything negative that might be out there. Asleson suggests several steps including countering any negative info about yourself with positives; so consider blogging about your accomplishments. And search with Google Incognito so you can see what anyone sees when searching your name. This is keen advice for all women in the workplace.
“Googling yourself is not an act of vanity, but an act of professional preservation.”
“In today’s digital age, it’s more important than ever to pay attention to your online reputation. Just like your home or office, your online presence needs a spring cleaning to get rid of old unwanted items, brush the dust off what’s valuable and make sure there are no surprises lurking in places you don’t see every day.”
Skinny Girl Vodka entrepreneur and “Real Housewives of New York City” star Bethenny Frankel is going to have to do some serious scrubbing and counter-narrating since her keynote recently for Project Entrepreneur when she told the audience that black women entrepreneurs need to have a white man as the “face” of their organizations.
According to Jezebel, several members in the audience were offended and started tweeting about the experience, prompting the event organizers to apologize. “We believe that every founder is enough on her own. We disagree with any sentiments to the contrary.”
Thinking before you speak or press send is advice Tina Brown, the publishing innovator behind The Daily Beast and so many more digital bright ideas reiterated at the recent Women In The World conference. That is because a digital mistake lives forever.
“Don’t send the email right away, think about it till tomorrow. As someone whose life has been rendered chaotic by ‘reply all’, learning to wait has been a big lesson,” Brown said, according to The Guardian.
Maintaining a sparkling clean digital profile is part of your personal brand as an entrepreneur, and was keen advice on a new show, a female-driven version of the mostly male “Shark Tank” on ABC. “Quit Your Day Job”is a new reality TV show aimed at professional millennial women,” writes Ruchika Tulshyan in Forbes.
She writes: “Three female entrepreneurs – two of color – presented their business ideas to a panel of investors led by Randi Zuckerberg, CEO of Zuckerberg Media and former marketing head of Facebook. In this show, three out of four investors are female, although only one, Lauren Maillian, is of color.”
She adds, that the show “was full of useful advice for aspiring entrepreneurs, particularly underrepresented ones, including tips on how to run customer focus groups, how to build a personal brand as an entrepreneur and thinking beyond just one product to building an entire brand portfolio.”
Monica Eaton-Cardone, serial entrepreneur, CIO and co-founder of Global Risk Technologies, Chargebacks911 and eConsumerServices, understands the difficulty for women entrepreneurs, and according to Consumer Electronics Net, says, “Women have proven themselves to be highly capable leaders and innovators, as demonstrated by the growing number of successful female business owners.”
Eaton-Cardone also highly values the use of social media to work for you, not against you. She tells CEN: “Social media is a great way to connect with and engage your target audience as well as fellow women entrepreneurs.”
Social media may also lead to networking with other women in business and it can enhance professional relationships for women in the workplace. “Make an effort to forge relationships with other businesswomen and female entrepreneurs in your area through industry organizations, conferences and networking groups. They can provide much-needed support, encouragement and guidance; and you may even find a new mentor, customer or investor among them,” according to Eaton-Cardone.
And now there is research that may provide one more reason to be more chill online and to cool it on the selfies posted from parties. If you are seen as an extrovert, you may not get the promotion.
Amy Morin writes in Inc.: ‘The way other people see you might not be the same way you see yourself. While an extrovert might assume her friendly and enthusiastic personality earns favor among the quieter people in the group, her co-workers may actually find her to be attention-seeking and annoying.”
A recent study in the “Academy of Management Journal says if you’re an extrovert, your quieter counterparts may be judging you harshly–even if you’re a model employee,” Morin writes.
“Through a series of studies, researchers found that introverts don’t give their extroverted co-workers credit for their work. Introverts consistently underrate their co-worker’s performance and are less likely to endorse them for advancement.”
This does not mean that you change who you are; it means that you make sure your professionalism shines through, not your personal life. You want a boss or potential boss to google you and find exemplary posts you have written on LinkedIn and a G-rated version of your public self.
You cannot control everything—particularly if someone with your name does some outrageous things—but you can do your best to project an image of someone who is responsible and mature.
“It’s important to be yourself, but there are times being a little less ‘you’ might be instrumental in advancing your career,” Morin writes. “Apparently, that’s the case if you’re an extrovert surrounded by introverts.”
“Your online image is part of your personal story.”
Your online image is part of your personal story. And knowing how to use your story to your advantage is key. Knowing Your History is the first of the 9 Power Tools from Take The Lead.
Marina Khidekel writes about what women need to know about starting a business in Cosmopolitan, and Kelsey Recht, CEO and founder of VenueBook, an OpenTable for private events, shares the importance of personal story.
Recht tells Cosmo: “I think it’s harder for women to both ask for and get funding for their businesses. What you’re selling someone on is yourself. It’s all about your story, but you have to walk in with confidence. People are going to give you a ton of opposing advice. When they questioned me, what they really wanted was for me to stand my ground and say, ‘No, you’re wrong, I’m actually sure this is what’s going to happen, and if you don’t sign, it will still be OK.'”
About the Author
Michele Weldon is editorial director of Take The Lead, an award-winning author, journalist, emerita faculty in journalism at Northwestern University and a senior leader with The OpEd Project. @micheleweldon www.micheleweldon.com